Chapter Text
April 2017 - Montreal
Shane glanced back to where Ilya was standing by the center line talking with a teammate. He leaned against the boards and fiddled with the water bottle in his hand, squirting a stream into his mouth and wiping the droplets that escaped down his chin with his glove.
He snuck another glance at the pair and a stroke of longing pierced his heart. If only it was so easy for him to speak to Ilya, but in the fishbowl of a rink with the thousands of fans watching the two teams warm up, he knew his every move was under microscopic scrutiny. Shane surveyed the crowd in the stands, wondering what their reaction would be like if he gave into his heart and skated up to Ilya right now to throw his arms around him.
Shane’s lips twitched and he looked down at his skates. They’d probably just think he was starting a fight.
Besides, it hopefully wouldn’t be long before he actually could do whatever he wanted. Tonight was the night he was finally asking Ilya to come to the cottage with him over the summer. A week, or maybe even two if he was lucky, of complete and utter privacy. Shane’s cheeks heated at the thought, the heat quickly migrating down his body.
The buzzer sounded, signalling the end of warmups and knocking him from his daydreams. Shane shook his head, embarrassed that he allowed himself to be so distracted before the game.
He followed the stream of teammates off the ice to the locker room. The only thing that should be on his mind was winning. Ilya could come after. Shane smacked his helmet with his glove at the thought, startling Hayden who was in the middle of a rant ranking of the worst players from Boston. Stupid dirty mind…
The only thing better than playing a game of hockey was playing against great players, and Ilya was one of the best. They were in the corner, sticks jostling for the puck. Shane won, tapping it past Ilya’s skates and shooting down the ice. His skates dug deep, snow flying in his wake.
Ilya quickly caught up, poking it from between his legs, but Shane was too quick. He shouldered him into the boards, briefly relishing in the heat of body to body contact before he was off again with the puck. Shane glanced back, eyes burning with challenge as Ilya grinned and launched himself after him.
There was a split second where time stopped. Maybe it was a sudden gasp from the crowd or the first hints of horror blooming over Ilya’s face, but Shane pivoted, pulling the puck close to his feet.
A blur of color barrelled right in front of him, missing Shane’s body by an inch and crashing hard into the boards. A few more lengths and Shane was at the goal, the puck soaring through the air and landing safely in the upper corner of the Boston net.
The buzzer went off, the crowd’s roars deafening. His teammates huddled around him, hands patting him on the back and shoulders and helmet. Through the chaos, Shane glimpsed Ilya halfway across the ice, helping up the player crumpled near the boards, Marlow, he now realized. Then the tiny opening closed, and he let himself be enveloped by his team.
Shane sat at his table, tracing the top of a beer can with his fingers. Normally he never drank, but Montreal had just beaten Boston three to one, and he had been two of those goals. Plus, he couldn’t remember the last time he had been so nervous to meet Ilya.
Even the first time they met in his hotel room, it had been different. They had been young and naive and without responsibilities. Now, well.. Now things had changed. Somewhere in the past eight years they had both become captains of their respective rival teams and well respected senior players, and their relationship had twisted and warped into something too complicated to describe.
And now, Shane was about to make it even more complicated.
The cottage was his sanctuary, and he was going to invite Ilya into it. A shiver went down Shane’s spine at the prospect, and he took another swig of beer. The cold liquid soothed his throat and warmed his stomach, soothing his fraying nerves.
Their time together had always been just a few stolen hours before games. What would they even talk about with so much time? Would they still get along? The questions swirled in Shane’s mind, and he rested his head on the cold counter.
At the very least, if they got bored they could just have more sex. They were very good at that.
The game had been the first time Shane had seen Ilya since he came back from Moscow. Aside from the one memorable FaceTime, they had only texted back and forth a few times.
Shane thought back to their night together after the All-Star Game. To what he had almost admitted, to what he had wanted to admit. He thought back to the rough unknown sounds of Ilya’s voice in Russian over the phone after his father died. Ilya sounded different when he spoke Russian, especially then. Younger, rawer, more vulnerable.
