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Ilya Rozanov was many things. A god on the ice. A king amongst hockey players. Cocky. Arrogant. Selfish. And worst of all? Stupidly and foolishly in love with Shane Hollander. He had made many mistakes in his life - too many to count - but that had to be the biggest. And worst of all? It had caught him by surprise; feelings festering and bubbling over years disgusting themselves as lust and a bitter rivalry only to hide what was really there beneath them. Desire. A want for more than just fucking Hollander senseless or having his dick sucked to the point the mere concept of English was lost on him.
No, what he wanted was to just lay down with Hollander in his arms. He wanted to hold him close for the simple reason that he could. He wanted more than brief stints in hotel rooms, texts full of pure filth, and public bickering for the world to see. He wanted it and he hated himself for it. He had people he loved. There was a part of his heart that had been missing since his mother had died. There was another part of his heart that had been given to Svetlana more easily than he himself had ever wanted. But he had never been in love.
Fucking everything pretty that would so much as give him a second glance was something Ilya’s understood. Lust was a universal language. Hockey left a lot of things pent up and if there was someone willing to help him let them up, then who was he to complain? But being in love…being in love was something else entirely. Something he decided he hated.
It had started as hook ups satisfied him less and less. Each time, there was that traitorous part of his brain imagining Hollander was the one beneath him or comparing everything his partner did with how much better his rival could do it. It was a pain in the ass and driving him mad.
Because he could not fully understand what it was to be in love.
It was not the way his father would raise his hand to his mother who would take it quietly until the world grew too much for her. It was not secret hookups in the dark that left his heart racing. It was not the adoration of his fans so willing to throw themselves at him. It reminded him of a story he had come across once - a further look into western culture had led to him falling down a brief but precise Greek mythology rabbit hole.
Orpheus and Eurydice. True love. An infamous tragedy.
To love someone so deeply you would travel to the ends of the Underworld - not Hell, somewhere older and further and heavier - to petition a god to return your heart back for you; to offer up yourself so earnestly and sincerely he had no choice but to agree even if it came with a condition. A condition Orpheus loved his Eurydice far too much to comply with for he always looked back. Some claimed he was too desperate to look upon her again; others claim he feared she was not following; elsewhere there were those that claimed he did not know she had not fully followed him out. No matter the telling, he always loved her too much to look away.
Orpheus would always doom himself because he loved blindly. Could Ilya do the same?
Because if he were to let himself love Hollander and be with him, he was not foolish enough to think they could keep themselves a secret forever. Shane deserved better than that. Shane - his Shane - deserved someone who could stand proudly besides him when the time was right to stand proud. Yet it would cost Ilya so much. He may have held no heavy love for his brother but he was still family, and to be openly queer in the limelight? Russia could no longer be home to him. It would no longer be safe. His memories there were vicious aches that tore into him but it had still been home. It had been where he belonged.
The question if he still belonged there was one he often chose not to think too hard on.
Was Russia his own underworld? Was he Eurydice waiting to be rescued and led to safety? Had she even held hope of leaving until her Orpheus came to save her and take her home? Could Shane Hollander help Ilya rebuild his concept of home?
All thoughts he dared not speak aloud and all thoughts that went through his head as he watched Shane go down in the middle of a match. His heart felt like it was being torn out of his chest because Shane - his Shane - wasn’t moving. He was on the ground and everything felt like it was going in slow motion, but oh thank fuck, he was still breathing. A concussion. He could come back from that. He could be fine.
His heart pounded in his chest so much he swore everyone around him must have heard. It pounded out of anger at Marlow for being so fucking careless. It pounded out of fear of permanent damage. It pounded out of love. Stupid, foolish love.
Was this how Orpheus felt when he first lost Eurydice? That growing despair at the concept of losing that which you held most dear? The self-loathing agony and rage that there was nothing you could do to stop it? The hope that somehow this wasn’t the end?
But Shane was not Eurydice, and a concussion was not a snakebite. He was alive - lucid with a dopey smile - but he was alive. And how could Ilya not smile as Shane stumbled through sweet nonsense until he had to ask one simple question that put his heart in a vice.
“Will you come to the cottage?”
There was conversation after that as he tried to deny it but Shane still gently pushed. Yet those words blurred in his mind as the question looped itself in his head. What was mere moments felt like an eternity. Because it was more than just simply going to the cottage; it was something more sincere and important than just hooking up. It turned something-with-benefits into something Ilya knew he would never come back from.
Going to the cottage would seal his fate. He knew he would never quite bring himself to walk away again. He would let them be more than the infamous rivals Rozanov and Hollander. They would be Ilya and Shane, and they would be each other’s. And yet…it would be freeing, wouldn’t it? Ilya wouldn’t have to hide his bisexuality anymore. He would have to keep burying and hiding parts of himself.
So he gave Hollander a half-hearted “Maybe” that he knew the other man was internalising as yes.
As Ilya finally moved to leave, this was his moment to be stronger than Orpheus. This was his moment to keep walking forward to a future where he could love and be loved; a bright future where he could force himself to be a little less scared. He could have his happy ending.
At the door to the room, Ilya glanced back at Shane one last time before leaving. The soft smile on Hollander’s face haunted him as he walked away.
He was not Orpheus who would always turn around because he loved too deeply to look away. He was not Eurydice who loved so much she would follow blindly. He was no myth or legend. But he was not stronger than them either; not strong enough to force his happily ever after.
Ilya Rozanov was a man. He could not lead Shane Hollander into what could have come next nor could he follow him. He was a fool whose heart should have never gotten so close to his sleeve.