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Excerpt from the North American Eisner Association (NAEA) FAQ page (Last viewed: July 2009)

Welcome to the North American Eisner Association (NAEA)! As the North American branch of the International Eisner Association (IEA), we oversee the protection and regulation of Eisner testing, accomodations, and other related provisions necessary to ensure the smoothest integration of Abilitied people in society.

What is Eisner Testing? How can I get tested?

Eisner testing refers to a series of medical tests carried out after an individual's eighteenth birthday. First ratified by our organization's founder, Sir Ingmar Eisner, an Eisner test seeks to quantify what was previously believed to be unquantifiable: Abilities, the mysterious inheritance we all come into after our eighteenth birthday.

To schedule your Eisner Test, please speak with your GP about referrals to an Eisner Specialist in your area. To find an Eisner Specialist within your network, please enter your insurance provider to our database here.

What does my Eisner Score mean? Can my Eisner Score change as I get older?

Your Eisner Score is a numerical value assigned after the results of all Eisner Tests are totalled. It is the mean number of all achieved scores over the sixteen different tests, and indicates the strength, direction, and growth trajectory of your ability, as determined by our testing criteria.

While an Eisner Score has an 85% accuracy rate, our technology is always improving and changing. Your Eisner Score may see fluctuations over the course of your life. If you are experiencing dramatic differences in Ability synergy and performance, we encourage you to contact your nearest NAEA office to arrange for a retesting.

Does the NAEA oversee bonding? Can my Eisner Score affect bond compatibility?

There was a bonding clause in Shane's contract.

"We knew there would be," Mom said. They were in Farah's office, pouring over the contract — which had been faxed over from Montreal's front office first thing in the morning. Mom was sitting next to him, her reading glasses on, expression tight and pensive as she went line by line through the legalese Shane knew he had no hope of understanding. "I mean, it's standard procedure."

"Most top prospects are bonded, yes," Farah agreed. She clicked around on her computer, then swung the screen around to them. "We were prepared for this when Shane first entered the draft. What with his Eisner score, and the potential effects his abilities could have on the playing environment — well, it was inevitable. So to speak." She tapped the end of her pen against her screen, pointing out a specific part of the bonding clause to Mom. "Though, I have to say, the exact terms are…unusual."

"Two top prospects in a single bond," Mom murmured. Shane shifted in his seat, tightening his arms around his stomach as it flipped unpleasantly. "When was the last time we saw this — 1960's? 70's?"

Farah hummed. "Lemieux and Jagr, actually," she said. "Though, I will say, even then, it wasn't an entry contract bond. Jagr was already five seasons in by the time the League insisted bonding provisions be added to his contract. So…more recent than we think, but nowhere near as high profile."

"And do we think this will be — high profile, I mean?" Mom's gaze was hawkish as she tapped a manicured fingernail against the paper.

Farah shrugged. "Yes and no. It depends on what we choose to release. Canada has much stricter laws around bond disclosure — privacy is more stringent on our end, while in the States, they're a bit laxer about it. Tabloid culture, you know how it is. But the NHL does tend to play by Canadian rules when it comes to mandating public bond disclosure — not worth the legal, pardon my French, legal shitshow when players are bonded across team and country lines, I think."

"Well, yes," Mom laughed, a fake little titter. "Wouldn't want to have to take it to international trial every time the League mandated a bond. I mean, what a mess!"

"Tell me about it." They both smiled at each other, red-lipped and white-toothed. It reminded Shane a bit of the nature documentaries he and Dad had watched in that strange liminal space between the end of winter break and Shane's return to school, after they'd lost to Russia in the WJC. Lions and panthers, coyotes and wolves — hunting creatures, baring their teeth at one another, while Shane watched, uncertain if the expression was aggression or acceptance.

Shane wondered how they could talk so casually about it — the bond, the contract. He had always known, in that distant, far-off way other kids thought about college and getting married, that he would be bonded in order to play for the NHL. It was one of those universal constants: death, taxes, hockey, bonding.

In a year, maybe less, Shane would be bonded. It wasn't quite marriage, but it also wasn't not marriage. Secretly, Shane thought there was something more intimate to it; you bonded someone, and for the rest of your life, you were tied to them — with no real way out. There was no such thing as breaking a bond, not really. It was the ineffable magic of the universe, tying your given Ability to another person's. Even if you did let the bond wither — let it grow weak from distance and inattention — it would still be there, hanging on, until your clocks ran out and took the bond with it.

"Do you want me to push for a privacy clause in Shane's contract?" Farah was asking. She and Mom spoke easily around Shane; this was their routine. He was present, but not needed. I just want to play hockey, Shane had told both of them, five years earlier, when the QJMHL came a'knocking on their door, and Shane's Eisner score was something that felt less like a threat and more like a fuzzy, far away promise.

"Shane?" Mom looked at him.

Shane wiped his palms on his jeans. They felt thick, starchy and stiff, and uncomfortably tight around his thighs and ass. He tried to imagine how people would react to the news: 2009 TOP PROSPECTS BOUND IN UNPRECEDENTED ROOKIE CONTRACT! Bonds were meant to temper; to make something more moderate and even-keeled out of players with powers too big to control. When Lemieux and Jagr had been bonded, it had been in the hopes that one would supply what the other was missing. Jagr kept slipping between time. Lemieux, it seemed, could never find enough of it. One kept fleeing to the future, and the other could only seem to grow where he was — regenerating endlessly, until the Puffins' only hope of keeping Lemieux's Ability from killing him was to tie him to the only man alive who could possibly outpace the very Ability that had made Lemieux such an enticing draft pick to begin with.

What would they say about him, if they knew? Rozanov had a well-documented ice ability. He could freeze anything with a touch — lakes, oceans, rivers — and his Eisner score, which was public knowledge, thanks to Russia's stringent reporting requirement, promised a steady future progression. It was crystal clear why the League would want Rozanov bonded his rookie season. What would happen if he slipped up during a game? Got too frustrated, and just — froze an entire rink, without a second thought? There were rumors that Rozanov's ability was strong enough to affect a person's blood. Without a bond, there was really no telling what Rozanov could do in a single, unthinking moment. And hockey players had an awful lot of those.

"Shane," Mom said.

"Yeah," Shane blurted. He rubbed his hands against his jeans again. "Yeah, I — I don't know. I want to keep my private life, like, private. It's nobody's business, really. I mean, it's not a romantic bond, or anything." Shane tried to imagine a world where anyone — everyone — knew about his Ability. He knew there was speculation about it already, and it had made getting his Eisner score hell on Earth. There were bets over what kind of Ability Shane had manifested. Most had their money on ice. Some — including Shane's homeroom teacher, embarrassingly enough — had money on something to do with speed.

Shane's palms grew hot against his thighs. He kept rubbing them against the weave of his pants though, trying to keep his breathing even. There was sweat beading on his hairline, little rivulets dripping down the gaping collar of his shirt.

Mom placed a hand on his. She hissed as they made contact, her hand twitching as though she'd been burned. "Shane."

He kept rubbing his hands against his thighs, the pace now furiously fast.

Mom tightened her hand around his. "Shane. Shane, stop." Her voice held a whipcrack command. Stop. Shane felt himself still. The air was frigid around them — every time Farah or Mom exhaled, a perfect little cloud of fog followed. It was winter in Farah's office; winter, in the dead center of the hottest August Ottawa had seen in years. Mom's plastic waterbottle had frozen solid.

Shane was a supernova. He was all summer — searing heat and barely banked flame, feverish with emotion, and sick with how little control he had over it. He had burned through an untold number of pants and shirts over the past year; there were four pairs of Reeboks — all of them fresh out the box — lined up in the very back of Shane's closet, their soles melted into unrecognizable shapes.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. "I didn't — I didn't mean to."

Mom reached up, her movements slow and telegraphed, as though she was approaching a spooked animal. "It's okay," she said. She smoothed a hand down over his hair. "I know. Nobody's mad at you. Just take a deep breath, and get it under control, okay?"

Shane inhaled. Exhaled. Once, then twice, then three times, until he could feel the heat leach from his body, and the frigid chill vanish from the air. It felt as though the office itself was letting out a breath.

Farah looked at him, her expression inscrutable. "Okay," she said, after a moment. "I'll make a couple changes to the contract Montreal sent over, and then I'll have my people draft up a privacy clause, to be added with the other bond amendments and stipulations Rozanov's camp asks for. Shouldn't take too long, and I don't think it'll require much convincing on our end to get what we want." She clicked her pen twice, decisive. "Yuna, I'll send the preliminary draft over to you before the end of the business week, if that sounds good?"

Mom's hand was still on Shane's head. She kept moving it — steady, rhythmic — back and forth, smoothing down Shane's hair until he thought it might grow staticky from the attention. "Sounds great, Farah. Thank you. We appreciate it."

Shane tried to imagine what it would be like to not have this: to not be sitting with Farah and Mom, hashing out the details of a strict non-disclosure clause around one of the most important facets of his identity. Obviously, Mom was saying, there will have to be some disclosure to team personnel. The bond specialist, for one. The team's doctor, for another.

Shane is protected under HIPPA, then, Farah had replied. And the North American Eisner Association is stricter than God when it comes to patient confidentiality. Their voices sounded, increasingly, as though they were coming from deep underwater. Or maybe it was Shane who had sunk down there, in the space between one thought and the next.

There were so many bets, scattered across hockey forums and Facebook groups; theories about Shane Hollander's Ability. What had he tested for? Psionic? Elemental? It couldn't be Transformational — nothing had changed, not as far as the prying eyes could tell. But the speculation spun wildly, in the way all gossip did. Like a horse that had left the stable, there was no stopping it; only guiding it and hoping, desperately, that it would follow.

Shane flexed his hands. He could feel the way the warmth in the room bucked up underneath his palms. It came to him so easily, desperate to please. The specialist Shane had been seeing said that one day, it would feel less urgent. There would be so much less to the sensation. He just had to learn how to compartamentalize.

"You can't let it rule you," Shane's specialist would say. He was an older man, gray by the temples, with a square set to his jaw that reminded Shane of 80's actions heroes. Chuck Norris. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "You have to command it. You're in control. You have to be."

You're in control, Shane told himself. It was a familiar mantra; he had not heard it for the first time in that sterile Ability Specialist's office. It hadn't even been his tenth time hearing it. It was a well-trodden turn of phrase. You're in control, Shane. You have to be. The balanced halves of the seesaw Shane had spent his whole life atop.

You're in control, Shane. You have to be. Shane clenched his fists, and felt the cold bite of his nails, boring into the soft meat of his palms.

"Okay?" Mom asked. It was later in the day, and the sun was ripe in the sky, fat and orange — a fruit, hanging low for the picking. Where had the hours gone? Shane hadn't even felt them leaving.

Shane knocked the side of his head against the passenger side window. "Fine," he said.

"You can tell me if you're not." Mom spoke just loud enough to be heard over the sputter of the car engine as it started up. Shane could feel the barely banked heat — even though it was contained, far away from him. The engine was a slow warming thing — dangerous heat. It could be Shane's, if he really wanted it. If he reached out, the heat would lick up at the palms of his hands, inside his mouth, so happy to be called for, so eager to please. It would be the easiest thing Shane had ever done. Explode them all, in a single blaze of glory — simple and clean, the exhale after the inhale.

You have to be in control, Shane. You have to be.

Shane pressed his cheek to the glass. It was cold — but then again, most things were when compared to him, these days. Would bonding Rozanov be like this? Like pressing his cheek to glass, desperate for some semblance of a chill? Everybody said that being bonded felt different; you were no longer so much yourself. Someone else was within you, jockeying for space. Taking up what you had learned to occupy. It changed you — for the better, everyone hoped.

People bonded for a lot of reasons. Love, mainly. Hollywood loved a nonsensically romantic bond; and it fit, Shane supposed. The technical term, after all, was a sýnpsychoi bond. There was a romanticism to it in the way most things the Greeks coined had. But more bonds were business than people cared to admit. Lemieux and Jagr. Brasseur and Eisler. Shane couldn't throw a stone in any direction without hitting an NHL player — active or retired — who hadn't been bonded for the sake of the game.

