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Ottawa. New Year's Day. 2010.
It’s 12:05 AM when Ilya decides to leave the hotel room. It’s a bad idea, probably. Definitely against curfew. Definitely a chance for Ilya to drop the nicotine gum and get a fucking cigarette. Which is also, definitely, a bad idea.
The outside is a bitter cold. Negative something degrees. Negative enough that the exact number stops entirely mattering. The temperature, the snow, and the intense bite of it all isn’t even remotely novel or new or interesting.
While half of the Russian Men's National Under 20 Ice Hockey Team watched the ball drop, Ilya sat alone in his hotel room. Recently, he’d grown extremely tired of being around people. It came in waves, that feeling. For weeks, he wouldn’t be able to stand being alone. He’d need a person, preferably people, preferably many people around. But then there would be a come down and suddenly human interaction would exhaust him. This crash would come out of nowhere, just big and heavy and impossible. It was incredibly annoying.
Now, outside of the hotel, he walks with no destination in mind. There’s, of course, the constant brown and grey slush on the ground that he’s forced to stomp over. Also not novel or interesting. But he does take a moment to admire the fireworks that are bursting across the skyline. Not as good as Moscow, but still respectable.
There are people around. People dressed to celebrate and party and drink and presumably do all kinds of drugs to distract themselves from the fact that they’re spending the holiday in Ottawa, home of government buildings and nothing of interest.
He wishes all of the people would just disappear. Don’t they know that there’s something wrong with him and they shouldn’t be anywhere close, lest he explode and take out the whole block with him? Like the sheer power and intensity of his misery will produce enough pressure within him that he’ll just blow.
He stops inside a Circle K to buy a pack of cigarettes and a lighter because what’s the point in trying to be good right now? He’s bad, everything is bad, and he might as well be terrible. The kid working the register is probably Ilya’s age and clearly upset to be working on New Years. All deep sighs and eye rolls and, like, remarkably greasy hair, Ilya has to say.
Outside, this time with a cigarette between his fingertips, he walks further. Walks until he finds himself at an entrance to the Rideau Canal which is apparently open 24/7. Interesting. Did Hollander skate here as a kid? Was he better than all the other kids? Ilya smirks. Probably.
Fuck.
He is absolutely not allowed to think about Shane fucking Hollander.
The skate rental is going for $15 CAD. While Ilya’s bonus has largely run dry, nearly entirely Alexei’s fault, he has fifteen Canadian dollars. So, he carefully descends the icy stairs and walks along the side of the canal (not slipping and sliding AT ALL, mind you) until he gets to one of the stalls where he can pick up a pair of skates.
Ilya knows with near certainty that he will become a household name in cities like Ottawa. Their team is terrible, of course. He will be known as someone who beats them. Once he makes Boston better. It’s a nice thought that doesn’t make him feel better at all. Because as much as he relishes in his skill and talent, in the fact that he is the best of the best, there are times when it’s not enough to want to keep going. Not enough to want to keep climbing to the top in a world without his mom. Not enough to want his very existence and success to represent the country that it does, that it always will. Not enough, and this is objectively the worst, most selfish, most insurmountable part, to push through these weeks and months that come every so often and fill his brain with a thick, heavy sludge. That come with thoughts, terrible ones, that feel like visions into the future or at least predictions or at least tempting, horrible options.
A child screams. Happy. Euphoric.
It’s crowded on the ice, which is not what Ilya wanted, but is definitely unavoidable. And, despite himself, he does have to admit how beautiful it is. Strange how such a boring city could have such a cool thing that reminds him so much of the good parts of home. Ilya thinks of ice skating on the Chistye Prudi with his mom and…the memory makes him feel like he’s been punched in the gut or like he’s fallen off the monkey bars and had the breath knocked out of him. He usually tries to make memories of his mom make him feel something close to good or at least not deeply bad. But it feels harder now.
When Ilya is away, he misses Russia the same way he misses his father. That is to say not very much, but certainly sometimes and certainly in a way that makes him feel sick and confused. His fondness for home mostly starts and stops with his mom who sometimes, maybe even often, makes the pain of his upbringing feel worth it. The way his brain is wired right now, through the sludge and the muck and the rusted, faulty parts, it’s all bad. The thoughts of his father, of his wonderful mother, of his country. He thinks of those tempting, horrible options and they feel like something close to a prophecy.
Ilya tries to get back in his body. He feels the weight of the skates in his hands because they’re still not on his feet. How long has he been standing here? What is he doing?
What is Shane Hollander doing?
