Chapter Text
“Whatcha lookin’ at, Rozzy-boy?”
Ilya nearly drops his tablet in his haste to lock the screen, which in this case is about the least helpful reaction he could have. Damn. But it’s too late, because Marly is making himself comfortable on the cushy team plane seat next to Ilya, leering at him.
“Oh, that indecent, huh?”
“You are indecent,” Ilya grumbles. “I do not know why I am friends with you.”
“Because you’re my Rozzy-Roz.” Marly grins, jostling Ilya’s shoulder. “I don’t think you really got a choice.”
Ilya rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t pull away from Marly’s touch. “You are worst thing that has happened to me.”
“Eh.” Marly tosses his head, that shit-eating grin still on his face. “I would have picked that shut-out two games ago. Or your minus-three tonight. Or, y’know, getting drafted onto the worst team in the league in the first place.”
“First overall, babyyyy,” Ilya sing-songs, and tries not to think about everything that comes with that particular distinction. Like the constant losing. He’d thought he’d be prepared for it, but – well. It’s something, that’s for sure.
“But, you cannot distract me, Rozzy-babe.” Marly grins again as Ilya rolls his eyes. He can’t help it. Technically, he knows better than to complain about the various nicknames Marly comes up with, because that only makes him worse, but – Rozzy-babe? “What were ya lookin’ at? Some hot nudes? Share with the class!”
“Get your own hot nudes.” Ilya tightens his grip on his tablet. “Or are you saying that is too hard for you?”
Marly just laughs the insult off. “Nah, it’s just easier – after all, why should I, when I could just bother you? No homo, bro.”
Ilya rolls his eyes again. “Nothing. You just surprised me.”
“Aww, that means I’ve been neglecting you! Wanna watch something together?”
Ilya reaches for his tablet, though he remembers what will be on his screen just before he unlocks it. “Actually, I think I will just nap.”
Marly turns to face Ilya and raises both eyebrows in disbelief. “You. Napping. On the plane. That will put us back on home soil in an hour. You really want me to believe you’d fuck your sleep schedule like that?”
Fuck.
Before Ilya can come up with a believable lie, Marly sighs. “Fine, keep your secrets. I will get them out of you eventually. Til then – I’ll grab my gum and tablet, and I’ll even go over tape with you.”
Ilya’s face scrunches up in a grimace without his conscious input. He schools his features, but he knows the damage is done. “No. You win. Let us watch some stupid show.”
“Aww, Rozzy-snoz, you really know the way to my heart.”
Ilya shudders exaggeratedly, but it is kind of nice to settle in with Marly at his side, some American serial playing between them while they share a pair of earbuds.
It’s lonely, is the thing. Being at the top, being the outstanding generational talent. The fact that Ilya is European – and worse, Russian – does not help. Flamboyant, the commentators say. Exuberant, the press writes, and it’s clear that it’s not a compliment. Always good for a laugh, Carts told a reporter the other day, and Ilya couldn’t help but feel Carts was talking about laughing at him, not with him.
He’d thought it would be different, coming to the MLH. That he would finally be among peers.
But there’s something about being the heralded first overall draft-pick, the long-awaited sensation from Russia, starting in the league after a full season was lost to a lockout, that is like a neon flare permanently attached to Ilya.
At least, that’s what it feels like. Certainly, none of the other first-rounders appear to feel anything similar.
Meanwhile Marly, loath as Ilya is to admit it, is a god-send. He doesn’t care that there’s an invisible perimeter around Ilya that Ilya can’t seem to shake. He doesn’t care that the coaches chastise Ilya for everything from his nutrition to his partying to his socialising, which is both too much and too little. He doesn’t care that Ilya is being held up as an example to follow and a warning how not to act, and still being talked about like it’s a given that he’ll be the next captain.
Talk about mixed-messages from the coaches on that one, seriously.
Marly came in at the trade-deadline during Ilya’s rookie season last year, saw Ilya, and decided they were a package deal. Which involves watching tape together, and stupid serials, and going for dinner that is not on the meal plan but closer than what Ilya would get for himself, probably, and working out on adjacent machines in the weight room.
Even if his taste in shows is seriously bad.
“It wasn’t porn,” Marly declares as they deplane.
“What wasn’t porn?” Cons asks, slinging an arm around Ilya’s shoulders even though he’s a good four inches shorter than Ilya. Well, it’s only two according to his Wikipedia, but everyone knows how accurate that is. Connors is a new addition from the off-season, and he also hasn’t gotten the memo that Ilya is untouchable. Ilya bumps their shoulders together, though he keeps it soft enough not to dislodge Cons.
“Rozzy-Roz is keeping secrets,” Marly sing-songs.
“Secrets?” Cons cranes his head to fix Ilya with his eyes gleaming. “What kind of secrets?”
Never mind, Marly is definitely not a god-send. “I do not keep secrets.”
Both of them scoff, in unison.
“Just because I do not yell every thought –”
“Roz,” Cons interrupts, like he isn’t a new guy on the team. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think you’ve encountered an inside-thought yet. You just don’t think about certain things, noodle-brain.”