Mom was staring at him. She hadn't even pulled out of the parking lot — they were just idling there, the car rumbling quietly underfoot, as she waited for an answer.

"I'm okay. Seriously," Shane said. "Just — tired, I guess." The car lurched as Mom began to back out from her parking spot.

"We can fight this," Mom started. "I know that the NHL can mandate a bond, but there's — there's no reason it has to be Rozanov." She shook her head. Shane didn't want to see the look on her face. "Just tell me now, Shane. I'll call Farah, and we'll fix it."

Shane's ears felt hot. "It's fine," he ground out. That was the price of play; hockey demanded everything from you while it had you. What was a bond in the face of everything Shane had ever dreamed of?

"It makes sense and you know it," Shane said, after a while. They were speeding down the freeway, every other car a metallic blur beside them. "They're hoping the bond curtails both of our Abilities." It made sense. Sense enough to break with convention entirely and demand a bond across team lines.

Rozanov and Hollander. Pick one and pick two, for the 2009 NHL Draft Class. Boston and Montreal.

"The only way to make it more picture perfect would be if Rozanov had a heat Ability," a talking head had chortled over broadcast, a few days after the draft. "I mean, c'mon. If anyone between the two of 'em was gonna have it, it would've been Rozanov. Considering Hollander's…icy reputation."

"You're a fuckin' ham, you know that, right?" The cohost had said. But neither of them had disagreed. And the conversation had devolved from there. It was the usual — speculation on Shane's Ability, with bits of hearsay about what little he'd let slip interspersed between. Dad had come in and changed the channel to the local news before either talking head could agree on a single theory. One had thrown out foresight — which was not so much an Ability you could have, as it was pure myth — then laughed himself hoarse before starting up about Shane's hockey IQ. Shane's stomach churned with the memory of it.

Mom sighed. "I don't know, Shane. It's — you're both powerful young men. Great on the ice — and I'm not just saying that because I'm your mom, okay? But this whole bonding business with Rozanov…" She shook her head. "I don't know. It makes me nervous." The why of it hung between them, heavy in the air.

"I'll be okay, Mom," Shane said quietly. He fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. "I can do it."

"Okay." Mom stared pointedly out the windshield, eyes trained on the miles of empty road ahead of them. They had turned onto a service road at some point. To Shane's right, out his window, there was nothing but dense forest, lush and green in the growing season. He could set it all ablaze if he really tried. Shane's Eisner score promised that one day, he would be capable of that — not just holding the heat, but making use of it. It was a dangerous prophecy; Shane had lived his whole life out on the ice, after all.

But that was why he needed Rozanov. It was smart — smothering any sparks before they even had the chance to catch alight. Shane had to respect it, the levelheadedness with which the League had arranged their match — the easy way they had slid every piece into place, as though the issue of their respective Abilities was simply a puzzle waiting to be solved.

The negotiations dragged on for another month. Shane floated through them: present, but not really there. He sat next to Mom in Farah's office and let them hash out all the gritty details. A fledgling bond required several months' worth of close proximity to settle. It was why the NHL normally pushed for bonds to be done within teams. But Rozanov was six hours away in Boston. They were both supposed to report to training camp soon — but that, Farah mentioned, might not even happen. The League was hurtling toward a lockout. Issues with the NHLPA, Farah had said. Sounds like standard internal issues, what with the turnover in the Commissioner's office.

Well, it works out, I guess, Mom had said. Call it Providence, or whatever. Gives Shane and Rozanov time to adjust to the bond, and gives us an easy way to keep it under wraps. She quashed Shane's hopes of going straight back to the QMJHL before he could even voice them.

"Rimouski will understand," she told him. They were on the road again — that same, familiar stretch that led from Farah's clean, corporate office back home. "You'll miss the first month, and then they'll transition you back onto the team. But, who knows — maybe by then the lockout will be over, right?"

She pulled them into a Tim's drive-thru, leaning out the window to order herself a double-double. "Shane?" She asked. "Do you want anything?"

"I'm okay," Shane said. This was a familiar mantra, too. "I'm, uh, I'm not really that hungry, I guess."

"Okay." Mom turned back to the speaker. "Just the double-double. Oh — actually, and a cruller, please. Thank you."

They drove up to the pick-up window in silence. It was routine, now. The drive, the negotiations — all done in absolute, deafening silence. Shane wasn't sure what he had left to say — or if there was anything he could say.

What point was there? The troth was signed and sealed. It was edging into September, and in two week's time, Shane would be a wholly different person. He would be bonded — for hockey — and still, there would be no hockey. Just a new person in the dead center of his chest, and the promise of a lifetime's worth of games, played out on the ice. Shane had told his mom that it wasn't a sacrifice: it just was.

It makes sense and you know it, Shane had told her. He had said the same thing to Dad, later that night, as they sat side by side, watching Discovery Channel in the dark on the couch. It's sensible. Smart.

If you're sure, bud, was all Dad had offered in response. I am, Shane had said, voice firmer than the queasy roil of his stomach felt.

The week after, the NHL was fully in a lockout. Rimouski reached out to let Shane know that he still had a place with them, after his confinement period was over. Congratulations on your bonding, Coach Dufresne had written at the end of his email to Mom. We look forward to seeing you back on the ice, front and center. Best of luck.

Thank you, Shane had written back, Mom watching from just behind him. I look forward to being back on the ice with the rest of the team soon. Thank you again for your well-wishes and the congratulations. I'm excited to have another season with the team.

Mom sat down next to him in front of the family computer. She was shorter than him now, Shane realized — though she had been for quite some time. He wondered what it said that he had only noticed it now, freshly eighteen and on the cusp of being bonded.

"You'll be okay," she said. It was a command, not a question. "You'll be okay, Shane." Her attention was fully on the screen, and Shane watched as she took an axe to his email. He was always so much more eloquent in her hands; smooth-talking and media ready in a way that Shane had never felt before in his life.

"I'll be fine, Mom," Shane lied. He was having trouble finishing his food, these days — his stomach flipped and spun, a drier on the highest, hottest setting. "There's nothing to be worried about."

"I know," Mom said, tone steely. She looked so severe in profile, like a general bracing herself for war. "You'll be fine. It's just a month."

"Yeah." Shane looked past her, to the calendar hanging on the little corkboard by the coffee machine. Friday was circled in dark Sharpie; three concentric circles, each lopsided in a new, unique way. SHANE'S BONDING was written in the dead center: absolute, damning. There was a yellow Post-It pinned to the board, just to the right of the calendar, a hotel address and suite number written on it in Mom's familiar, careful handwriting.

Just a month, Shane thought. Just a month, and then the rest of his fucking life.

On September 4th, Mom drove Shane to the bonding facility. It was halfway between Boston and Montreal — in the interest of absolute fairness, Farah had explained, when she'd walked Shane carefully through the finalized terms — and tucked into Vermont's lush, pine-covered wilderness.

"I keep thinking there ought to be snow," Mom said, as they trundled down one of the many dirt roads they had turned onto. "I don't think I've ever been to Vermont in the summer." She turned her right blinker on, and led them gently onto another path, deeper into the woods. "You know, Dad and I used to go skiing here during Christmas holidays with our friends?"

"That's cool." They pulled through the gate to the facility. It looked like a summer camp, Shane thought — with one large building at the dead center, imposing in its modernity, especially when compared to the small cabins scattered about it in a loose semi-circle. Maybe it would help to think of it that way; like this was just summer camp. Something ephemeral — impermanent and poised to vanish, like a sandcastle at high tide.

Mom cupped his face in her hands before she left. "You're going to be okay," she murmured. She was looking at him as though he were something to memorize. It was the same way she looked at their TV when the Voyageurs were down by one, with thirty seconds left on the clock: brows furrowed, almost glaring from the intensity. "Look at me, please?"

Shane dragged his eyes to hers. Mom smiled at him, uncertain at the edges. "You're going to be okay. Dad and I will come pick you up in a month." She smoothed the sides of his head down as though he were a child again. "Okay, Shane?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Mom. It's fine. It's just — it's a bond. We always knew." Shane let Mom run her hands over his hair for just a moment longer — lingering in that feeling of being young, of fitting neatly in her hands. "They're waiting for me," he said, quietly. "I have to go." Shane could see the NHL's assigned bond coordinator waiting by the threshold of the main facility. She was a short, severe looking woman, with a shock of white hair pulled so tightly back that Shane wondered if her head hurt.

"Okay," Mom said. She breathed out, sharp and low. "I will see you in a month, Shane." And she took a step back, hands grasping — open, then closed, then open again — pressed up against her thighs.

"Bye," Shane said. The moment stretched long between them, the silence thin and growing thinner, until Shane was convinced that Mom might say something — anything — more than just you'll be okay. We'll see you in a month. You'll be okay.

He took a halting step back. The back of his neck was so hot, you could cook an egg on it, the air around him shimmering with heat, despite the cool breeze that wove gently through the surrounding trees. Mom stared at him, tight-faced and corpse-still; all Shane could think of was how small she really was, standing next to their car. She and Dad had a nearly thirty centimeter difference between them, and yet, they both fit into the car all the same.

"Mr. Hollander," the bond coordinator said, as he approached her. "Welcome in." There was a strange incongruence to her features — her hair was streaked white and gray, and yet her face was oddly youthful.

"Hi," he said. "Um, thanks. It's uh…yeah." He wiped his palms on the sides of his shorts, feeling oddly underdressed. "Yeah."

She stepped inside, the automatic door dead silent as it slid open before her. "Marianne Kessler," she said. "As I'm sure you've realized, I am yours and Mr. Rozanov's bond coordinator. If you would like to see my NAEA credentials before we proceed, please let me know, and we can detour to my office."

She had a brisk gait — small, quick steps. Shane followed half a step behind, too nervous to stand beside her, and too worried about outpacing her.

"No, I'm okay. Thank you." They rounded a corner, and Shane allowed himself to be shepherded into a sterile examination room. It looked like every other doctor's office he had ever been to — just whiter, as though all the color had been siphoned away. The walls were white. The curtains were white. Even the examination chair, covered in tissue paper, was also white. Shane wondered, briefly, if this was what padded rooms in asylums looked like — white on white on white, a never-ending lack of stimulation, enough to drive you insane.

Marianne led him through a series of small tests. She took his blood pressure, then had him strip and stand, back against the wall, on the scale, as she took down his height and weight. They tested his lung capacity, his reflexes, and how his pupils dilated under the light. It all made Shane feel as though he was back in the Combine — asking how high when told to jump, and enduring hours of poking and prodding and tests that made him feel like a cow being evaluated for sale.

Finally, when the tests had come to a close, and Shane had been able to put his clothes back on, Marianne stood in front of him, expression serious. "We have one final item on the agenda, before I take you to your bonding room." She held out her clipboard. There was a piece of paper clipped there — the last in a thick packet Marianne had been writing on — with a small paragraph of text and a long black line, waiting for Shane's signature.

I confirm that I am entering into this sýnpsychoi of sound mind and of my own accord. My bonded-to-be has made no present threats on myself or my continued well-being, and I have experienced no coersion from my intended. I understand that a sýnpsychoi bond is binding, and there currently exists no way to permanently reverse the procedure.

"Read this, then sign below." She placed a ballpoint pen atop the clipboard.

What if I don't? Shane wanted to ask. But that was a stupid question. I confirm that I am entering into this sýnpsychoi of sound mind and of my own accord. What a loaded sentence. What a thing to ask!

There was only one correct answer. Whether it was the truth was another thing entirely.

Shane signed his name on the line below. Shane Michael Hollander. 04092009. Wordlessly, he handed the clipboard back to Marianne.

She gave it a cursory look, then tucked the clipboard underneath one arm. "Good," Marianne said. "Let's get going, then. Mr. Rozanov arrived before you — he's been waiting."

