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There was probably a saying somewhere out there that getting drunk with your best friend's partner without them was, universally, a bad idea.
Unfortunately, Hayden Pike lacked that level of cultural knowledge and sensitivity and got absolutely wasted with Ilya while Shane slept peacefully at home.
If the saying did, however, exist, he was sure there'd be an equally important one stating that getting drunk with your partner's best friend without them was, universally, really fucking stupid. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, or whatever they said in high school physics.
And most importantly, Hayden refused to be the sole victim of Shane’s wrath once he found out they'd ended up crying on the sticky bathroom floor of some Boston dive bar. So this was, surely, most definitely, both of their faults.
The thing was that, contrary to popular belief, there is a limit to Ilya's alcohol tolerance. Even worse, when he hit it, he got teary. Out of absolutely fucking nowhere, too— the line was thin and consisted of exactly one (one) shot of cheap vodka (he refused to do tequila).
Point: Ilya Rozanov was an emotional drunk.
Point: This was probably Hayden's personal hell and karmic punishment for being on the road too much.
So Ilya Rozanov was crying, and Hayden was absolutely not equipped to handle it because he was, on principle, an absolute fucking bitch to his best friend's boyfriend. Which he couldn't really do to a person as they wailed on a bathroom floor. He had limits. Don't kick men when they're down and all that. Or puppies— don't kick puppies.
Hayden was not in the business of kicking anything, especially not six-foot-something puppies whose brains were probably suffering as much as their livers. So basically, he had to be nice to Ilya. Because he was Ilya now. They'd decided.
(“Ilya,” Rozanov slurred, “call me Ilya.”
They were somewhere between their fourth and fifteenth shot because Ilya had loudly declared he could do twenty without surpassing tipsy, and leaving young athletes alone after game nights to party was never a good idea. Still, Rozanov was fun for a party, even if Hayden had lost count of drinks and was absolutely forced to go by Shane’s ridiculous cow eyes.
“Not sure I can do that, man,” he called right back, swaying forward. “It feels like… personal.”
“Pike,” he screeched back, absolutely no volume control, right into his eardrum, “we’ve known each other for years, yes?”
“I don’t know if slamming into each other into the boards counts, Ilya,” he giggled, almost falling forward except Ilya had caught him, and Ilya— He was Ilya now.
This was the kind of decision a man made drunk at two in the morning and could never turn, much less look, back from.)
Back to being nice to Ilya:
“Man, I'm gonna call Shane so you stop crying.”
He was not being very successful.
So far!
So far, because he could totally turn it around:
“Come on, I'm sure he'd get out of bed and come pick you up if we asked.”
Somehow, that made Ilya cry harder.
Hayden was not turning it around.
He was making it worse.
He was basically clocking into the kicking-puppies-when-they're-down factory. Kicking one-legged, one-eyed, orphaned grandpa puppies. Post-Soviet puppies. Terrible.
New approach: embarrassing, post-comedown, gaping honesty.
He lowered his voice, overshooting to soothing Arthur to sleep when he was overstimulated, so when he inevitably failed to talk to Rozanov like a very adorable small child, he’d land a few leagues below in gentle or even kind.
“Why don’t you want me to call Shane?”
It definitely landed on you’re trying!
“Don’t want to bother him,” he sniffled. “Needs rest. Give me second.”
Hayden hummed. He could totally give Ilya a second.
They sat together on the bathroom floor until Ilya stopped crying, and Hayden, who was half-witted but not completely braindead, didn’t ask for the real reason he wouldn’t call Shane. The moment lasted between twenty minutes and an hour because drunk people were terrible at telling time.
Eventually, they were on the dance floor, and in an Uber, and at Ilya’s Boston apartment crashing, and really— he wasn’t that bad.
They didn’t know this then, but it was the beginning of the end.
(๑///๑) ⊹｡˚
The next time Hayden saw Ilya wasted, it was two years into his move to Ottawa, and they were, much to both their chagrins, friends. Real friends: the kind that call each other about gossip, relationship advice, and personal problems past hockey. Ilya was, sadly, funny, kind, and thoughtful.