They all crack up, though Ilya is pretty certain they’re not laughing about the same things right then. He loves both of them, but sometimes, he cannot fathom how he keeps fooling them. Then again, neither of them grew up in an entirely different system until they were drafted first over all to save an ailing franchise.
“Anyway, I don’t think it’s porn, because I know you wouldn’t be ashamed about that.”
Damn. There goes hoping that Marly would let it drop.
“And I don’t think it was nudes, because a couple days ago, you couldn’t wait to show them to me.”
“Maybe was special nudes,” Ilya suggests.
Marly snorts.
“Maybe it was a new healthy meal,” Cons suggests. “Would ruin his reputation.”
“Hey!” Ilya complains. “I am professional athlete, I keep my body in form.”
“You’ve just turned twenty. I’m pretty sure your body doesn’t yet care what you put in it and just keeps in form by itself.”
Ilya rolls his eyes. Like Marly isn’t just a couple years older than Ilya himself. “You are just jealous of my smokin’ hot bod.” He winks.
“It wasn’t tape, because we usually watch that together,” Marly continues without taking the bait. “So. Not porn, not tape, not nudes.” He gasps, theatrically. “Oh god! Roz, don’t tell me you have a girlfriend!”
“You have a girlfriend,” Ilya retorts, which is the weakest response ever, but then they’re finally in the parking lot and he can make his escape. Not very dignified, no, but better than enduring more ribbing.
Ilya manages to get all the way to his post-game snack being in the oven before he pulls out his tablet again. His fingers aren’t shaking as he unlocks it, because that would be ludicrous, but his heart does speed up a little in anticipation.
That is also ludicrous. At least there’s no one here to tell.
The screen lights up, the app he’d been on on the plane still open. Except instead of the stream he’d been on, there’s only a purple still now. The account’s name, sh24_hockey, is splashed over it, repeating again and again. A little grey rectangle tells him, Offline.
Disappointment settles sharply into Ilya’s gut. Damn Marly and his distractions.
He scowls at the screen, and then stops.
Offline, it says, yes. But underneath, it continues, Check out this BOS vs OTT — Analysis stream from 2 hours ago.
Ilya’s pulse kicks up up another notch as he taps the square. It opens on the video he’d been on before Marly had interrupted him quite so rudely: grainy broadcast footage that’s unlikely to be from a legal site. No personal camera, no fancy layout showing the chat and subscribers or chat commands. Just old-fashioned colour commentary-style. Ilya tabs back, suddenly curious.
Okay, it’s no wonder – the channel looks pretty new, just two VODs uploaded, and there’s two lone subscribers. Wow. What a loser.
Still, he can’t help but click back into that stream of the game they’d just played against Ottawa. The streamer’s mic is just as shitty as the footage, but his voice has a soothing quality, and Ilya almost lets that lull him into a strange sort of calm as he pulls his fries from the oven.
Almost.
Because then the broadcast shows this nifty little steal Ilya made earlier, and sh24_hockey stops on that frame. “Sloppy play from Rozanov here,” he announces through the staticky background noise, which – what?
Ilya abandons his food on the counter to grab his tablet, absentmindedly shoving two fries into his mouth. That had been a beaut of a move, in his opinion. It hadn’t led to a goal, but they’d been able to get a line-change without Ottawa scoring. Pulling that off should have been a low bar but didn’t feel like it tonight.
“You can see here –” sh24_hockey draws jerky, nearly incomprehensible lines on his screen while Ilya scowls at the diagram that’s supposed to be about a scoring chance on that play. It’s absolute bullshit, of course. He knows there was no way to turn this into a goal, no matter what this stupid sh24_hockey says, and – who even is this guy anyway? Some armchair coach who thinks he’s the next hottest thing?
He has a scathing reply on his tongue, ready to translate it via his fingers, when he finds out that you cannot reply to a VOD. Fuck.
The best thing would be to drop it. But – the guy talks so fucking confidently while having absolutely no clue, and Ilya has never been able to let such a thing drop.
With a vicious stab of his finger, he navigates to sh24_hockey’s streamer page. Well. If he can’t comment on an archived stream – then Ilya will just have to catch the next one live.
He hits the subscribe button, tabs back into the recording, and settles in with his fries to find out what more other takes sh24_hockey thinks worth sharing with his astonishing three viewers.
It’s not until almost a week and a half later that Ilya manages to catch a stream live. He watches streams here and there, but he finds that he can’t watch them on the road because he will end up complaining out loud. Which would be fine, if it wasn’t for Marly being a terribly judgemental road roomie.
He gives Ilya an amused look when he comes out of the bathroom to Ilya cursing under his breath at another ‘sloppy’ turnover where Ilya was in position but the rest of his line wasn’t, just far enough behind that his pass had connected with Webber’s stick instead of Goodman’s. “You know you can see the trainers if you need someone to talk to?”
Ilya’s nostrils flare. With a truly heroic display of restraint, he merely rolls his eyes. “At least you recognise you are not sophisticated enough.”
“Sophisticated, huh? Been reading the thesaurus?”