Mama had never told Ilya how she and Papa were bonded. Or rather — she had, but the truth of it was something she had kept for herself. Instead, Ilya and Andrei had been fed the fairy tale version of events: Ilya could remember her softly telling him about the way Papa had taken her hand outside the bonding chamber. He could remember her recounting the weeks leading up to it: the flowers that arrived to her childhood home, promises of lush spring in the dead of Moscow's winter, the way Papa would come in his car, well-groomed and just so handsome, Ilyushka, to escort her to art galleries and candlelit dinners and snowy nights at the ballet.

"Your papa," Mama would whisper, a tiny smile playing across her lips, "was such a smooth talker, Ilyushka. We were already promised to one another, and yet there he was, doing his best to show me how good it would be." She would lean her chin atop his head and sigh, as though attempting to conjure the ghost of her and Papa's courtship: the flowers and the candles and the way she could feel the heat of his hand when it held hers, even through her fine gloves. All that sweetness, gone to rot.

And then she was dead. It had never been good, it had never been sweet — not by any of Ilya's shrewd estimations — it had been sacrificial. Baba and Deda had tied Mama to Papa for their own interests, and not even those interests had been enough to keep Mama safe, to say nothing at all of her happiness. She had withered, a rootless thing, and Ilya had watched as Papa continued on as though their bond — which was meant to bind them together, even in death — had never existed at all.

So when his agent had informed him that the NHL — not the Bears, the League — was requiring him to bond, Ilya simply nodded, and asked: "Will I still be able to return to Moscow in the off-season?"

"It shouldn't affect your off-season plans," his agent said. Yuriy Belomestin was a bear of a man, and a retired player himself — a D-man for Spartak, who had been playing long before the Superleague itself was even a glimmer in the Republic's keen eye. The first time he had met Yuriy, Ilya had been privately surprised to see him behind the desk. He was so large it felt as though the desk itself — a massive piece of carved oak — was tiny in comparison; like witnessing the clown within the car while you were ignorant of its trick. "You will likely want to spend at least a week in close contact afterwards, though."

"Want to does not mean have to," Ilya pointed out. He kept his feet flat on the carpet of Yuriy's claustrophobic office, keeping one hand clamped over his knee to keep it from jumping up and down in time with his heart.

Yuriy sighed. "You will not have to, no, Ilya." He steepled his fingers and looked steadily at Ilya over the top of his glasses. "But you ought to."

"Like I ought to stop smoking?" Ilya asked. "Yuriy, I just want to know how necessary it is. It will dictate a lot of things, you know this."

Flights home, flight back to Boston; but more than that, there was a small part of Ilya that wondered what it would be like if he and Hollander hated each other. He tried to imagine a life in Mama's shape: cold dinners and one-sided conversations. Empty bedrooms and locked doors. A fine wooden vanity, filled with a thousand glittering things, but only a single hanging painting of a sunflower in deep night. A week could be a lifetime of nightmares if he and Hollander found themselves at odds.

They had met a grand total of twice — three times, if you counted their encounter behind the rink and the game within it as two separate things. And though Ilya had sensed something, there in the Canadian cold, and again as they stood, shoulder to shoulder in Los Angeles, jockeying for space under the blinding lights, it would not have been the first time his dick had led him woefully astray.

"It's not necessary," Yuriy finally said. "And I am your agent, not your doctor, so I will not tell you anything about your health. But I'll remind you that a lot of money has gone in to getting you where you are now, Ilya Grigoryevich. Despite what Grigori says, I do think you are a bright boy. Which means that I believe you will do the prudent thing." He turned back to his computer, punching something rapidly into the terminal. "And stop fucking smoking, Ilya. Are you stupid?"

And then Yuriy switched gears, turning to the topic of the temporary contract Dynamo wanted him to sign, in the event the NHL dragged out the ugly fight they were currently having with the Player's Association long enough to delay the regular season. They were willing, Yuriy said, to graciously allow Ilya the month away he required — though both leagues made noise about being different from one another, the truth was that the NHL was hardly more progressive than the KHL. They were all cut from the same cloth; rich men who wanted the things rich men always wanted. An athlete's body did not belong to himself. It belonged to the league, to his team, and to the people who rested their hopes atop his shoulders, like the world's heaviest laurel or noose. And soon, by contract and troth, Ilya's body would belong in some small way, to Shane Hollander, too.

There was a statement there, though, in the fact that it was the most equal thing Ilya had in his life. He would cleave himself open on the basest, most private level, to make space for Hollander. But Hollander would have to do that too: open himself at the ribcage, and bare the meat of his beating heart to Ilya. And if Ilya dug his fingers in and carved a little hole for himself in the viscera — if a small part of Ilya were to settle there, make a home of the hole, then that was only right. It was only fair.

Fair, Ilya thought. He could have laughed at the idea of it. Yes, it was only fair. It was the only bit of fairness both of them had — he and Hollander, whatever they were now, and whatever they would become, were to be of each other. A sýnpsychoi; a bonded pair.

It would be their Sword of Damocles; mutually assured destruction. Ilya would not be like Papa, letting the severed entrails of his bond hang low to the ground, dragging behind him like a child did a blanket they had ruined and still could not let go of. Ilya would not be like Mama either, forgotten and faded from it — if he was to be bonded, then it would be to the fullest meaning of the word. He would make space for himself inside of Hollander. Hollander could do the same to Ilya, if he so wished to try. But no matter the ultimate outcome, Ilya would be there within Hollander, always. And he would not allow Hollander to forget it.

Ilya was debating the merits of cracking the bonding chamber's lone window to smoke when the door opened.

He turned away from the window — which was bolted, anyway, so there went all hope of a smoke — to look across the room at Hollander, who was standing in the threshold, a distinctly hunted look on his face. There was something vulnerable about Hollander, Ilya thought, so devoid of the many layers he was normally in. In Regina, they had been clad in winter wear — parkas and knitted caps, hoodies and thick-soled boots, meant for the icy weather — and then in their gear, with all its added bulk and protective padding. They had been dressed up for the draft: suits and ties, some child's approximation of what their gameday uniforms might be. Hollander's tie had been expertly done, Ilya remembered. A double windsor knot, which only served to highlight the elegant line of his throat.

"Hollander," Ilya said, as the silence grew long between them.

"Rozanov." Hollander shifted from one foot to the next. Behind him — Marjorie? Maria? Matilda? — the older woman that had greeted Ilya at the entrance cleared her throat. Hollander mumbled an apology in her direction and shuffled off to the side. The world's most awkward piece of furniture.

It was easy to let Marianne guide them into place. Ilya was willing, Hollander was easy. When Ilya stared at him from their spots on either side of the bowl, it was as though Hollander had gone somewhere else entirely. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Ilya blinked at Hollander. Hollander stared blankly back.

Bonding was, despite the pomp and circumstance assigned to it in almost every Hollywood movie Ilya and Sveta had ever watched, a simple affair. You needed only four things: a facilitator, the couple, a stone bowl, and a knife.

They held their hands out over the bowl at the center, palms faced heavensward as instructed. Marianne held a small knife up in front of her, its blade a thin, gleaming line of silver in the midday light.

"You will both bleed," she said evenly. "I will only cut you once, at the center of your palm. When you are cut, you will turn your hand down to the bowl, and let the blood gather there." She looked at them both. "When I tell you to drink, you will drink. Together. Do either of you have any further questions?" It was the point in a wedding where an officiant might have said, speak now or forever hold your peace. That too, was a staple of the American romance movie.

"No," Hollander murmured.

Ilya shrugged. "What he said."

The cut barely burned. It was a single flash of heat — bright and fleeting — and then there was blood, welling sluggishly from the wound. Ilya turned his hand over obediently and watched as the jewel-like drops gathered in the white stone bowl. It was quiet in the bonding chamber; just the sound of the blood, dripping onto the stone, and the sound of their breathing, raspy and resonant.

Ilya watched as Hollander was cut. He wondered, briefly, if Hollander bled differently than him. Ilya's own Ability had never been a secret — he was cold, just as Russia was. The jokes wrote themselves, in a way. Ilya had heard each and every permutation of them in Russia; he would hear a million more in Boston, if only he could make it there.

But Hollander's Ability was a secret. Privacy was a right in the great West, and Hollander seemed intent on making the most of it. It was his most impressive magic trick, barring that nasty slapshot he had: the ability to be so publically available, and yet so completely unknowable. Shane Hollander was Reeboks' youngest ambassador. Shane Hollander was set to be CCM's newest face. Shane Hollander had an ad for that strange Canadian coffee chain that sponsored the children's hockey league, where he looked unfairly good in sweats and bright lighting.

The things the public knew about Shane Hollander were thus: he was half Asian on his mother's side. He had grown up in Ottawa. He had no siblings. He shot right handed.

Ilya had listened to radio jockey after radio jockey theorize about Shane Hollander's mysterious Ability. Some wondered if he had simply presented weakly, and therefore barely had one at all. But the guesses spun on and on, and Hollander made no moves to clarify, seemingly content in his silence.

Ilya knew the secret, now. It was his great priviledge, as Hollander's bonded. Calokinesis, his Eisner report read. Heat manipulation? Ilya had asked Yuriy. There had been a kind of incredulous glee, bubbling up in his stomach. Ah, so they are worried Golden Boy Hollander will snap and melt the rink if left unchecked?

As much as they are concerned that you will do much the same and freeze someone's blood solid, Ilya, Yuriy had answered, voice dry. You are an idiot if you think this does not go both ways. There was a twisted symmetry to it, really — as though bonded influence alone could temper the worst of them both.

Hollander's blood joined Ilya's in the bowl. They bled the same color. Of course they did — but a part of Ilya, still sitting in a dark room, watching Hollander skate and score on his coach's CR-TV thought that maybe they might not have. Sveta had once gone to school with a girl who bled gold, though she had precious little Ability otherwise.

Their blood mixed; slid into one another and congealed, stark against the white stone, and after a moment, Ilya couldn't figure out where his blood ended and where Hollander's began.

"Drink," Marianne ordered.

They lifted the bowl together, smearing blood from their palms against the curve of it — twinned streaks of rusty red. Ilya locked eyes with Hollander. They were a deep brown, wide with thick lashes. Hollander was doe-eyed, in every literal sense of the word.

And, for the first time since he had entered the bonding chamber, there was a spark of awareness in Hollander's eyes. Hello, Ilya thought, nonsensically. He still wasn't quite the boy Ilya had met in Regina — the one who had said I don't think you're supposed to be smoking out here? and then introduced himself like an afterthought — but there was a shadow of him there, now.

They raised the bowl to their lips together. This close, Ilya could feel Hollander's breath on his face; could see every pore and freckle, and the way his eyelashes fluttered as he breathed in, and then — they drank.

Their blood tasted like copper — like Mama's cross, held gingerly between Ilya's teeth. It was copper and something Ilya knew he wouldn't be able to name: cold like snow and hot like summer. A shiver ran down his spine, and Ilya swallowed.

Across from him, Hollander did too. A single drop of blood rolled down Hollander's full bottom lip, tracing the shape of his chin and the long, lean stretch of his neck. Ilya watched it, tracking its path out of the corner of his eye, and then —

THE ATHLETIC | NHL
Opinion

No place for child brides — it's time to reevaluate the use of contract bonds in the NHL

By Grace Arukawa
Jul. 18, 2009

It has long since been agreed that professional hockey — professional men's hockey, in particular — boasts one of the most insular sports cultures in the Western world. Few professional sports of its size and reach can claim to be so homogenously white. Certainly not the NBA, which was recently measured to have a 77.3% African American player base. There is no comparison to be made with the NFL either, which boasts a similar racial makeup: 67% of professional NFL players in the 2008-2009 season identified as African American, with 31% identifying as White, and 2% and 1% of players identifying as Asian American and Latino respectively. In stark contrast, this past year, the NHL clocked in with around 90 to 95% of its current players identifying as White. Less than 5% of current NHL players identify as people of color. That statistic does include all demographics of color: African American, Asian American, Latino, and Indigenous. The only professional league of its size and stature that comes close to boasting this lack of racial representation is the MLB; even then the number (62.2%) is not as dire.