It was horrible for their reputations. They’d been caught hanging out more than once, both publicly and privately. They had a tag on hockey stan Twitter. Jackie and Shane sent each other edits. To their misfortune, neither of them did anything about it except saying they totally, for sure, completely couldn’t stand each other for real.
Point: shitty Boston dive bar part two. Electric fucking bugaloo.
Point: Ilya Rozanov screaming Hayden, bathroom at the top of his lungs with a shit-eating grin that they both knew was gonna feed social media for weeks.
The bar had not changed, and neither had its bathroom.
The floor was still sticky, and honestly, it was a miracle that they’d still frequent a place like it at their grown age, but Hayden hated partying with the Metros, and the Centaurs had offered. He was taking advantage. He was seeing his friend. He was being so normal about Ilya being his friend. Shane and Jackie were laughing somewhere.
Hayden was a short-sighted, stupid man, and retracted his statement from two years ago about being brain-dead. He, most definitely, was.
Because by some extremely predictable, very easily seen coming, not at all surprising twist of fate, Ilya Rozanov dropped to the floor and started crying.
Man.
“I die alone,” he wailed, top of his lungs, loud enough that Hayden was hoping no one saw them go in together because they’d think Ilya was being murdered.
Alcohol is a depressant. Jackie always said this. Ilya is depressed. Shane always said this. Hayden needed to re-examine his life choices and maybe get his friend on prozac.
If he had to rank people in order of likeliness to die alone, Roger Crowell would probably be number one, and Ilya Rozanov would come in like, dead last.
He said as much.
It was, once again, not appreciated.
“Pike,” he glared, “you are being ridiculous.”
Hayden was struck between a strange mix of wanting to swaddle him and making the most out of the circumstance to buy a gun. Carpe diem. When in Rome. It would put them out of their joint misery.
He did neither, and Ilya kept talking.
He was strangely touched. It was mostly outweighed by worry and the feeling he was going to be making good use of the toilet to puke his guts out any minute but still. It was sweet.
“Pike,” he declared, pausing like that was the statement within itself.
Then, he looked straight at him with the kind of somber expression of someone saying you have three days to live, or Jackie is leaving you, or Shane Hollander is joining the Centaurs.
But Hayden was living to see another day because he shook his head and his face crumbled all over again. This did not make him feel better.
“Pike, when Shane leaves me—”
Very suddenly, Hayden considered forcing his best friend to open up more.
“When?” He spluttered.
Ilya just looked annoyed at the interruption and proceeded to explain absolutely nothing. “When Shane leaves me, I will have no one left.”
Oh.
Oh fuck. Fuck, Jesus, dammit, shit, fuck.
Hayden was going to have to murder Shane.
They needed Shane on their first line. What would he tell the team? Or his kids? Or, worst of all, Yuna?
Sorry, guys, Ilya was crying and I was drunk so like, one thing led to another and— yeah, no sorry, you had to be there. No, no, he totally deserved it. Yeah, yes, I'll plead guilty, don't worry about it—
“Shane is leaving you?”
Ilya huffed. “Not yet.”
Hayden relaxed, soaking back in the glory of being an innocent man who wasn't committing premeditated murder. This did not help Ilya make more sense, though.
“Is why I say when, Pike, keep up,” because of course Ilya Rozanov would have time for snark amidst his own mental breakdowns. “I am scared. I don't want him to leave me when he sees I am— this.”
Fuck.
Okay.
Okay, they were doing this.
Ilya needed water and around three kilos of grease if they were doing this. Hayden himself probably needed a lobotomy.
This is how he ended up leaning over the bar, staring at some poor grad student with thick black bangs, purple lipstick, and a permanent look of annoyance.
“I will pay you so much money for a big ass plate of anything oily.”
She looked unimpressed, tapping a piece of paper taped to the wall behind her— slightly yellowed with hastily scribbled pencil naming like four food options.
“We have frozen fries for five dollars.”
Good enough.
With that, Ilya and Hayden were sitting on either side of a toilet where they'd probably catch gonorrhea, sharing a plate of fries while Hayden forced water down Ilya's throat ‘like rabid badger’.
“Shane would kill us,” Ilya whimpered, sounding no less miserable but slightly more sober.
“What Shane doesn't know won't hurt us.”
“Expression is not hurt him, yes?”