Ilya would prefer his inappropriate thoughts of Shane Hollander stick to lewd instead of whatever this is. Instead of a gleaming hope of a distraction from something that is profoundly wrong with him. Shane Hollander is somewhere in this city. He’s somewhere with his team or his family or his friends being perfect and beloved by all. Shane Hollander with his two loving parents. Shane Hollander who is the pride and joy of this terrible town.
Grumpily, Ilya puts on his skates. Maybe that’s what you could call it. Maybe this horrid cyclical thing that happens to him is as simple as grumpiness. The way his mom would describe a 14-year-old Alexei. Well, it certainly ran in the family.
The one thing Ilya can feel grateful for tonight is that he is a world class skater and can comfortably navigate the crowded canal at a speed that doesn’t give him whatever the public skating experience version of road rage is. He quickly meanders through until the crowd thins out past the beaver tail stands. The beaver tail dessert concept compels Ilya, but not enough in this moment for him to fight through the knot and nausea at the center of him.
Further down the river, there’s much more room for him to really gain speed. For him to fling himself forward into the cold. There’s poison in his veins, maybe. Probably originating in his brain where everything is so bad and then dripping down his body through his blood stream and poisoning everything. Maybe the cardio is making it worse. It’s speeding up his circulatory system and the poison is infecting every last bit of him. He skates faster and feels worse. Sad, grumpy, fucking depressed, whatever the actual fuck it is, whatever the fuck is happening to him, whatever the fuck he is destined to live with until he can’t anymore, he doesn’t have the word for it.
Ilya Rozanov is in impeccable shape. Ilya Rozanov is intimately familiar with the cold. But in the negative whatever the fuck degree air of this terribly boring city and with an unnatural burn in his lungs and his thighs and a feeling that’s something like being full of lighter fluid right next to a match, Ilya Rozanov falls.
Boston. January. 2012.
This might be the best day of Ilya Rozanov’s life. It’s at least the most amount of money he’s ever spent in the span of five hours by a long shot. And there had to be a pretty reasonable 1 to 1 between the two of those things. Ilya loves spending money. Ilya loves spending money and he loves his three brand new cars and he really loves having Shane Hollander’s phone number and an unlimited texting phone plan. Not that he texts Shane Hollander all that much. But he loves knowing that he could.
Sometimes he hates that. There’s some distant part of him from like, he’s not sure, maybe a week ago, that is almost disgusted by how hard it is to stay away from Shane Hollander even as Shane Hollander refuses to meet up with him. Even as Shane Hollander gives him absolutely nothing sometimes and just enough the rest of the time.
Lily: you drive boring car, yes? you want to see what you are missing?
Ilya stares intently at his phone screen as he waits (hopes) for a response. Ilya, in this moment, believes himself to be the hottest and coolest man on the planet so he is ultimately unsurprised when his phone dings with the notification sound.
Jane: ?
Okay, it leaves something to be desired. Ilya fires off pictures of each car from multiple angles.
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Lily: [pic]
Jane: What are you doing?
Lily: you could borrow one if you want
Lily: give it a spin
Lily: try not being boring?
Lily: or you could be a passenger princess
Lily: i give you ride of your life?
Lily: and then take you passionately in the backseat
Lily: :)
Lily: ;)
Lily: :P
Jane: Are you drunk? It’s 2 pm.
Lily: your dick has been in my mouth and i can’t talk about taking you in the backseat of my beautiful new audi?
Lily: you are strict hollander
Lily: tell me more of the rules i would like to hear
Jane: Fuck you. I don’t have rules.
Yes, you do, Ilya thinks. All we are is one big broken rule but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Lily: ok sure i believe you
Lily: :)
Lily: ;)
Lily: :P
Ilya doesn’t miss Shane Hollander. That would be insane. And right now, Ilya is priding himself on exactly how sane he is and exactly how crystal clear he is seeing everything! Ilya doesn’t miss Shane Hollander, but he wouldn’t mind seeing him again. Wouldn’t mind having him pressed up against him in a dark hotel room again. Maybe Shane Hollander wants to pretend that he doesn’t want Ilya. Maybe a week ago, Ilya was moping around, convinced that Shane Hollander was right. That he didn’t want anything to do with him. But now that Ilya is seeing so clearly, so thousands of miles out and universes ahead, he can see the truth.
Shane Hollander. Shane fucking Hollander. This thing with Shane Hollander…Shane Hollander, number 24 on the Montreal Voyageurs. Shane Hollander, former-most-talked-about-prospect, former Rookie of the Year, current second best player in the NHL. Shane Hollander with his stupid fucking freckles and his fucking kindness and his fury. His fury with Ilya, specifically. Shane Hollander, his rival. Shane Hollander, his fuck buddy. Well, not fuck buddy all the way, yet.