But there is another statistic we ought to be wary of within the NHL. Not our concussion statistics (high, but not nearly as high as the NFL, which has recently been undergoing a reckoning regarding the League's concussion protocol), nor our fights per season. No, while the NHL might not be leading the way regarding diversity in professional sports, what the National Hockey League is leading in is percentage of players contractually mandated to form sýnpsychoi bonds.

This is by no means a new phenomenon in professional sports, nor in the greater world beyond it. If you ask any fan of any major sports league, they will likely be able to name at least one famous sýnpsychoi bond from memory. As a lifelong hockey fan born and raised in Detroit, it's Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio that come to mind. For those not in the know, Howe and Delvecchio were contracted to be bonded in '52 — a famous last-minute contract ammendment that, when coupled with Delvecchio's help in winning the Aviators their first of three Stanley Cups in their legendary three-peat, cemented Delvecchio's move up from the Aviators' AHL farm team. Delvecchio, when bonded, was twenty (though he would turn twenty-one later that year). At thirty-one, Howe, his newly minted bondmate, would be ten years his senior.

In the United States and Canada — the two territories where the NHL operates — the legal bonding age is eighteen. It creates a funny little Catch-22: you can be old enough to bond and old enough to marry, but not old enough to drink, depending on whether you're in the States or in certain parts of Canada. (Canadian drinking age is eighteen in three provinces, but nineteen in all others). So technically, Delvecchio's bonding was legal — especially for the fifties, when bonding restrictions were much more lax. What did it matter than Howe was ten years his senior? What did it matter that he only had a week to prepare for the rest of his life?

However, we are no longer in the fifties. This is not the same world that saw Delvecchio and Howe bonded following their first Cup win. As times have changed, and we have entered a newer, more progressive age, attitudes towards contractual bonding have shifted; like arranged marriages of yore, the contractual bond has come to be viewed as something barbaric. If we are to make any claims towards modernity and progressivism, then we ought to practice what we preach. A sýnpsychoi bond is just as sacred as the act of marriage. Though many do it for reasons other than love — medical sýnpsychoi bonds remain the most common kind of sýnpsychoi bond, though the statistical gap between them and romantic sýnpsychoi bonds has shrunk drastically over the past thirty years — the fact remains that the choice, to bond or not to bond?, ought to be left to the people themselves.

Professional sports seems to be much in agreement. Many major leagues, both in North America and beyond, have reported continual drops in contractual sýnpsychoi bonds. As of this contract cycle, the English Football League (EFL) reported its first contract year with no new contractually mandated sýnpsychoi bonds. The NBA has reported a nearly 45% drop in mandated bonds; the MLB almost 70%.

The NHL, on the other hand, has reached its own milestone. For the first time in League history, it has mandated a bonding in not one, but two rookie contracts. Regulation NHLPA information disclosure on contracts and contracted bondings have revealed that 2009 first round draft picks Ilya Rozanov (#1, Boston Bears) and Shane Hollander (#2, Montreal Voyageurs) have both recieved watershed contracts. Both are recieving some of the highest entry-level salaries on record in their respective franchise's history. Both are entering historic franchises, and inheriting arguably the most infamous hockey rivalry of all time, to say nothing of the nascent one between them. But both are, incidentally, the first rookies in NHL history to recieve bonding mandates. As per NAEA privacy regulations, neither player's bondmate can be disclosed to the general public without explict approval. However, whether or not we know the identity of their bonded (precedent tells us it was likely an older teammate or a player on the associated AHL team), the question remains: in a changing professional sports landscape intent on leaving the antiquities of mandated bonding behind, why does the NHL continue to cling to it? And what does this particular move say about the culture the League continues to both perpetuate and cultivate, long after it ought to have left it behind?

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Day one of their thirty day adjustment — confinement — period began with a blistering, deep-freeze chill. Shane woke up cold — the kind that settled into your bones, deep enough that you weren't shivering anymore. It was the kind of cold where you curled into yourself and tried to conjure some memory of warmth; and as you did, you laid there and you waited to see what went first: you or it.

Shane hadn't felt cold in almost a year. He had felt every kind of hot imaginable, since he had first felt his Ability snap into place. Shane had been a boiling pot and a Roman candle. He had been a banked flame and a raging wildfire.

"I'm on fucking fire," Rozanov moaned. Shane sat up and stared through the open doorway between them. It was his room, the hallway, and then right across, Rozanov's. Rozanov was sitting on the floor, his blanket left crumpled and abandoned on the bed. His curls were dark and damp, plastered to his forehead in thick, arcane patterns. He was shirtless and in tight boxers, which had gone gray with sweat. "Fuck! You live like this?"

Shane's teeth chattered. "Fuck off," he muttered. "I'm — fuck, I'm fucking freezing. Why's it so cold? It's September, not mid-January." Shane rubbed his hands up and down his arms, which were sprouting goosebumps in earnest. He wished, briefly, that he had packed a sweater.

"I thought Canadians could handle cold." Rozanov pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head like a dog. Droplets of sweat flew around him, sizzling as they vanished into nothingness. Rozanov made a low, incredulous sound as he watched them go, then stared at Shane through their doorways as though Shane were some two-bit circus freak. "What the fuck."

"That's all you," Shane said. He wrapped the quilt the facility had provided him around his shoulders as he shuffled from his room. It was nearly noon — and Shane tried to ignore the cool, congealing sense of panic deep in his stomach. "I'm gonna make breakfast. Lunch, I guess. If you want any."

Rozanov grunted.

"Okay," Shane said, and tottered into the tiny kitchenette. To call the space they were in a house would have been generous. It was a cabin, really — there was a small room at the front, where the kitchenette overlooked two chairs and an old-looking TV, and through the single archway, a small hallway, with their shared bathroom at the very end. The fact that they even had separate bedrooms was a surprise, though Shane had decided it best not to look that particular gift horse in the mouth. It didn't matter that the rooms were barely larger than closets; at least, Shane thought, he didn't have to share one with Rozanov.

Shane turned the stove's lone burner on, and rubbed the palm of his hand over his chest. If you didn't count the inexplicable chill that had settled over him, Shane thought that not much had changed since his bonding. Was it stupid to expect to feel as though something had? Bonding was always sold as this massive change: a twining that couldn't be undone. You are of one soul, the traditional vow went. Be one.

Shane dug the heel of his palm into his chest, massaging at the heaviness it in as he cracked two eggs into a small pan. Dad had taught him how to crack an egg with one hand earlier in the summer — had shown Shane, carefully, how to apply pressure just so, and how to twist his wrist so the shell would break but not shatter.

The whites sizzled as they hit the pan. The yolks were perfectly intact, two yellow suns bobbing gently in the pan.

Shane tried to breath through the pressure in his chest. You're in control, he told himself You're in control. You have to be.

Shane watched the eggs cook in the pan. The whites had begun to run together, and Shane had forgotten to separate them, too used to the wider skillet he normally used back home. They were practically a single egg, now — the whites a seamless circle, the only indication they had ever been apart the twinned yolks, still that perfect sunshine yellow.

Shane took the pan off the stove and shook it over one of the two plates he'd pulled from the upper cabinets. The eggs slid out slowly, clinging to the steel. Shane shook harder.

The eggs fell out, then folded over themselves. The yolks burst, their golden innards giving way — splattering, carelessly, over the congealed whites and the white plate beyond. Shane watched as the liquid continued to dribble, gathering underneath the whites until the eggs were little more than a yolky puddle of whites.

He stared at it — the plate and the carnage — and the thing in his chest constricted a little more. Shane could hear Rozanov faintly; the sounds of water running from their shared bathroom, the echo of the shower spray bouncing off the cheap linoleum tile that reminded Shane of every hockey camp he'd attended as a child.

It was cold in the cabin. Shane looked down at the pan. The handle was dripping from between his fingers, tar-black bits of plastic that fell by his feet, hardening to dark lumps on the hardwood floors.

Shakily, Shane set the pan back on the stove, and went to wash the handle off his hand in the kitchen sink. The water froze as it slid off his hand. In the bathroom down the hall, Rozanov yelped, then swore loudly, each syllable gutteral and utterly unintelligible to Shane.

When Rozanov emerged from the shower, his skin was an angry pink. He tracked water from the bathroom to the kitchen, and Shane frowned down at it — the little glistening droplets bright as they caught the overhead lights.

"Pipes here are shit," Rozanov declared, sitting heavily at the tiny breakfast bar. "The water, it almost boiled me alive." He shook his head, sending more water flying in every direction, then stopped, staring down at the two plates atop the counter.

"Just eggs?" He asked, pointing at them.

Shane pulled one toward himself. The yolks had congealed in a thick slurry underneath the whites, but it felt like a waste not to eat them. "There's bread in the pantry. For toast. If you want it." He stabbed his fork into the eggs. "I wasn't sure."

Rozanov stared at him for a moment longer. Shane could feel it; Rozanov's gaze, hot where it landed on the crown of his head. There was a curious tug inside of himself too — some strange muffled sensation that Shane had never once felt. It might have been the bond. It might have also been the eggs, which were so unpleasant of a texture, now half-cold, that it was all Shane could do to force the entirety of them down his throat.

Rozanov, it seemed, agreed. "Ah. Fuck. They are cold." He looked at Shane, something like sheepish hope in his eyes. "Can you — you know?" He made a little motion with his hands.

"What?"

Rozanov made the morion again. "You know. Boof. Make warm."

Shane frowned at him. "No." He pushed a bit of white around with his fork. The tines scratched unpleasantly against the plastic. "I don't — that's not something I can do."

"No?" Rozanov asked.

"No," Shane said, firmly.

"Huh." Rozanov sighed noisily. "Shame. They say you have, uh, I don't know in English — with heat?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Okay. So you don't use?" Rozanov tapped his fork against the lip of his plate. "Canada, they don't let you?"

Shane dragged his fork across his plate, again, and winced at the screech. "I just don't do it, okay? Can you drop it?"

"Drop it? What, my fork?" Rozanov let his fork clatter against his plate. "Okay. I drop it. Answer my question, Hollander."

"Drop it like, your question, asshole. Not the — not your fucking fork." Shane pushed away from the counter. "I just don't use my Ability, fuck. That's all. It's none of your fucking business."

Rozanov made a little sound. Eeh. It was half skeptical, and entirely obnoxious. "Is kind of my business, yes?" He said. "Since we are—" he cut himself off, gesturing between them. "You know."

"Fuck off," Shane said. He scraped off the remainders of his eggs — too yolky and gone chalky from the cold — into the bin by the sink.

"Kind of hard to!" Rozanov called after him, lazy glee in his voice.

Shane didn't dignify him with a response. He shut the door to his closet-sized room behind him, and sunk to the floor, his back pressed to the door. He breathed. The knot stayed stubbornly where it was.

Shane kneaded the heel of his palm against his chest, and breathed.

If he hadn't been told otherwise, Ilya would have assumed that Hollander's ability was all ice. It suited him — Golden Boy Shane Hollander, who was so tightly wound that Ilya marveled at the fact that he hadn't already exploded from the pressure alone. Golden Boy Shane Hollander, who all the talking heads agreed had an "unparalleled eye on the ice." He was coolheaded and even-keeled out there; Ilya could not remember a single taunt that Hollander had fell for in the short time they had played against one another.

But Hollander was, Ilya thought, a locked box. He held himself rigidly, carefully — as though he couldn't risk a single moment not going to plan. This particular truth revealed itself in the way Hollander kept his days strictly regimented — Hollander was awake at six, the sole exception their first day post-bonding, with his first workout from six-fifteen to seven-thirty. Breakfast followed — always two eggs and whatever fruit the facility had left them — and then Ilya would see neither hide nor hair of Hollander until his watch read three-thirty. Most days, Ilya was lucky if he managed to catch a glimpse of Hollander in the morning. Ilya would wake at ten, and the only sign of Hollander would be the tidy stack of dishes, drying on the counter beside the sink atop a dishcloth.