Hayden snorted. “Uh, yeah, man, but we're definitely the ones getting hurt if Shane finds out.”
Apparently, they were in agreement because Ilya just nodded and shoved another potential-STD-transmittor fry into his mouth. Sadly.
“He is so hot when angry,” he sighed in the same wistful cadence a more normal person would've said literally anything else.
“Okay, man,” Hayden agreed, definitely feeling more sober after this. “What's going on?”
“Shane will leave me,” Ilya repeated. This time slower. As if Hayden was the insane one.
“... Okay. Why?”
At that, the man regained enough of his signature all-Russian terror and fixed the nastiest look he could muster at him. It was less intimidating with his flush, tear-tracked cheeks, and sullen expression. Still. Solid effort.
“You are seeing me right now, yes?”
“Shane's not gonna leave you because we're lying half-drunk at three AM on a dirty bathroom floor in some bar in Boston while you cry about... whatever this is.”
Except okay, Hayden heard how that sounded.
“Is the everything, Pike,” he insisted, shaking his head. “I come with problems. Am fucked.”
“Ilya—”
“No. No, this is true. You know this is true. You hate me, you want Shane to leave.” He shrugged weakly. “I do not blame you.”
Hayden considered getting up and walking straight into Boston Bay. Fully jog into the ocean and see if he drowned.
“Ilya…”
“Pike, there is no simple with me, you understand? I am like Mama. I will always be sad, this will not change— These feelings will not leave. I cannot be fixed. Is difficult person to be with.”
When Ilya was really out of it, his English started slipping, his accent got thicker, and grammar ran away from him. He’d confessed once, wine-warmed over dinner, that he found it horribly embarrassing, like someone was always waiting for him to falter, to point out his own stupidity. He never let his guard down.
Back then, it seemed like a ridiculous thought; as if anyone could ever think Ilya was stupid.
Now, it was difficult to breathe.
“You’re talking about a version of me that hasn’t existed since 2017,” he sighed, horribly disappointed in himself; equal parts vindicated in his own decisions and heartbroken that he’d come to care for Ilya so much.
“But it existed,” he refuted, a futile attempt at a gotcha that his sober self never would have made. “You see something others did not… maybe you are right.”
“Uh, no, man,” Hayden snorted, a little incredulous, still, “I saw tabloids and interviews and the faces of my teammates as they were slammed so hard into the boards their faces bled.”
“Is still me, no?”
Okay, new approach.
“Ilya. Do you remember Vegas 2014?”
He didn’t respond, but judging by the way he winced, Hayden assumed he remembered it just as well as Shane did. Some small, mean part of him thought good.
“Yeah,” he shuddered, “yeah, I do too. Shane and I shared a hotel… Jackie had just had the twins, and I was suddenly scared of sleeping alone. Like I was the toddler, huh?”
He laughed; neither of them found it funny.
“Shane is good, he said he’d share with me even if he was there for an award and I was just some guy on his team… He looked fucking haunted when he got back, man. I couldn’t get him to stop shaking; he was completely gone, and it scared me fucking shitless. He apologized to me, you know? Fuck, I wanted to break every bone in your hand.”
If possible, Ilya looked even more pained, crying softly now, silent tears staining his face. Hayden swallowed through the lump in his own throat and tried to continue. He still remembered, like a heavy physical thing, how angry he’d been.
“All I knew was he’d visited Boston Lily,” he frowned, “and I hated her. I wanted to kill her. I’m not that much of an idiot, you know? I knew where he was going. It took a solid hour to accept nothing had happened.”
Ilya flinched like Hayden had hit him. He got on all fours and crawled across the disgusting bathroom in his new clothes he’d have to burn after until he reached Ilya and wrapped his arms around him as tight as he could.
“I didn’t know you then,” he shook his head, pulling him in by the shoulders. Stubbornly, Ilya refused to fold.
“You are only proving my point,” Ilya whined, making the small concession of leaving his forehead against Hayden’s shoulder.
“No, let me finish,” he insisted, tightening his grip slightly. “In December 2019, Shane called me in the middle of the night, crying, saying he’d fought with you, and I… Ilya, I was so mad.”