Because Ilya is seeing SO clearly and he knows this thing with Shane Hollander has to continue. It never needs to be more than physical. Can’t be more than physical. Ilya doesn’t want or crave or need for it to be more than physical. That would also be insane and don’t you know how sane he is?
Ilya and Shane Hollander were each destined to stand triumphant at the top. The top of their field, ahead of the game, far above their peers. Somehow, they exist at the same time. Doesn’t that mean something? They exist to push each other and make each other better and better. They are the best because they make each other the best and maybe the best way to do that is through the tried and true and epic and beautiful power of oral sex. Ilya is completely sane, more sane than he’s ever been, and this makes complete sense.
Jane: You’ll be at the All-Star game?
Shane Hollander gives him a little lifeline, just enough, and Ilya yanks.
Moscow. July. 2014.
Shane Hollander hasn’t texted Ilya back in 26 hours and Ilya is completely neutral about it. 26 hours is, objectively, when considered in the larger patterns of Ilya and Shane Hollander’s texting relationship, not an extraordinary amount of time. And were Ilya to feel anything about it, which he doesn’t, it would have much more to do with the fact that every hour of every day for the past three days he’s felt like a fucking live wire (for absolutely NO fucking reason) than it would have anything to do with Shane Hollander as a person, specifically.
There’s a girl sucking on his neck and Ilya is 98% sure her name is Elena. Alina? Maria? He’s usually much better about this. He is very respectful of the women he hooks up with. He knows their names, he usually knows what they do for work, sometimes he even knows the name of their best friend or the title of their favorite book or which one of the Real Housewives of whatever city they hate the most (this one mostly applies when he is in North America). Will they hook up? Does he want to hook up with her? Certainly, he should, right? Want to, that is.
His phone feels extremely heavy in his pocket. A watched pot never boils and a watched Samsung Galaxy S5 with a cracked screen does not receive text messages from infuriatingly beautiful star hockey players so Ilya is very pointedly not looking at it. NOT…that Ilya even cares.
Ilya has been in Moscow for a few weeks now and he has, of course, slept with a few women. All beautiful and cool and interesting. And Ilya had enjoyed himself as he always does. If he enjoyed himself more in the early evenings around dinner as he sat in his sterile, impersonal condo texting Shane Hollander as Shane Hollander woke up for the day, went on his run, made his boring breakfast, and got ready for whatever that particular day had in store for him, who cares?
They never texted about anything important, really. They weren’t friends. They didn’t know anything about each other, really, except everything they liked in bed and everything they wanted out of their careers and all of each other’s exact stats, probably, but Ilya would never admit that one. Not unless Hollander asked really, really nicely. And he could always say he was just keeping apprised of his competition, which really is mostly what it is.
The last text Ilya had sent was totally nothing. Completely not worth freaking out over, if that’s what Shane Hollander was doing. Ilya shouldn’t be anxious about it which is why he isn’t anxious about it. The words “Ilya”, “anxious”, and “Shane Hollander” have only ever been in the same sentence when talking about any season’s scoring race and even then was never a reflection of how Ilya actually felt.
The last text Ilya had sent had just slipped out of Ilya’s fingertips because, sue him, he’s an adult man who is polite to people sometimes!
Lily: i hope you have a good day today hollander
Whatever. Anya, which is what Ilya has landed on her name probably being, has some wandering hands. And Ilya knows how to get out of his head, so he does. One hand on her waist, the other in her hair. His lips on her collarbone. He knows how to do this. He likes - no, sorry - loves doing this and whatever he’s doing or not doing with Shane Hollander has nothing to do with it.
There’s an electric current running right under the surface of Ilya’s body, right under his skin, right through the nerves. He’s so in his body right now. He feels the sweat on his hairline and at his temples and the Russian club music vibrating his ear drums and he thinks his sock might be sliding down in his shoe. There is definitely something happening in his shoe.
Earlier today, Svetlana was so exasperated with him. She’s back in Moscow for the week to visit her father and, of course, Ilya even though they see each other in Boston when they can. They don’t always sleep together when they’re together, honestly less and less these days, but they had skipped out on their lunch reservation because Ilya was so unsettled and Sveta said it was the only thing she could think to do to calm him down and also she’d missed being with him like that. She didn’t say it softly or tenderly - just like it was a fact. It had been a while.
It was good. It was always good with her. It just wasn’t…he needs another drink. He detaches from the very beautiful woman he will not pretend to remember the name of.
He asks if she wants another drink. See, he’s polite.
She smiles and nods and spins, dancing to the music.
Ilya stalks his way over to the bar, glancing around the club hoping to spot Svetlana. Hoping they can lock eyes, hoping that maybe she’ll see him and know exactly how to fix what’s happening with him. He can’t find her.