Three days after their bonding, Ilya still couldn't quite believe Hollander's dedication to his routine. He had spent the first two in a stupor, too hot in flashes and too cold in fits. It was, he reasoned, the price of being bonded; his body was fighting for some kind of equilibrium, unused to the new influx of energy that had come from being soul-deep inside of Hollander.

If Hollander felt that selfsame strain, he let none of it show. It was frustrating, how perfectly untouchable Hollander seemed. The Shane Hollander Ilya had encountered in the hotel gym, sweaty and so beautifully willing to obey, felt like a distant memory; as though Ilya had slipped sideways into another world, where Hollander was this sweetly biddable creature for only a short moment in time.

The truth of it was, as most truths tended to be, not quite as sweet. In the light of day, Hollander was a different person. If that other boy was somewhere within him, Ilya could not pin Hollander down long enough to figure out. You had to be able to see a person to find the cracks in their facade, Ilya thought. Hollander, meanwhile, had made himself a ghost in their temporarily shared home, and so seeing anything of him at all had become an impossible task.

On day four of thirty, Ilya woke up to the sound of Hollander, puttering about in their tiny shared kitchenette. It was nine — an hour beyond Hollander's usual routine. Curiosity and nothing else forced Ilya from his room, had him slinking from the small back hallway to the conjoined kitchen-living room.

Hollander was standing in front of their two-burner stove, his back to Ilya. He was in another ridiculous dri-fit, black this time, instead of the white one he'd been wearing that night in Los Angeles. It clung obscenely to the muscled planes of his back, damp from the sweat that beaded like dew on Hollander's neck. Ilya wanted to lean in and lick it from Hollander's skin; to taste the sweat and body-tang, and feel Hollander shiver beautifully underneath him.

"Have you ever heard of rest?" He asked, instead, leaning lazily against the archway. Hollander flinched, the movement shocked from him, and then turned slowly — apprehensively — as though he were some character in a horror movie. Ilya wriggled his fingers. "Hello."

"What the fuck," Hollander said, stepping away from the stove. "Don't sneak up on me like that, fuck. I could've—"

"What? Dropped your pan?" Ilya sat on one of the barstools, chin propped up on one hand as he stared across their tiny kitchen, to Hollander. Hollander, who was bracing himself against the counters, chest moving far faster than it had been, just a few moments before. "I think you would be fine, yes? Is not like you can burn."

Hollander rolled his eyes. "I'm not trying to cause property damage," he said. "Sorry to disappoint."

On the stove, Hollander's sad duo of eggs, sunny-side up, burbled and popped. Ilya stared at it, and then down at the handle, which was remarkably lumpy. If Hollander were to put his hand to it again, Ilya thought that each ridge would fit perfectly to the contours of his grip.

"Oh, I am sure," Ilya drawled, a tiny smile playing across his lips. "You mean no more property damage, yes?" He jerked his chin toward the stove. "Have a little accident?"

Hollander's eyes jerked toward the stove. He frowned. It shouldn't have been so attractive, Ilya thought, that deep furrow that formed between Hollander's thick brows. But it was, anyway — and Ilya, who was in the business of denying himself very little, when it came to his pleasures and where he found them, had already decided that Shane Hollander was not one he was eager to starve himself of.

"Shut up." Hollander's hand fit perfectly around the grip. Ilya coughed out a laugh, and then tried to smile, winningly, when Hollander glared harder at him. "Fuck you, shut up, Jesus fuck." He set the pan down on top of a quilted trivet noisily, the metal bottom thudding hollowly against the countertop.

"Okay, okay." Ilya shifted atop his seat. The set to Hollander's shoulders was rigid — tight and almost withdrawn. It wasn't what Ilya wanted, not really. Hollander was, as he'd sensed during the WJC and during their draft, deliriously fun to rile up. His expression were beautiful; unable to be hidden or suppressed, despite what Ilya was certain were Hollander's best attempts at it. If you could only get close enough to him, Hollander was practically an open book; he wore that heart of his on his dri-fitted sleeve, or maybe left it swimming in those large, doe-like eyes of his. It was there, but you searched for it at your own peril — a man could drown in those eyes, Ilya thought. You could catch alight there, and scarcely feel the burn.

"Sorry," Ilya said. "I am joking. Sorry, Hollander. You are —" He paused, searching for the word. "Touchy. Yes? Is a sore spot, maybe." I want to stretch your patience like a rubber band and feel the moment it recoils back toward me, Ilya didn't say. I want to see how far I can push you.

Hollander eyed him suspiciously. Behind him, his eggs let out a merry little cloud of steam — it reminded Ilya, briefly, of just how badly he missed having a smoke. There was a pack of cigarettes, shoved into the very bottom of his nightstand drawer, with only two smokes rattling around in it. Ilya had considered, briefly, asking Marianne for a new pack when she came by next to deliver their lackluster grocery ration — but he had given up as bad poker. Americans had funny attitudes about smoking; the pendulum of opinion swung violently in both directions, as far as Ilya understood it, but he had a feeling that Marianne and Hollander both lived in the same camp: abject disapproval.

"I don't know what they let you do in Russia, Rozanov, but it's generally considered poor manners to throw your Abilities around carelessly," Hollander ground out. He shook his eggs onto one of their two plastic plates. Ilya wondered if Hollander was allergic to seasoning, as Hollander forwent any salt or pepper, and just dug into one of the lower drawers for a fork. He had the most boring diet of anyone Ilya had ever met — Svetlana's rake-thin model friends from boarding school included. At least those girls indulged in other things: cigarettes, and clear liquor, and coke.

"I am not careless," Ilya said. He watched as Hollander sliced a clean line between one egg and the next. Whether or not he had actually successfully cleaved the eggs apart was anyone's guess. "They teach us how to use our Ability in Russia. Do they not in Canada?"

"They do." Hollander gnawed on his bottom lip. Ilya watched with a barely banked hunger as it grew plush and pink under Hollander's mindless ministrations. "And you know that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, come on."

Ah, Ilya thought. The thing was — Ilya had never had any grand expectations about his bonding. He had known that if it happened, it would not have been a love match. The NHL was an old warship of a sports organization — the most conservative in the United States, Sveta had said once, when they were on the cusp of seventeen, and Ilya was hellbent on getting out of Moscow by any means necessary — the kind that still required its players with Abilities that ranked highly on the Eisner scale to bond for "control and safety" reasons. But even beyond that, Ilya could not name a single person in his life, alive or dead, who had bonded for something as frivolous as love.

Mama and Papa had bonded for status and money. Sveta's parents had bonded for the nation — it was the only way Sergei could prove his loyalty to the great Soviet Union. It was the only way he could have secured his position in the ministry. Ilya was bonded to play hockey; he was bonded to leave all of that behind. The irony was, sometimes, palpable.

"No," he said. "No, I don't know."

Hollander scoffed. "Come on. We're bonded because we're a fucking liability." At Ilya's raised eyebrow, he said: "A danger. They bonded us because they think we're a fucking danger to ourselves and others if they don't. Your ice, my—" Hollander cut himself off, his hands curling into tight fists by his thighs.

"Your?" Ilya prompted. "What, you can't say either? They don't let you in Canada?"

Say it, he thought. Just fucking say it. Neither of them were ignorant to the truth: Ilya's ability to manipulate the ice, unthinkingly, was a danger. There was a note in his file, from his trainer back in Moscow — he had witnessed Ilya shattering the entire rink without even twitching a finger, the one time Andrei had chased him down to bitch about not having enough money to fund his blow habit. Ilya wondered if a similar incident lived in Hollander's file: had he set something on fire? Melted a hole in his own rink, frustrated over some play that wasn't manifesting, or an easy shot he'd missed? Or was there simply no stain at all on his perfect record: just the NHL, being overly cautious, wary of a player who could take to the ice and then promptly burn it all down.

"Fuck off." Hollander set his plate down with a thud. There was no visible melting, Ilya noticed. No imprint of Hollander's hand, nor the empty space between his fingers. The airw as warmer though — rippling around Hollander, in that way the air did on the roads in deep summer. "We're bonded because the NHL wants an assurance that neither of us will fucking kill someone. And that's it." He breathed out, low and deliberate. "We're bonded because there was no way they were going to let us play hockey otherwise. That's it."

Hollander pointed at him. There was a steeliness in his eyes; as though he were on the other side of the face-off circle, ready to lunge for the puck, if only it would drop. "We have — twenty-six, twenty-five days left here. Okay? It's not — this isn't anything. It's procedure."

"Procedure," Ilya parroted. There was a tugging in the pit of his stomach; the sensation was unfamiliar. Ilya couldn't decided if it leaned hot of cold — but it was unpleasant, either way. "Procedure." He rolled the word around in his mouth, bitterly, and felt the weight of it. "Okay."

Hollander nodded. "It's just hockey. This is — it's just for hockey, okay?" The nothing more was unsaid. Ilya thought he felt it regardless. "It doesn't fucking mean anything."

"Sure," Ilya said.

"Okay. Then — you just. Do your own fucking thing, and I'll do mine. And then we'll leave, and we don't have to sit here like this, ever again." Hollander turned, body angling as though he were trying to protect himself from some kind of blow — tucking the soft spots into himself, as he tried to return to his interrupted breakfast.

"Okay. And if this is not what I want to do?"

"What?" Hollander asked, dumbly. He was so simple, Ilya thought. Doe-eyed and empty headed and cruel, unthinkingly. It was the burden of their kind, maybe. Hollander wore it infuriatingly well; he was their boy-king, still growing into all the awful fullness of that title and its inevitable weight.

"What?" Ilya said, mockingly. "You are like that bird, Hollander. Asking what, what, what. Repeating, always. I said, what if this is not what I want?" Do you care about that? "We are bonded, yes, fine. Is a part of contract — yes, this is true also. Fine. But we—" Ilya gestured between them with a single finger, sharply. "— are connected, always, Hollander. Whether you like it or not."

The puck dropped between them. "Is not opinion. Is just fact."

"So what?" Hollander asked. Ilya thought he liked the way desperation transformed the cadence of Hollander's voice — pitching it higher in new places, making him sound whiny, breathless. "Players get bound to one another all the fucking time, Rozanov, this isn't — you're not —"

"Special?" Ilya interrupted. "That is a lie, and you know it too, I think." He stood, pushing the stool away from the countertop; the legs screeched as they dragged across the floor.

He and Hollander were of a height. Ilya had noticed it plenty of times: outside the rink in Saskatchewan, in the white belly of the gym in Los Angeles. But he thought that he hadn't appreciated it fully until now. His nose brushed against Hollander's. They were strikingly different when placed side by side: golden on one side, pitch-dark on the other. Curly and pin-straight. Hollander, it seemed, had never had his nose broken before. Ilya's was crooked at the center from a break that had healed wrong in Juniors.

But they were the same height. Hollander had no choice but to stare down the barrel of the gun, straight into Ilya's eyes.

"I am inside of you," Ilya said, slowly. He pressed a finger to Hollander's chest. "Now. Forever. Who cares what other players do? They are not us. I don't care about other players — old fucks, clinging to old trophies like children now that we are here. Pah. Is Lemeiux inside your soul? Is that old fuck Federov?"

Mutely, Hollander shook his head. So literal. So simple. He was a child. Maybe they both were.

"No, I did not think so." Look at me, Ilya wanted to say. Fucking look at me. "You are fucking mine, Hollander. Until we die. Beyond that, too." He shook his head, an incredulous laugh bubbling up from some bitter pit inside. "Doesn't fucking mean anything? They call you smart. I think maybe, they are wrong."

"Fuck off," Hollander spat, weakly.

Ilya grinned at him — the kind of grin he knew, when paired with a well-timed chirp, would have an opposing player swinging.

"Make me," he commanded. "I fucking dare you."

The next day, when Hollander went for his run, Ilya made sure he was there.

"What the fuck," Hollander said. He was standing on the porch, staring down at Ilya, who had dragged himself out of bed at five-thirty, and been waiting outside since five-forty.

Ilya made a show of checking his watch. "Well?" He asked. "I thought it was time for a run, yes?"