“I will be reading your thesaurus,” Ilya shoots back, and it devolves into familiar squabbling from there. He doesn’t make the mistake of tuning into another stream in Marly’s presence – or anyone’s, really – again.
“Eyerose81 says, no effing way, that lane was not open from my vantage point.” sh24 snorts. Ilya has no idea what he looks like, but he imagines there’s a contemptuous look on his face. Rich for a man fundamentally mispronouncing Ilya’s username. Ilya’s fingers fly over the keyboard in protest. “Oh, you’re one of those fanboys, I guess.” Another snort. “Guess that makes your username ee-roz-eighty-one…”
Ilya backspaces what he’d written so far and furiously taps on the keyboard again, hitting enter with vigour.
“Not a fanboy, huh?” A third snort. “Sure, buddy, I totally believe Ilya fucking Rozanov is on my stream.”
Oh, U r allowd swears but me u cencor?? Ilya types back.
“Host’s rights,” sh24 replies smugly, and then rewinds to pick apart the play again.
They lose the next game in St. Louis, an embarrassing 5-1 blow-out, eke out a win in overtime against Nashville, and finally get shut out, 4-0, by the fucking Admirals, the building overwhelmingly loud because stupid old Scott Hunter is once again on his first-half-of-the-season streak, and the Raiders are decidedly not.
Ilya kicks his skates off hard enough the blade guards come off. His jaw hurts from how hard he’s clenching his teeth as he squats down do put the guards back on and not leave more of a mess for the equipment managers. It’s not their fault, after all, that the team is fucking hanging Ilya out to dry out there.
Everyone else gives him a wide berth, Marly the only one who sigh and bumps his shoulder, wordlessly, as he passes Ilya on the way to the showers. Ilya keeps staring at his stall, taking deep breaths that barely touch his lungs. His ribcage is too small, and his team is abandoning him out there, the coaches’ gazes and expectations equally heavy as he tries to carry a whole-ass team on his back.
He is but one player, and while he doesn’t expect the others to keep up with him, he currently can’t even rely on any of them. And in a few minutes, the press will be here and demand he tell them what they can do better.
Gerry, their PR manager, must be able to tell that Ilya is just about ready to say unwise things, because through a miracle, he’s not tapped for media. “You owe me,” Gerry says with a wink as he ushers Ilya out of the room, and while he’s not wrong, Ilya just barely manages not to tear his head off for it.
He knows he should avoid any and all media about himself. Even if that media is a stupid hobby analyst on Twitch. Especially if that media is a stupid hobby analyst on Twitch. Still, Ilya taps into the stream with almost morbid curiosity, just in time to hear sh24 say, “And here we see Rozanov way out of position –”
Fuck u, Ilya types, rest of team was way out of position.
Sh24 cuts off in the middle of his sentence and then huffs. “And there he is,” he says, like there’s anyone except him and Ilya. Okay, maybe there are 20 or so other viewers, but that’s basically nothing, is it? “Still convinced you’re Rozanov? Maybe you can enlighten us why he thought it was wise to repeatedly push way too deep into the Admirals’ zone without any coverage or regard for where the rest of his line was?”
If i cld read stupid minds we woudlnt hv lost.
Sh24 just huffs in apparent amusement. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy,” he says, and Ilya is so incensed that he just sends another fuck u and logs off.
He revisits the stream once he’s slept a night. It’s decent background noise for a session on the bike, though his outrage over sh24 makes him pedal faster than is maybe advisable.
Lying on his back in the exercise room, staring up at the ceiling, he can’t quite shake something sh24 said. He’d diagrammed the play in a way quite unlike the coaches had, which isn’t surprising. He probably doesn’t have the same background as the coaches do, after all. Looking at his lines and paths and the breakdown of play progression, Ilya had suddenly understood why last night’s plays had kept falling apart.
He wouldn’t go so far to say that he had been the one out of position, but their line had definitely not been in sync, and sh24’s breakdown had contained a few nuggets that maybe, if Ilya was entirely honest, might hold a kernel of truth. Which would rankle, if Ilya had any breath left in his body.
“You got lucky,” Ilya tells his turned-off phone, even though sh24 isn’t even online and couldn’t hear him even if he was. “Just pure, dumb luck.”
His phone doesn’t answer, which is just as good as agreement anyway.
“Ah, guess I didn’t chase you away,” sh24 murmurs when Ilya joins the stream during dinner that evening. It’s so quiet the mic barely picks it up, like he maybe didn’t mean it to.
Have to tell u ur wrong, Ilya types back, which gets him a startled laugh.
“Am I, though?”
yes
“I don’t think so. But we have a different game to discuss today, sorry, bud.”
shld focus on important games
This gets him snort of amusement but no actual reply, and then sh24 dives into the game on his screen. It’s fascinating watching him break down a game between teams Ilya has no stakes in. Fascinating and a little awe-inspiring. Not that Ilya would say so out loud. Instead, he heckles and argues, and sh24 replies maybe a third of the time, but it’s enough to keep Ilya engaged long after his food is gone.