He orders two drinks and rests his elbows on the bar to give his body a break. He wants to look at his phone. He needs to see if this 27th hour has changed anything. Ilya squeezes his eyes shut tight, stands up straight, does one full body shake of preparation to reset himself. He pulls out his phone.
Jane: Thank you. I hope you had a good day too?
Something within Ilya swells and sings and then collapses in on itself. The pointless, feckless energy dissolves into something bitter and deflated and, like a switch has flipped, being in this club is entirely too much. Being in this city, this country, this time zone is entirely too much. Being so far away from….from what?
Ilya’s been thinking a lot about Las Vegas and everything that happened after he won MVP and everything he did and didn’t do in the penthouse with Shane fucking Hollander.
He needs to get out of here right now before he ends up on the floor. He can feel gravity double and triple, gaining exponential weight and pushing him down. He’ll get crushed. It’s like it doesn’t even know it’ll destroy him.
Lily: мне нужно .
Lily: hendj
Lily: уйти
Jane: What?
Wrong. He can’t talk to Shane Hollander right now.
Ilya: Мне нужно немедленно отсюда уйти
I need to leave here immediately.
Ilya would normally just leave and not tell anyone or at least just say he’s leaving without any kind of implied panic or breakdown. But it’s Sveta and Ilya has always been much softer with her than he’s been with anyone else.
He opens the app for one of the local cab services and calls a car before disappearing outside, leaving the two vodkas at the bar and leaving whoever she is on the dance floor.
Ilya cried a lot as a child, even before his mother passed. There were stretches of time where he cried every single day. First, loud, scream-like with his mom gently comforting him and fingers in his hair. Then, alone in his bedroom as quietly as possible.
He feels the tears now, bubbling up from somewhere inside him.
Jane: Are you okay?
Then-
Svetlana: Дайте знать, если вам что-нибудь понадобится.
Let me know if you need anything.
Sveta knew how to leave him alone at the right time. Not like Shane Hollander, who gave too much when Ilya couldn’t take it and nothing when it was all he wanted.
People are mingling outside and Ilya is trying his best to look more like Ilya Rozanov, some random guy on the street than Ilya Rozanov, star hockey player (who may or may not have lost them an Olympic medal, depending on who you asked).
A sleek black sedan pulls up in front of the club and Ilya launches himself into the backseat, head down, grumpiest attitude in the whole world.
The driver says something Ilya doesn’t understand so he pretends he didn’t hear anything at all. He needs to be back in his condo. He needs to be laying on the ground, stomach and face to the floor so he can feel something close to steady.
Jane: I don’t know how to make sure you’re alright…
Jane: Sign of life? Please? Haha
Ilya can’t respond because he doesn’t know what he’ll say.
I feel like I’m dying.
You make me feel like I’m dying.
My brain keeps feeding me images of bad things happening to me and I keep wondering if it would really be so terrible if any of them were real.
I don’t want you. But if I did, I could never have you.
And the thing of it is, this isn’t even about Shane Hollander. Not completely. Shane is the thing that exists right now, right as this is happening, right in this moment. But his terrible, horrible feeling happened before him. It’ll happen after him too, whenever whatever they are stops doing it for one or the other. When someone ends it.
Ilya contemplates opening the door to the moving vehicle just so he can get out of sight before he starts openly weeping about how he’s completely doomed to be miserable forever but before he can unlock the door and throw himself out, the car stops and the driver announces that they’ve arrived.
Ilya mumbles a quiet “Спасибо” with his head hanging low as he exits.
It really is a beautiful night which makes Ilya feel completely and utterly hopeless. It’s a full moon and the moonlight is shining over Ilya’s little corner of Moscow and everything is gorgeous and Ilya is furious. Like a fucking werewolf. Which works, honestly. He feels like a monster at times like these, anyways. And at times when he can’t control himself, times when he is bursting at the seams. It could run in his DNA, this monster thing. From his dad, from his dad’s dad, all the way down the family line.
When Ilya gets inside his condo, he collapses onto the floor right at the entry way as the door shuts and automatically locks behind him.
He wants to throw so many things out the window. His phone, his wallet, maybe himself, he’s not totally sure.
He should respond to Shane. Hollander. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe for one last time.
There are better things for him to do. For one, brush his teeth. That feels pointless and like a lot of work.
Drink water? Take a painkiller? He didn’t even have that much alcohol, not in the grand scheme of what he could do. Potentially pointless as well.
He should respond to Shane Hollander. Right now. And for as long as he’ll have him after that.
Lily: alive
Lily: cute when you worry
Lily: why haha?
Lily: my maybe being dead is funny to you?