Hollander pushed past him, jogging backward toward the dusty path. It wound into the heart of the forest, past the other tiny cottages dotting the compound that was housing them. "Leave me alone," he yelled, loud enough that it sent a flock of birds up into the air, dark shadows against the pale morning sky.

Ilya took off after him. Hollander ran faster, ducking his head low as Ilya grew closer.

"Fuck off," Hollander panted, as they approached a bend. His cheeks were pink, and there was a snap to the air, now — some unseasonable chill that had arrived, somewhere between the beginning of the run and where they had ended up, deep within the woods.

Ilya braced himself against his knees, breathing heavily. "Make me," he said, panting as he turned to smirk up at Hollander.

Hollander scoffed, disgust curling his upper lip. Then he turned on his heel and took off again, vanishing into the shadows that gathered, despite the sun bleeding through. Ilya stared after him — tracking Hollander's shape through the leaves and trees until he couldn't anymore. It was nearly seven, and as Hollander vanished, the summer's heat pressed in; as though Hollander had taken all of winter with him as he'd gone.

Day twelve. Shane slipped out in the early morning, just as the sun was rising for his run. The dirt paths that led around the compound still felt familiar underfoot — which was strange. Shane had spent his summer running in long, winding loops around the neighborhood by his parents' cottage in Lanauderie. They had been deep enough in cottage country that the paths had been dirt there, too. But there was something about Vermont; something about the forest he found himself confined to. Things that ought to have been familiar were strange. The earth felt awkward underneath his sneakers, buckling as he tucked his head and hit the ground running.

There were eighteen days between Shane and the ice, though. Eighteen days that every other guy on Rimouski got to spend training. Eighteen days that Shane had to spend, penned up in some glorified enclosure in the middle of Vermont's thick wilderness with Ilya Rozanov.

Somedays, Shane thought that the most frustrating part of it was the isolation. It was standard procedure — thirty days in isolation after a bond, to ensure that both partners were acclimating to the newness of it. Thirty days to ensure that there was no rejection; thirty days to ensure that, at least in their case, the bond hadn't made matters worse.

Thirty days to ensure that Shane could keep himself in control. Thirty days to ensure that the bond was what it was meant to be: a muzzle on both their mouths.

He pumped his arms harder, putting on a burst of speed that sent him careening toward the denser forest, where the light had a hard time piercing through the dense foliage. When the sunlight spilled through, it was in patchy little splotches that scattered across the dirt and loam. It was cooler under the tree cover; if only barely. Shane's bond with Rozanov had done something, but not much — Shane still ran hot, as though he were boiling under the surface.

Shane came to a stop within the forest, leaning heavily against a tree as he tried to breathe — and then yanked his hand away from the bark as a scent like a bonfire filled the air.

Fuck, he thought, staring dumbly at his handprint, burned black into the trunk. Fuck. What was the point of the bond, if things like this were still happening? It was like some fucked up cosmic sign — that whatever was wrong with Shane was beyond repair. No bond or specialist could keep Shane under control; Ilya Rozanov could live within his breast and still, Shane would find some way to nearly set the forest ablaze.

"Is cold as fuck in the morning," Rozanov said, behind him.

"Fuck!" Shane spun around. Rozanov was behind him, as though thought alone had summoned him. It was five forty-five, not even six — far earlier than Shane usually woke up for his morning workouts — and yet there Rozanov was, in a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and scandalously short running shorts, bouncing from foot to foot as he watched Shane from further down the road. "What the hell are you doing here? I told you to leave me alone."

"Don't be rude, Hollander," Rozanov said, jogging up beside Shane. His hair was a riot of golden curls — dark and almost bronze in the early morning light. "Is public path. You can't share?"

"That's not the point and you know it." Shane crossed his arms over his chest. "It's been a fucking week."

"And we have two and half more until this is over, yes." Rozanov rolled his eyes. "You are not the only one who has a team to return to." He gestured flippantly with one hand. "Or, what, you think I come and beat your ass at WJC alone? Is nice, really, Hollander. I had no idea you think so well of me."

"Fuck you," Shane said. He shifted, and tried not to let his gaze flicker over to the tree, which was still smoldering quietly. "I just — God, can't you let me run in peace?"

"There is only one path," Rozanov drawled. "Is not a very big forest, Hollander."

"Okay, but you don't always have to be where I am!" Morning, noon, and night, Rozanov was there. Over the past week, it had begun to feel as though the walls of their tiny cabin were closing in on him. Shane sneezed, and Rozanov was there. If Shane was in the kitchen, trying to cook himself lunch, Rozanov was lingering by the breakfast bar, nattering on about some Russian sketch comedy program he was upset about missing episodes of. If Shane was on the porch, trying to do the cooldown stretches his trainer had given him, then Rozanov was sitting on the steps below, watching as he rolled out his hamstrings.

Everywhere Shane turned, Rozanov was there. In the living room, watching recordings of Friends off the VCR. On the porch, sitting atop the stoop with an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth. In the kitchen, making himself toast and tea, doctored with jam. Shane had no hope of escaping him, even in sleep. In the dead of night, Rozanov was there too; he was the chill in Shane's chest, which had settled there the day they had drank from that bone-white bowl.

"God!" Shane yelled. "God, fuck, is it too much to ask for a moment's fucking peace?" He pressed a hand to his chest, over the place where a piece of Rozanov's soul sat, now inextricably a part of him. Shane pressed the heel of his palm into it, hard enough to hurt. "I get it. We're fucking stuck together. You don't have to rub it in."

"I'm doing nothing," Rozanov said — still playing innocent. "I'm just going for a run."

Shane took a deep breath. It was unbearably hot, despite the early hour. You have to be in control, he reminded himself. Shane pressed his palm into his chest and tried to let the ache ground him. You're in control. You have to be.

"Okay," Shane said, after a long moment. When he opened his eyes, Rozanov was staring at him, his breath coming out in tiny, white clouds. It was winter in mid-September. There was frost, beginning to creep across the ground — but whether that was Shane's fault or Rozanov's, Shane found he had no clue. "Enjoy your run."

Shane turned on his heel and jogged back the way he came. He felt each footstep in his chest, heavy as they hit the ground. Rozanov was somewhere behind him. Shane knew it; could feel him in a way that no words could hope to describe.

This was it, he thought. The rest of their fucking lives. Shane would spend each hour like a man on the brink of drowning; grasping desperately for a lifeline, and deliriously mistaking each cresting wave for the white sands of shore. He would always be fighting for some semblance of control over himself, and now Rozanov would be there too, the red flag in front of the bull.

Shane hauled himself up the porch steps and into their house. He stood in the threshold, so hot he thought he could catch fire and not feel it, watching as a blurry shadow began to emerge from the distant forest.

Fuck you, Shane thought. The sun was high in the sky, now — so bright it was almost white against the cloudless blue. Shane watched Rozanov draw closer, and stepped back into the cabin.

He locked the door behind him. Fuck you, he thought, again, as though with enough force and repetition, Rozanov would hear him. Maybe he could. Maybe that was a part of the bond, too. Maybe Shane would never have another moment's peace in his entire life.

This was it — reality was dawning on him, now. Shane would never have anything more than this. Rozanov would live inside him, a strange muted sense of company inside of Shane's chest, forever. There would never be another person. Who else could Shane trust with the ugly truth?

Shane knew why he had done it. It was a part of his contract; it was a part of the game. He had done it so that he could play, for however long the ice would let him. And in doing so, Shane wondered, not for the first time, if he had doomed himself, in a way. Shane had told himself he could live with anything, if it meant that he would have hockey. But maybe, along the way, he had failed to realize that in the end, hockey might have been all that he had left to call his own.

It would just be this: hockey and Rozanov. For the rest of his fucking life.

Shane stared at the locked door. There was a barely-banked fire, licking at the soft meat of his chest. He thought again, of Rozanov: that wide, white grin of his, the lazy way he smiled. Rozanov, who had an ability that could hurt, but only in the abstract. Had anyone ever gripped his hand bruisingly tight in theirs and told him stop it. Right now. You are going to kill someone if you keep this up. Had Rozanov ever watched an entire lake go up into steam underneath him, after just a moment's carelessness?

Shane wondered what it was like, to know your Ability and not fear it. He wondered what it was like, to move through life with that ease. After Shane's ability had manifested in Regina, his life had spiralled into a never-ending parade of specialists and tests. If we poke you like this, will you set that candle on fire, Shane? If we prod you here, will that cup of water boil?

Once upon a time, Shane had hoped for an Ability like Rozanov's. He had wanted ice — and secretly, he had wanted the certainty that would have come with it. Shane had never thought himself particularly superstitious, but he had thought that maybe — just maybe — it would have been a sign. The talking heads spoke of Rozanov with awe: Ilya Rozanov, Russia's next great hope. He's got ice in his veins, that's for sure! Strong on the puck, and my God — the fuckin' mouth on him, eh? Between him and Hollander, it's hard to tell who'll come out on top.

Well, I know who I'd rather be watching. Rozanov, for sure. I mean, he's made for the ice. That Ability of his just confirms it.

What was Shane compared to that? Some days, it felt as though Shane was holding his breath, just waiting for someone to figure out the truth. Shane Hollander was not Canada's Next One. Shane Hollander wasn't the newest wunderkind, nor an up-and-coming hometown hero. He was a liability. He was dangerous. Shane was a fraud.

Rozanov knew that now, too. Shane could count on one hand the people who knew the truth: the whole, unvarnished entirety of it. Mom and Dad. Farah. Doctor Presad, who had been Shane's doctor for as long as he could remember. Shane's battleaxe of an Ability specialist. And now, Rozanov.

Six people. Shane had finally graduated to two hands. It offered him little relief. Of all the people who knew, he trusted Rozanov — with his easy smile and mercurial moods — the least.

Shane watched Rozanov's shadow through the shuttered window. Then he turned, and locked each and every one as he left, heading for the bathroom in the back.

It's fine, Shane thought, as he locked the last of the living room windows. It was sunny outside, and there was no oncoming rain. Besides, Rozanov could handle a taste of his own bullshit, Shane reasoned. It wasn't as though he'd be out there forever.

Shane just needed a moment alone. What was that, in the face of the rest of their lives?

Ilya took his time on the path back. He hadn't necessarily been lying to Hollander — they were nearly halfway through their shared confinement period, which meant that Ilya needed to be in better shape than he was. There was a predetermined end to their time in the woods together, and Ilya had no plans to give his father nor his trainers back home any more ammunition. As far as he could tell, the League was no closer to coming to an accord with the Player's Association, which meant that Ilya would have another year of Russian hockey, spooling out before him.

Another year in Moscow! Ilya could have cried at the thought. He jogged along the trail until the forest grew denser than he was comfortable with, then turned on his heel and started the long walk back. It was starting to feel as though Ilya could never escape Moscow. She had shaped him, and so perhaps he was doomed to never be parted from her; she would live in the marrow of his bones, in the chill that gathered in the tips of Ilya's fingers.

Worst of all, was the growing sense that maybe, Moscow had settled somewhere Ilya had hoped she never would. She was an old city, built on centuries of harsh winters and quiet misery. Moscow was beautiful, yes. Her spires rose high into the sky, and Ilya thought, sometimes, when he woke early enough to see the sunrise glow golden atop the skyscrapers, that she might have been the most beautiful city on Earth.

But there was a sadness that lived within Moscow. It was in the people — Mama and Papa, Baba and Deda, Mr and Mrs Vetrov. Even Sasha's parents had not escaped this particular curse. Tolstoy had gotten it wrong: all the unhappy families Ilya knew could trace their unhappiness from the same place. It was soul deep, grown there like a weed brought in with the seedlings. Maybe Moscow had not birthed it. But she had nurtured it all the same.

We're fucking stuck together. You don't have to rub it in. Hollander had held himself brittlely. He was always shying away, Ilya thought — as though he were bracing for some oncoming blow. It reminded Ilya of so many things: cats half-cast in shadows, watching passerbys warily from the alleyways. Children on the ice, after their very first fall.

Mama, in the tense quiet of Ilya's childhood home.