“Pike, this is really not good argument for why you do not hate me—”
“Let me finish,” he snipped. “I was angry at Shane, man. I knew you by this point, you were my wife’s best friend, my children’s uncle, and you were all alone in another country on Christmas with no one to call your own, and for a second, I saw red.”
Finally, Ilya folded into him, holding onto Hayden like a lifeline, some strange tension breaking between them, shaking his head and babbling incoherencies about how he’d deserved it, how he shouldn’t take his side.
“It was so unfair, you know? That everything had to be on Shane’s terms… who you told, when, why. I almost ripped him a new one.”
Into his shirt, Ilya mumbled, “do not be mean to my Shane.”
“I wasn’t,” he laughed, finding the memory bittersweet in hindsight, “but it was the night I realized that sometimes you’ll fuck up and sometimes he will; that sometimes Shane will be the one to leave you crying alone to scare your best friends shitless. I was worried sick about you.”
“What?” Ilya snorted. “Your reputation is in shambles, Pike.”
“Yeah, man, worrying about my friend will really do me in.”
“I was worse—”
“It’s not a competition,” he snapped immediately. It was simply a line of thought he wasn’t willing to entertain. The night stretched on endlessly. “You both hurt each other. It happened. Now it’s done. My point is I know you now— we’re not in Vegas, and it’s not 2014, just like we’re not in Montreal, and it’s not 2019. Things change.”
For a moment, they were both quiet; Ilya curled into him, trying to steady his breathing, and Hayden hoping he hadn’t somehow made everything ten thousand times worse.
“You are shit at comfort, Pike.”
“Yeah,” he agreed easily, “thank God for Jackie.”
“But even if you are right—”
“I am.”
“— even if I am not bad—”
“You aren’t.”
“— I am still difficult person to be with. This is fact.”
“Uh, no, that’s an opinion,” he corrected, “and Shane’s a big boy. He can make decisions for himself. Including if you’re too difficult to be with or not.”
“I just don’t want to be alone, I think,” he admitted, in the same small voice that made Hayden think of his kids. He held an unfortunate amount of fondness for Ilya in that moment.
“Wel, you treat Shane well and you make him happy. That’s all that matters.” He only hesitated for a second before adding, “even in some completely unreal universe where Shane left you tomorrow, you’d still have people in your corner.”
Ilya bristled immediately. “Sveta does not count—”
“She absolutely does, and I’m telling her you said that,” Hayden grinned, “but I didn’t mean Svetlana.”
“Marly is in Boston, and I am not close with Centaurs, and they do not know anyway, I would never betray Shane by telling them even if he left me—”
“Jackie’s gonna be so offended,” he teased, missing a bit of normalcy in their conversation. “And actually so am I, man, what the fuck? Does our plate of cholera fries mean nothing to you? I was totally gonna murder our star center for your honor and everything.”
Ilya abruptly pulled back and looked at Hayden like he’d lost it. “You are Shane’s friends.”
“Come on, bud, I think you can say we’re friends too by now.”
“Pike, did you hit your head?”
For a brief moment, Hayden was forced to reckon with the idea that, like a particularly unlucky middle schooler, he’d somehow hallucinated almost two years of friendship with Ilya.
“Uh, dude,” he giggled, a bit frantic, “you know we’re friends, right?”
“Yes,” he conceded, “but you are Shane’s friend more.”
“Ilya, buddy, we’d be friends even if you guys broke up tomorrow.”
“I—,” he frowned. Paused. “What?”
“What do you mean what?!” Hayden wheezed. “We’re cuddling on the floor of a disgusting bathroom at like three AM! What the hell did you think this was?”
“Canadians are strange?” He offered, blinking like he was trying to process this information while simultaneously realizing that, yeah, the question was idiotic. “... We are friends.”
“Yeah.”
“You and Jackie would be friends even without Shane.”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
“Don’t hm me, man, what the hell? I wasn’t giving you a pep talk for fun.”
“Was hardly a pep talk,” Ilya shot back. “Was depressing as shit, Pike.”
“Not the point!”
“Yes, yes, point is you are good friend and also in love with me. I understand.”
Despite himself, Hayden relaxed. “There you are, you fucking asshole.”
Finally, Ilya’s laugh rang through the room.