Jane: You are so annoying.
Jane: Thank you.
Boston. January. 2017.
Ilya is on the phone with the realtor he used to buy his place in Boston because he thinks it’s time to buy some investment property. In Boston, sure, or maybe New York. Or California. Or Utah. Or Europe! Shane Hollander and all his investment properties. Shane Hollander and the house he never and will never let Ilya step foot in. There’s no way Shane fucking Hollander is fucking Rose fucking Landry in his secret sex apartment. She can go to his house and she can walk right in the front door.
Ilya can have multiple houses too. Ilya can buy property sight unseen. Ilya can buy SO MANY properties sight unseen that it’s actually kind of sickening and horrible.
He can tell his realtor isn’t totally sure what to do with him because Ilya hasn’t thought this through very well. He got as far as I can be like Shane Hollander before he was digging through his contacts for “Danny (HOUSE GUY)”.
So Danny (HOUSE GUY) is giving Ilya recommendations and Ilya just wants to yell at him to find him a nice house in Kansas City, Missouri to renovate and flip so he can make an amount of money that in the end will mean nothing to him. Ilya doesn’t yell, because Ilya is actually, he’d like to reiterate, pretty polite.
Danny recommends one property at a time and maybe it’s because he can sense the twinge of something insane in Ilya’s voice or general demeanor, but he also recommends that they meet in a month to discuss in detail.
Ilya: club 2nite?
Cliff: Nah
Ilya: why??????????????????????????????>>>>
Ilya: its as if i am not ur Best Friend
Cliff: My special lady friend is over.
Cliff: Special lady friend beats whatever you are.
Ilya: Best Friend….
Cliff: Why are you typing like that? Did someone steal your phone?
Ilya should get Dunkin Donuts. It’s Boston in the middle of January and he recently developed quite an affinity for iced coffee. His favorite, undeniably, is Dunkin’s Iced Cappuccino which is terrible and also by definition should not exist.
He picks his Porsche 911 Carrera which he considers one of his summer cars but it’s good in the snow. The All-Star game is in 2 weeks in Tampa. Ilya and Shane Hollander will be playing on the same team. He can get into the spirit with a summer car.
There’s a Dunkin pretty close to his house that would be significantly quicker to get to, but he’s on a first name basis with pretty much the entire staff at the one by Warrior Ice Arena, so he heads there instead.
This is the part that gets tricky. It’s the part that’s always a little bit tricky when he feels the way that he does right now. He doesn’t know how to describe it in a way that doesn’t make him sound terrible or murderous or suicidal. Terrible maybe, murderous not really, suicidal probably not right now.
But it’s this feeling he gets when he’s feeling like this where he’s behind the wheel of one of his cars and it’s this feeling he got when he was first learning to drive - which, whew, can he just say that was a fucked up experience - where almost all he can think about is turning the wheel and driving off the road, into oncoming traffic, or over a bridge.
What would Shane Hollander do if Ilya Rozanov died in a car crash?
Not that Ilya would. He’s a speedy driver, he takes advantage of the many advantages of his many, many cars. But he doesn’t have an actual death wish, he swears.
He’s driving very carefully in this moment. Two hands on the wheel. 9 and 3, because the word on the street is that that is better than 10 and 2. That is something he learned from Claudia, the 17 year old girl, hockey fan, and newly licensed driver who works at the Dunkin Donuts by the practice rink. She makes terrible iced cappuccinos (not that it’s physically possible to make a good one) and Ilya loves her.
He pulls into the Dunkin drive thru unscathed in his fully intact Porsche and he doesn’t need to breathe out a sigh of relief because he was never going to do anything, but he breathes one out anyways.
He orders and pulls around to the window and sees Claudia who lights up when she sees him and maybe this is because he tips well or maybe it’s because he’s Ilya Rozanov but Ilya wants to believe it’s just because he’s Ilya, a regular customer who is polite and friendly and normal and nice. Ilya who random fast food employees can be comfortable around and maybe even like even if he’s not enabling a sports betting addiction.
Claudia tells him that her AP Calc teacher is being a total asshole and of course Ilya remembers the last time Mr. Howard was being a total asshole because this Mr. Howard guy really sounds like a piece of work. She hands him his large drink and takes his credit card and he can feel the line forming behind him but he really does not want to go. He wants to stay and he wants to talk to Mrs. Barbara, the 45-year-old manager who runs this place like some sort of military operation but who is also very sweet. Mrs. Barbara is good at advice. Maybe Mrs. Barbara could fix him.
When he pulls out of the Dunkin Donuts drive thru, he has no idea where to go. Home? That’s ridiculous. There is nothing for him there. That’s not a place he belongs.