Ilya walked the last stretch toward their cabin slowly, his hands on his hips. His heart was jackrabbiting in his chest from the cardio, and he felt faintly nauseous, tight in the throat in the way Ilya knew normally meant he was moments from throwing up. Hollander's expression was searing into the dark space behind his eyes. If Ilya closed them, he could see it: the knit of Hollander's brow and the bloodless purse of his lips.

What a fucking victim. Ilya wanted to shake Hollander until he screamed. It doesn't fucking mean anything, Hollander had said.

Of course it fucking doesn't, Ilya should have said. It's only our souls. It's only the rest of our fucking lives. It was only the rest of their careers. It was only a lifetime of loneliness. It was only an empty dinner table, and a sick feeling in the pit of Ilya's stomach as their bond stretched over roads and borders.

Weren't they trapped in this together? Wasn't that the whole fucking point? Ilya had thought himself long devoid of any fanciful dreams of a bond borne of love. You only needed to throw a stone in the NHL to hit a player bonded for the sake of the game. But at least they had companionship. At least they had time — time together, before trades and expansion drafts and retirement tore them apart. All Ilya had was this strained, quiet month. And Hollander's hate, it seemed.

It wasn't fair. Ilya wasn't sure why he was so hung up on that. Of course it wasn't fair. When had life ever been? It was like going to a casino and expecting to come out on top. The house always won, by hook or by crook. That was simply how things were.

But weren't things supposed to have been fair with Hollander? They were meant to have been equals — in stats, standings, and in life. Equals, because no one in their draft class could match them, and equals because they now held a part of the other's soul. Ilya had been ready for it. He had not wanted to admit it aloud, for fear of making it real, but he had wanted it.

The dream tasted like blood in his mouth. Cloying and coppery, like old coins just underneath his tongue.

Ilya hopped the step to the porch. Hollander was in there. Showering, most likely, because not even the apocalypse could hope to keep Shane Hollander from plodding along his same, boring routine.

Fine, Ilya thought. He would wait for Hollander. He would sit on the sagging couch in the living room, or on one of the barstools by the kitchenette, or maybe even dispense with the pretense entirely, and take to pacing up and down their tiny entryway. But he would wait for Hollander to come out of the shower, and then they would have to talk.

Look me in the fucking eyes, Ilya imagined demanding. Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me this means nothing.

There were a million responses Hollander could give him. I was scared of letting it, to get the fuck away from me, asshole. Ilya turned each possibility over in his mind, like stones from a river.

What was the worst thing Hollander could say? Ilya wasn't sure. And no amount of guessing would reveal the answer to him. There was nothing else for it: Ilya put his hand to the doorknob and —

He blinked down at it, and jiggled the handle. The door groaned as Ilya threw his weight into it, but remained as it was: closed.

"What the fuck," Ilya said. He kicked the door, laughing. "What the fuck!"

The duo of wide windows along the porch were locked, too. Ilya slammed his fists against the glass, cold incredulity growing within him.

He took off in a sprint for the single window along the side. The blinds were drawn tightly shut. Ilya couldn't make out a single shadow through them — just the tiniest glimpses of their tiny sitting area and what might have been the wooden edge of the peninsula.

That window was locked, too. Ilya wasn't sure why he expected anything different.

Asshole, he thought. The revelation should have thrilled him. Shane Hollander, loathe as he was to admit it or reveal it, was a fucking asshole.

Ilya trudged further along the house. It was a breezy day. He could feel the sweat from his workout as it begun to cool, tacky by his temples and at the nape of his neck. A single droplet crystalized and froze as it trickled down the gaping collar of Ilya's shirt. The chill was biting; Ilya grasped for it, searching for anything that wasn't the slow boil of anger, deep in his stomach.

His bedroom window was still cracked. Ilya pushed it higher, then hoisted himself through the gap — one leg, then the other, then his body, shuffling painfully through. Blindly, Ilya tried to feel for the lip of his nightstand with one sneakered foot. He missed it entirely, one heel slipping off the edge. He went with the momentum, falling gracelessly to the floor with a noisy clatter.

Ilya groaned. He was sweaty and sore; his ass in particular throbbed dully — like he was a child again, slipping and sliding across the ice.

Faintly, Ilya could hear the sound of water hitting tile: Hollander, in the shower. Exactly as expected. He was an asshole, but he was a consistent one.

Ilya stared at his bedroom door. He had knocked the nightstand over in his scramble to get back inside the cabin. The tiny lamp they'd given him was shards on the floor, the bulb cracked in half. The topmost drawer had slid open from the impact too.

Ilya reached in and fished his pack of cigarettes out. He shook one into the palm of his hand, taking in between his teeth as he tried to set it alight. His lighter clicked — once, twice — sputtering before it finally spat out a spark. The nicotine washed over him in a wave, sweet blessed release.

The cherry sizzled quietly as Ilya sucked on the filter. He could hear Hollander moving in the bathroom, the way the spray shifted with him.

Ilya stared at the shards of cheap pottery and glass on the floor. This isn't anything echoed in his mind. It's procedure.

He blew out a cloud of smoke. Fuck you too, Ilya thought, and as he ashed his cigarette, reached out and froze all the water in their pipes.

For a moment, there was silence. Ilya sat in it. He let his head loll back, and started counting the cracks in the ceiling. Do something, Ilya thought. He plucked his cigarette from between his lips and turned it this way and that. The ball was in Hollander's court, now. Do something.

There was a muffled creaking sound: the pipes, protesting the sudden deep freeze. Ilya counted three more cracks on the ceiling. The creaking grew louder, settling into an eerie, almost pained groan — and then the rattling began.

What the fuck? Ilya thought. The temperature began to drop next; not slowly, in the way Ilya had noticed it often did when Hollander's steely control lapsed, but all at once. It was winter in their tiny corner of Vermont — a deep, desolate kind of freeze, the kind that Ilya had grown up with in Moscow.

"Hollander—" Ilya called out, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. "Hollander, what—?"

There was a split second of perfect silence. And then—

BANG!

It was like a gunshot. The cabin shook from the force, shedding dust like a dandelion did its seeds. Ilya scrambled to his feet, then took off running, nearly taking his bedroom door off its hinges in his haste to get through it.

"Hollander!" Ilya yelled. He slammed his fist against the bathroom door — locked, always fucking locked. "HOLLANDER!"

Fuck it, Ilya thought. His pulse was racing, jumping just underneath his skin. He felt too large for his skin; tight and itchy at the seams, as though he were just moments from bursting free of it. The cabin was so deafeningly, damningly silent. Where was Hollander? Was he lying, prone, on the bathroom floor?

He reared back, ready to try and kick the door down — and then it opened. Hollander stood on the other side, hair plastered to his forehead, and flecks of what had to be shattered tile dusting his crown and shoulders.

"Shane," Ilya said.

There was no time for him to react. One moment, Ilya was lightheaded with relief, and the next he was on his ass on the floor — again — blinking spots from his vision as his ears rang from how hard Hollander had hit him.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Hollander asked. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were red, and Ilya realized that the air was practically ablaze around him, so hot that all the water pebbling atop Hollander's golden skin had begun to turn to steam.

"Hollander—"

"Do you think this is fucking funny? Is this a fucking joke to you?" Hollander took a step closer. He was naked, Ilya realized, dully. Ilya could see all of him — his skin, sunkissed from the summer, the coarse dark hair that trailed from his belly button to his cock. The finer hairs atop his thighs, which were thickly muscled, and striped white at the flanks.

Hollander was gloriously naked, and he was furious.

"Look at this," he was saying. Hollander gestured sharply behind. Their bathroom was a disaster zone. The showerhead had come off the wall — or rather, there was no longer a chunk of wall for it to hold onto. Water was sputtering weakly from the shard of pipe that was still attached; it fell in fits and spurts, and evaporated into steam before it could even hit the ground.

"Fuck. This is why we're doing this, do you get that? I know — fuck, I know you think this is funny, okay? If I had your Ability, maybe I would think this was pretty fucking funny too. But it's not funny to me, Rozanov. Fuck!" Hollander threw his hands up into the air and spun around, shoulders heaving.

"You're bleeding," Ilya said, quietly. His cheek stung: a dull, familiar throb. Ilya tried to summon up some rage. He searched for the anger that had moved through him, not ten minutes before. But there was blood on Hollander's back: a whole mess of it, smeared in macabre paintstrokes across the broad expanse of it. The heat of the moment had curdled; gone cold.

I did that, Ilya thought. It made the punch feel a bit more of a quid pro quo.

Hollander ignored him. Ilya stood up, padding quietly into the ruined bathroom. When he tried to touch Hollander, it burned: sharp and bright, as though Ilya had stuck his hand atop a hot stove.

"Fuck!" Ilya swore, skidding backwards. He stared down at his hand. It was turning an angry red; livid, like a sunburn.

"Fuck," Hollander whispered, a faint echo. He had gone very pale. "I'm —"

"Hollander, listen to me, I'm —"

"—no." The worst burst from him violently. "No. No. I'm — I need to call Marianne. I need to — we need to — to clean this up. Fuck. I'm sorry, Rozanov." Hollander shook his head. He was still bleeding. Ilya could see it, running in thin rivulets down his legs, mixing with the little puddles of water that had just barely managed to avoid going up in smoke.

"Hollander."

Hollander pushed past him. His footsteps were bloody. "I'm gonna call Marianne," he said, again, and left Ilya there in the hallway; a useless body, just taking up space.

Shane had counted each minute, and in all, it took exactly thirty-seven for Marianne to come, and move them to the next cabin over.

"It's fine," she told him, perfectly placid as she stood on their new porch. It looked exactly like the old one, and the incongruence left Shane unnerved. "This is why we have the acclimation period. Accidents happen, and it's better that they happen in the safest environment possible."

"Okay," Shane had replied. "Thank you, though. Um. And sorry again — about the bathroom."

"It's a simple fix, Mr. Hollander." Marianne made an expression that could have been a smile, in some other life. "I'll leave the two of you to it, then. See you on Sunday for your usual check-in."

She left without waiting for a response. The rest of the day melted into a blur. Shane could remember closing the door behind her, but he couldn't remember making it to his room. He lost swathes of time; one moment the sun was high in the sky, perfectly round in midday, and the next, it was inching toward the horizon, the sky turning a burnt orange in its wake.

There was a quiet knock on his door. Shane stared at it. You burned him, he thought. It was all he could think about: Rozanov's face through the threshold, twisted in pain, his hand red and burnt. All from touching Shane. So much for control. So much for the bond. Shane had proven — in a spectacular manner — that it had all been for nothing. And now they were stuck together. Forever.

Rozanov knocked on his door again. "Hollander," he said, voice muffled through the wood, "I know you are there. Can we talk?"

When Shane didn't respond, Rozanov said: "Please, let me see your back at least. You were bleeding, I saw. Hollander. Please." There was a soft, plaintive note in his voice.

Shane opened the door. Rozanov stared at him through it, one hand raised as if to knock again, and the other holding a plate of toast, glistening with jam.

"Hi," Shane said.

"Hi," Rozanov replied. "Ah — I can come in?" He lifted the plate, tilting it ever so slightly toward Shane. "I make us toast. Did you eat?"

"No, um. Not really. There wasn't a whole lot of time." Shane shuffled to the side. "Sorry. Come in."

Rozanov stepped inside. "Thank you," he said, and set the plate atop Shane's new nightstand. "It's strange, yes? How the rooms look pretty much the same?"

"Yeah, tell me about it. I mean, down to the sheets, even." Shane sat, cross-legged, on his tiny twin-sized bed. "Maybe they buy them in bulk, or something."

"Bulk?"

"Like — uh, large packs. Have you ever bought toilet paper?" Shane cringed, shaking his head. "Sorry. No. It's like, bulk is when it's all the same thing, but a lot of the same thing. Fuck. I don't think I'm making much sense."

"Not really, no." Rozanov shrugged. He offered Shane a piece of jam-slathered toast, and took a piece for himself. "Maybe you are too hungry. Eat. Then we must talk."