He thinks of times he has felt like he did belong, even for fractions of a second, and he hates the answer. He hates the answer so much as he finds himself heading out of the city. Out of the city and onto the highway. Out of the city, onto the highway, heading north.
Ilya doesn’t get a chance to road trip very often or even at all. Sometimes they’re in a bus, sure, for the shorter drives or when the weather is so bad they can’t fly. He’s not even totally familiar with how to properly road trip, how to get into the spirit of a road trip, beyond what he’s seen in movies. This probably won’t be like one of his favorite movies of all time Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
And maybe this is a bad idea or even one of the worst ideas he’s ever had. It’s like there’s a little Polly Pocket-sized Ilya inside his head banging on a door or a window begging and pleading to stop him. But it’s that fucking feeling again, that feeling like there’s some kind of technology, or current, or magnet in his body pulling him towards that worst decision ever.
He needs music. God, music. Music had to be like top 3 inventions ever. Cars. The beautiful tapestry of bisexuality even though it’s ruining his life. Music. Loud music, specifically. Headache inducing, horrible music to be exact.
The worst part of a road trip, Ilya quickly learns, is that it is an astronomically long amount of time to be alone with your thoughts. And when nearly every thought is just some variation of Shane Hollander…
Shane Hollander’s face in the showers so, so long ago.
Shane Hollander’s hands in his hair.
Shane Hollander looking smug and victorious after a win against Boston.
Shane Hollander looking soft and strong and delicate all at the same time.
Shane Hollander fitting in his life, slotting perfectly in between his CDs and his sock drawer and the people that matter the most.
Ilya is used to unwanted, terrible thoughts. Somehow, the violent ones are so much easier to handle.
Time passes at some kind of speed that means some kind of nothing to him and he finds himself in Vermont, well into Vermont, actually when his mind starts to ping with some kind of awareness. It’s like the Polly Pocket Ilya got a knife and is carving “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” and “WHAT WILL YOU SAY?” and “WHAT IS THE ACTUAL GOAL HERE, MAN?” on his brain matter.
And despite Ilya’s best efforts, somewhere in the middle of Vermont, he’s forced to have a critical thought.
Ilya doesn’t even know Shane Hollander’s real address. Even if he did, what would he do? Go up to the front door? Stare through the window trying to get a good view of Shane Hollander doing whatever the fuck in the house he never wanted Ilya to see?
Ilya can see himself standing helplessly on the front stoop. Or in a tree, holding onto branches for dear life outside the bedroom window. It’s sick. It’s so, so sick.
Ilya is only distantly aware that he’s not the only one on the road when he slams the brake, and it’s so distantly that he barely even processes the Toyota Corolla behind him expertly dodging what should have been an inevitable crash.
His Porsche comes to a complete stop on I-89 and his chest caves in and he wills the trees on either side of the interstate to set on fire.
Ottawa. April. 2021.
Ilya should be wildly, incandescently happy right now. In some ways, he is! Undeniably he is. Undeniably there are so many good things and he is so grateful and he is going to be MARRIED and he is going to be in love for the rest of his life with Shane Hollander, with his Shane.
And sure, they’re out of the playoffs but they had made it to the playoffs in the first place. They made it to the playoffs, his perfect, beautiful team knows he’s getting married to Shane, and Shane knows there’s something wrong with him and loves him anyway.
So. Ilya should be wildly, incandescently happy.
Zane Boodram is hosting a barbecue and this time, because things have changed for the better in every way, Ilya is there and Shane is there with him and, God, Ilya should be so much happier.
Ilya is on the couch next to Harris and he can’t take his eyes off Shane across the room chatting with Troy. Shane looks reserved, but also kind of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a way that would have Ilya falling in love with him all over again if he could. Troy and Shane being friends. It made sense.
“They’re cute, huh?” Harris says, nudging Ilya’s shoulder.
“Oh, yes. Very cute. Tell your boyfriend to not try and steal my boyfriend though, yes? Would be very bad for both of us.”
“You guys keep calling each other ‘boyfriend’. Fiancé, Ilya. Words have meanings!” Harris scoffs with a big grin and takes a sip of cider.
“It is debatable how much the English language means to me, Harris,” Ilya says with a soft smile.
They both look at their partners and don’t say anything else until Harris taps Ilya on the upper arm and says he’s headed to the patio.
The feeling - the bone deep sadness feeling - is different when Ilya has everything he could ever want. There isn’t a thing he can hold onto to justify it. He can’t say if he just had this, if he just got rid of that, he’d be normal. And yes, Ilya knows there’s something wrong with him. But he had also sort of wondered if it was entirely situational. If his whole life he just kept finding himself in situations that left certain things to be desired from, like, a sanity or mood standpoint. Situations like losing his mom, like hating and then losing his father too, like resisting the best thing that could ever happen to him for so long.
He’s full of sludge that has nothing to cling to.
He could drink a lot and try to be normal. This, of course, occurs to him. But he’s trying to be well adjusted, and it wouldn’t make Shane happy, and if he’s being really honest with himself it wouldn’t make him anything close to happy either.
Ilya really is trying very hard to be responsible. It’s easier now that he has someone to be responsible for, someone counting on him. But still hard sometimes.
A wildly popular song by a new teen girl pop sensation comes on and Ilya has the sneaking suspicion that someone took their eyes off the bluetooth speaker and Dykstra took over. Ilya has heard this song before because Jade and Ruby have a dance routine for it.
Ilya wants to find Wyatt. Well, he wants to grab Shane and pull Shane to the car and have Shane drive him home and then lay on top of Shane motionless for 45 minutes. But more than that he wants Shane to get to know (grow to love) his teammates. So, finding Wyatt would have to do.
But - and this is a big but - there is an anchor tied to Ilya’s waist that seems to have found its way to the basement and now Ilya is fighting against gravity just to remain seated upright on this very, very expensive couch.
This fucking sucks.
He stares at Shane some more. Shane’s freckles. Shane’s strong, beautiful, sturdy body. He feels like he can see inside him, too, past the skin. Shane’s huge heart. Shane’s fascinating mind. Shane’s bones, holding him up.
Ilya’s in love with the one person he’s ever been in love with and will ever be in love with and he doesn’t even have to pretend he’s not anymore. Not to Shane, not to his team, not to the entire fucking world. Shane is in love with him. That’s the part that really takes his breath away, makes him giddy sometimes. Makes him feel like maybe he’s not going to be a burden. Like maybe he isn’t currently, always, in every moment, a huge fucking burden.
Shane finally looks over and makes eye contact with Ilya and Ilya’s wonderfully useless heart grows a million sizes and sings and, through the terrible sludge and the rusted, faulty parts his mind settles into a peaceful hum.
Shane smiles, big and wide, nose scrunching in a silent giggle when Ilya pokes his tongue out at him.
The anchor lightens up a little bit, maybe. Ilya feels like he could probably stand now. Feels like he could probably drag Shane to the bathroom and make out with him a little bit. A kiss (many kisses) for his trouble (many troubles).
He gestures for Shane to come over to him and Shane complies with a grin, seemingly so happy to obey.
“Help me up,” Ilya says, straightforward, taking Shane’s hands in his.
“What? Are you okay?” Shane asks, curious.
“Pull. Lift,” Ilya says, breaking eye contact, looking anywhere but Shane’s face. “Please.”
And Shane obeys again.
Ottawa. October. 2021.
Shane knows Ilya down to the studs. That is to say, he knows him inside and out. And Shane takes great pleasure in knowing and many years ago, he even started taking pleasure in being known.
There was a time, many years in fact, where Shane seemed to know more about Ilya than he thought he did, but still not very much, and still like he was behind some kind of curtain or maybe even a multiple inch thick steel retaining wall. And sure, the wall would sometimes have a door or a window or a little tiny hole to peek through but it was still very much a wall and Shane was still very much on the other side of it.
Now, there’s no wall, no curtain, no boundaries at all. Much to the dismay of his new team, the Ottawa Centaurs, and much to the absolute delight of the love of his life and fire in his loins (sorry), Ilya Rozanov.
But since Ilya started his anti-depressant, Ilya has been weird. Like really fucking, sorry, but like off his fucking rocker weird.
The team doctor told Ilya that it could take up to six weeks for him to see results, to just hold on and keep hanging in there, to keep going to therapy. Shane could not fathom ever telling the Montreal team doctor that he had a therapist. Not that he has or needs one. But the Ottawa Centaurs are much kinder, much softer, and much more accepting of the not normal. Well, not that anyone isn’t normal or that there’s a normal in the first place or like, fuck, okay. You know what he means.
Basically, Shane’s husband (Shane really likes saying it...husband) started taking an SSRI and two weeks later had a super speeder ticket, a whole new wardrobe, a whole new wardrobe for Shane, and a consultation with an architect and a contractor to renovate the entire Ottawa house.
The wardrobe for Shane included ladies lingerie which Shane is not saying he would have entirely opposed, he’s just saying he would have liked to have a conversation before Ilya crash landed with no disguise in a Victoria’s Secret in whatever kind of mood this was. Articles were written. Or, one article, at least.
Shane tried to take this all in stride. At least Ilya wasn’t depressed. He had seemed happy, maybe? Happy, kind of? Not depressed, maybe not happy, but some third, strange thing.