Shane chewed at a corner of his toast. It tasted like ash in his mouth. "I'm sorry," he murmured, staring at the light, reflecting off the glossy spread. "I guess you know why they made you bond with me now." Shane sniffed, cradling the bread in both his hands. "I mean, fuck. Could you think of a worse Ability for an NHL player?"

Rozanov made a soft, skeptical sound. "Exactly!" Shane said. "I guess, maybe, if I could actually start fires, that'd be worse, but at least then I'd have some more control over it, you know? I wouldn't be — fucking, freezing water bottles, and burning anyone who so much as tries to touch me." He swallowed. "I'm — really. I'm sorry about that."

"Is okay," Rozanov said. He was licking jam off his fingers. It made him look young, Shane thought. "I am at fault too. I thought — well, I guess maybe the problem is I don't think. But I guess I just thought oh, so he says this is nothing. Okay. I will prove him wrong." He shrugged, a sheepish look on his face. "We are bonded, you know."

"Trust me," Shane said. "I know."

"But do you?" Rozanov asked. "Hollander. You and I, we are like — this, now." He twined two fingers together, like a promise. "Unable to separate. Our souls are bound. And yes, the situation, it is not — what is the word, idea?"

"Ideal?" Shane offered.

"Yes. That. It is not ideal. You don't have a choice. I don't have one either. And we both want to play hockey, bad enough that not having a choice is okay." Rozanov sighed. "I don't want to spend the rest of our lives as strangers."

"Rozanov," Shane said. "We're not. We wouldn't be."

Rozanov laughed. "Aren't we?" He asked. "You avoid me from the day we meet again. We bond, and then you tell me this is nothing. You say that our time together is just — something we have to get through. But I don't want that."

"What do you want, then?" Shane asked. "I just — we both said yes, because the alternative was no hockey. You know that they're only requiring us to do this so that we're not a liability — sorry, a danger out on the ice. Don't you fucking hate that?" Don't you hate me?

"If you are my chain, then I am yours," Rozanov said, quietly. "That does not mean we must make each other sad. This —" He gestured between them, pressing his hand flat to his chest, then reaching across to press it gently to Shane's, "— can still be ours."

Shane sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. "I was so excited to meet you," he confessed.

"Here? You have a funny way of showing that."

"No, asshole. In Regina. During the WJC." Shane could still remember it: asking Mom to wait in the parking lot for a minute, and slipping out the passenger side door. He had jogged across the lot to where Rozanov was standing, half hunched over an unlit cigarette, scowling as his lighter refused to catch alight.

You're not supposed to be smoking here, had slipped out first. Shane could still remember the sick roil in his stomach that had followed.

"Ah," Rozanov said. He was completely undone in the sunset: curls half-flattened, and one cheek purpling where Shane had socked him. He was a far cry from the closed-off boy Shane could remember from the gray concrete lot in Regina. "I remember. I kept thinking, did this asshole come over here just to yell at me?" He shook his head, a small smile playing across his lips. "You did not even introduce yourself."

"I meant to." Shane dragged a finger through the jam, then popped it into his mouth. It was raspberry. He wasn't sure why that shocked him. "I mean. I was being sincere, when I said that you were an awesome player to watch. I did. Watch you. A lot." Tapes and grainy broadcasts, and even in person — perched high above in the stands beside Mom, watching as Team Russia ran drills and practiced shootouts on the ice below. Rozanov had stood out the whole time: golden where no one else had been.

"I watched you too," Rozanov said. His eyes were a strange color; they picked up all the light around, unable to ever settle on a single hue. Today, Shane realized, they were a hazel green. "You and that stupid backhand."

Shane rolled his eyes. "My backhand is fine, thank you very much." He shoved Rozanov when Rozanov began to laugh. "And in the gym — in Los Angeles. After the draft."

"Ah. Where you lost again."

"Fuck off."

"Sorry." Rozanov raised one hand in mock surrender. "Sorry! I went down to try and — I don't the saying in English. Clean my head?"

"Clear your head," Shane corrected, softly. "Yeah. Me too."

"I was worried about this season," Rozanov said. His voice was quiet. "You know. They are telling me so much about these talks — between the union and the owners. I don't know. And then, my agent — Yuriy — he tells me that the League has a condition for me. Bond Shane Hollander. Hah." Rozanov shook his head. "I understand. You know? I do. It is not uncommon in Russia. My parents are arranged bond. So is my brother. This is the same for almost everyone I know."

"I'm sorry," Shane said. "That's—"

"Business," Rozanov finished. "Is just business. Business of families. Money. Everyone is kept in their place. Everyone is miserable." He shrugged, and the tight motion of his shoulders gave him away.

"And you don't want to be. Miserable, I mean."

"No. Who wants to be?"

Shane laughed — short and sharp. "Yeah. Sorry. Dumb question, I guess."

"Eh." Rozanov wriggled one hand back and forth. "Maybe a little. When Yuriy told me it was you, I thought — maybe we can come to understand one another. You and I, Hollander, we are different people, yes. But we are alike in some ways."

Shane looked at him. Really looked at him. Rozanov was the same height. They were eye to eye — golden and pitch dark; fair haired and dark haired. Rozanov's eyes glimmered green, even in the dying sunlight, and Shane's remained stubbornly dark — as though they had taken in all light. To an outsider, maybe, it would be a study of contrasts. Shane had certain heard it posed that way often enough, in the weeks before and after their draft.

But Rozanov lived in the soft meat of Shane's chest now, too. They were a part of one another — for whatever that meant, and whatever it could mean. Decades from now, that would still be true. They might not have hockey — either of them — at that point. But they would still have each other.

"Why did you give me your bottle, in the gym?" Shane asked. He could still remember the heat of Rozanov's gaze on him down there; the way it had lingered, long after Shane had gotten up and left for his room.

"I wanted to see what you would do," Rozanov said. His gaze was piercing; as though he were measuring Shane up in the split second before the puck dropped. "You did what I wanted you to. Beautifully."

Drink, Rozanov had mouthed. And Shane had — greedy, full-mouthed gulps of water that had done absolutely nothing at all to quell the heat gathering in his palms and stomach. Shane had melted the soles of his sneakers that night; had burned straight through them as he'd scrambled out of the elevator, and over the threshold to his hotel room. It was the first of many pairs he would melt — all of them still laid in a neat line in the very back of Shane's childhood closet.

"And what would you want me to do now? If I asked."

Rozanov leaned in. Shane kept still.

Their lips brushed — gently — and then they were kissing. Chastely, at first, and then deeper, as Rozanov leaned in, nipping at Shane's lower lip; a silent let me in.

Shane did.

They climbed onto the roof of the cabin on day twenty seven. It was well past sunset, the sky dark like velvet.

"Wow," Ilya said. He leaned back on his hands, marvelling at the sight above him. "In Moscow, you can never see this."

"What, the stars?" Shane sidled up beside him, and turned his head toward the heavens as well. "Yeah, I guess not. Too much light pollution in the bigger cities. It makes it hard to see much of anything at night."

"Light pollution?"

"Like — other light sources. From streetlamps. And cars. Stuff like that. It makes it harder to see the stars, because it's too bright," Shane explained.

"Ah," Ilya said. "I see. No other lights to compete here, in bumfuck, Vermont."

Shane shoved him. "Fuck off."

"What! I did not say anything rude. Is a nice view." Ilya gestured to it. "Take a look, Hollander. Maybe you will appreciate it more if you are not shoving me. Rude!"

They had three days left in Vermont. Three days, and then they would leave: Shane back to Rimouski, where his team was still waiting, and Ilya back across the ocean to Russia, where he had a standing date with the Dynamo. Their old lives were pressing up against the flimsy seams of their new one; Shane felt the incongruence keenly.

The outside world, Shane thought, had become a strange and distant concept. It was as if anything beyond this — their cabin and the thick Vermont wilderness that surrounded it — had ceased to exist. Their only lifeline was Marianne, who had come three times exactly. Each time, she stayed for ten minutes: long enough to ensure they had not killed one another, and to slide their crate of supplies across the threshold. Last weekend, she had brought fish, rather than their usual chicken. Ilya had crowed when he spotted it, holding the silver tins of tuna over his head as though they were made of solid gold.

"Fish!" He had exclaimed, childlike glee dancing across his features. "Blyat. I was getting so sick of chicken. Nothing but chicken and eggs, for two weeks — bozhe moy, I thought I was going crazy."

"That's pretty sad," Shane had said. "I mean, the most exciting part of our week is tinned fish."

"Canned tuna and cheese," Ilya had said, still grinning brightly. There was a pack of hazardously bright Kraft Singles in his hand. "We have bread. And pickles I save from last week. And now we have tuna and cheese."

"Okay?"

"The first time I come to America, I was a child," Ilya had told him. He was moving around the kitchen with surprising ease. It was nice, Shane had thought, to have spent almost a month living in one another's pockets, and to still be learning things about one another. "Was for some small camp that Sveta's father was in charge of. I flew into New York, and Sveta's father came for me. We had this sandwich before we left." Ilya pressed the spatula down atop the topmost piece of bread, watching as the cheese began to drip down the sides.

"A tuna melt?" Shane had asked.

"Is good, yes?" Ilya's cheeks were puffed, stuffed to the brim with food. It should have been gross; Shane had been ashamed to admit that he found it endearing.

Shane took a small bite. "Yeah, it's pretty good." And he had leaned over, and licked the taste of it from Ilya's mouth.

It would be strange, Shane thought, watching Ilya marvel at the sky, to go back to their lives as though nothing had changed. He knew how Ilya tasted after eating a tuna melt, now. Shane had chased the sour taste of the pickles in Ilya's mouth, and had let Ilya do the same. They had been living together — for the fullest meaning of the words — and in three days time, they would have to part.

"Did anyone ever teach you the constellations?" Shane asked.

"No," Ilya said. "I know some stories, but I could not spot them, if you asked."

Shane scooted closer. "Okay. Here, my dad taught me when I was a kid. We've got this cottage, out in Quebec, where you can see the stars even more clearly than we are now. Here — look, you see that star up there?" Shane took Ilya's hand in his, guiding it upward until it looked as though the tip of his middle finger was touching Altair. "That one in the middle is Altair. Tarazed and Alshain are to its right and left — and they form the head." Shane dragged their hands down the center. "And that's the body. They call it Aquila. The eagle, according to my dad."

"Doesn't really look like one," Ilya said.

"Yeah, I never really understood it."

"Is nice though. That the stars are the same — you can find them, even here in Vermont." Ilya smiled at Shane. It was crooked at the edges, in a way that made Shane want to press his thumb to the crease, that little fold where Ilya's top lip met the bottom.

I'm going to miss you, Shane wanted to say. They had three days left. Shane could feel each of them keenly. Three days, and then they were gone — just the ever-growing thread of their bond to tie them close.

"You can see them in Moscow too," he said instead. "You've just got a find a place where you can see the stars."

cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

from: [email protected]

Subject: CCM Shoot Opportunity

Hello! Apologies for reaching out to all of you so last minute. I know I've spoken with all of you before about arranging a shoot for Ilya and Shane as our new faces of CCM. We're so excited to hear that the NHL is back and better than ever for the 2010-2011 season, and we're even more excited to hit the ground running with both these talented young men.

I know the plan was originally to have both Ilya and Shane shoot separately, but after some chats with marketing and sales, I was hoping to discuss with you an exciting alternative. We'd love to have both Ilya and Shane for a single shoot. We feel it will help showcase both of their incredible talents in a new and exciting way, as well as help get NHL fans across the globe pumped for a new season of hockey — with Ilya and Shane at the forefront! We want to capitalize off of this growing buzz surrounding their rivalry, especially on the tail of Shane and Team Canada's win at the WJC this past winter. Congratulations on that, Shane!

Please let me know if this new proposal sounds good to all involved. If this seems like something you all think would work for the boys, we can touch base ASAP to pull together a revised itnerary and shot-list, though I don't believe either should be much different from the ones previously sent to you, it would be best to ensure that we're all on the same page, especially since this will be a relatively quick turnaround.

I look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Best,

Andrea Gilbertson
Senior Marketing Manager