Ilya also hadn’t been, and yes, Shane had been concerned, sleeping. Like, nearly at all. If he was in bed, they were having sex or he was on his phone or watching TV and somehow still in motion (leg shaking, foot tapping, toe scrunching?).
He was taking long walks at who knows when in the morning. He was cooking wildly elaborate meals and making large messes in the kitchen that Shane was responsible for. That was another thing! It was like Ilya had become totally blind to any mess left behind. Shane was close to following him around with a trash can and a broom as Ilya tornadoed his way through the house.
Now, another couple weeks later, a despondent Ilya and a deeply freaked out Shane are missing mandatory practice. Last night, Ilya had finally slept, and now he wouldn’t - or, couldn’t - get up.
“Ilya,” Shane whispered, lying down next to him to meet him on even ground. “моя любовь” My love.
Shane brought his hand up to Ilya’s head and played with his curls, burrowing his fingers close to Ilya’s scalp.
“Can you talk to me, please? Just say anything?”
Ilya gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“Too much? Okay,” Shane said. “Okay, just stay right here for me, okay?”
Shane exits the room, pulls up Coach Wiebe’s contact on his phone, and dials.
“Hollander?” Coach Wiebe answers immediately. “Everything OK? We tried to get in contact but didn’t want to bother if-”
“Yeah, sorry. We’re alright. Ilya’s a little under the weather. I’m just going to take care of him and I’ll let you know when we’ll be back.”
“Okay, Shane,” Coach Wiebe says, still sounding concerned, “Keep me posted. Tell Rozanov to feel better, okay?”
“I will, Coach,” Shane needs to get off the phone. “Thanks, see you.”
Shane is not used to missing practice. Really not used to tolerating anyone else missing practice, either. But this feels so…it’s so scary to see Ilya like that. Ilya who kept this side of him away from Shane for so long.
Shane doesn’t know what to do so he does the only thing he knows how to do. He googles.
Antidepressant makes me crazy
Antidepressant impulsive behavior
Antidepressant made me spend a lot of money and now i cant get out of bed
Weirdly, that one yields the most productive results. Shane reads through the results, clicks some links, reads some more. Information gathering, he can do. Research, he can do. He can help.
He ends up on a page about hypomania, and then mania, and then post-mania depression, and then bipolar disorder. Shane’s not a doctor or a therapist, and he’s not in Ilya’s head. But, and he takes great pleasure in this, Shane Hollander knows Ilya Rozanov extremely well, down to the studs, inside and out.
What he’s reading about. It resonates. Is all he’s saying.
Shane goes back into the bedroom. Ilya hasn’t moved and Shane joins him back on the bed, this time wrapping his arms around Ilya and using his Best Hockey Player in the NHL strength to pull his beautiful, sad Second Best Hockey Player in the NHL into him until they’re flush against each other.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he rocks them side to side, one hand in Ilya’s hair again and the other, sturdy against his back, holding Ilya close to him.
Sometimes, when Shane is really messed up, he can’t stand being touched. He hopes that’s not how Ilya feels right now. Hopes Ilya would pull away if that was the case.
He kisses Ilya’s forehead right at his hairline.
My love, my love, my love.
Epilogue. Tampa (for some reason). Late June. 2022.
This isn’t the best day of Ilya Rozanov’s life, but it’s a top contender. There are a handful of days in Ilya’s life that could stand to battle it out for the number one spot, but Ilya would rather appreciate them all as they are without comparing.
But this is pretty fucking cool.
Sure, Ilya had already won a Stanley Cup. So, maybe Wyatt, Troy, Luca, and everyone else are having an even better day than Ilya. Shane had already won three, maybe he doesn’t even care.
By the way Shane Hollander’s tongue is currently down Ilya’s throat, Ilya doubts that this is the case.
Ilya pulls his mouth away from Shane’s and is already missing the contact. But he has to look at Shane’s face, has to look at his teammates' faces, has to look at the dejected, miserable Tampa Bay fans in the stands and the smaller collection of Ottawa fans screaming their heads off. Winning has never, ever been so sweet.
Ilya Rozanov has been on mood stabilizers for 7 months and it’s been the normalest and most extraordinary half year of his life.
Ilya Rozanov has been married to Shane Hollander for almost a full year. He’s been in a committed relationship with him for almost five. He’s been in love with him, or something close to it, for 12. He’s been ferociously obsessed with him for 14.
Ilya Rozanov knows the back of Shane Hollander’s hand better than he knows the ins and outs of his own mind and he thanks the God he sometimes, he thinks, believes in every day for how that hand has held him and guided him and moved him towards better things for all of those fourteen years.