On the table in front of him there were several Russian language learning books which he’d been studying earlier. Shane tried to fit the studying in whenever he had a free moment, which was admittedly rare with his busy schedule. He was still very much a beginner, but maybe by the summer he could surprise Ilya with some sentences.
Shane’s lips twitched into the beginnings of a small smile, and he gently stacked the books and transferred them to a nearby drawer. No sense in spoiling the surprise early.
While standing, he glanced at himself in the mirror and tugged at his shirt self consciously. It was a basic black shirt that clung sharply to his chest and was far too expensive for how simple it looked. He had half a mind to change into something different, but his stylist had insisted that it was “loungewear”, whatever that meant, and absolutely necessary for his wardrobe.
Shane wondered if Ilya would notice.
How would he even ask Ilya the cottage question? They had been hooking up for years, surely it couldn’t be that difficult, right?
Please, don’t go back to Russia this summer. Stay with me for a week or two, or, hell, even the whole time. No one would ever know. It could be just the two of us.
Or maybe the truth. Finally, just for once, the truth.
I can’t go another summer without seeing you. I can’t go another day. I miss you every second you’re not around, and all I’ve ever wanted is to spend just one full night sleeping next to you.
Shane chuckled out loud, the sound reverberating across the empty, lonely apartment. The alcohol was affecting him more than he thought. He walked back to the table and chugged the rest of the beer in one long swig.
There was a knock at the door, purely perfunctory, and it swung open. Ilya was backlit in the door frame, the soft light from the hallway outlining his body. His hair was still damp from his post-game shower, the wet curls clinging to the base of his neck. Shane’s eyes traced the contours of his neck up to his sharp jaw and then to Ilya’s eyes, where he realized he had been staring for too long.
“Hollander,” Ilya greeted him, tilting his head down in a small nod. His eyes burned with some unknown emotion, and he turned at the sustained eye contact, shutting the door behind him.
“Rozanov,” Shane parrotted, approaching Ilya’s turned back. His hands slid over his firm leather jacket, feeling the hard contours of Ilya’s shoulders through the thin fabric. The liquid courage coursing through his veins made him lean forward, pressing his lips to the pale column of Ilya’s neck. “I was wondering how long you were going to keep me waiting. I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“Hollander,” Ilya repeated, voice dipping low in warning. Shane ignored him, kissing gently as his hands wandered around Ilya’s waist to the buttons on the front of his shirt.
“Hollander. Stop,” Ilya turned, shoving Shane away from him. The push wasn’t hard, but it startled Shane into stumbling several steps back, only stopping when he hit the back of the kitchen chair. There was a brief moment of tense silence as Shane’s addled mind tried to catch up.
“Is this–” Shane broke off, eyes narrowing and searching Ilya’s face. His expression was unnaturally flat, lips pressed into a thin line. “Is this because of the game? Because you lost?”
“No–” Ilya started, but Shane continued talking.
“Because it’s not fair to get angry over that. You beat me all the time. It’s the game.”
“No, Hollander. Is not that,” Ilya scoffed, annoyance bleeding into his words. He opened his mouth like he was going to continue, but then closed it instead. He scoffed again and dragged a hand through his hair.
There was another moment of tense silence. The two men stood facing each other in a standoff, eyes burning into each other, neither one wanting to speak first. There were only a few feet between them, but with every passing second, Shane felt the distance growing. He took the bait first.
“Then what?”
Ilya looked to the side. Then, down at the ground. Finally, he brought his blue eyes back up to meet Shane’s.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
The alcohol had slowed his thinking, but each word felt like a punch to the gut. Suddenly, he was very glad he was braced against the kitchen chair as his knees grew weak. He tried desperately to school his features, to hide the rising wave of panic he felt in his throat.
“Why?”
Ilya shifted, suddenly looking uncomfortable. The silence only made the panic worse, icy tendrils wrapping around his body and squeezing painfully. Shane clenched his fists to hide his shaking hands.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. No, Hollander,” Ilya coughed, eyes flitting around the room. “Is just– Is too much.”
“This is… too much?” Shane repeated slowly, incredulously. “We see each other maybe once a month. Less, even.”
“No. Is not that– You are just,” Ilya swore under his breath in Russian. His accent was getting thicker, the words clunkier, in the way it always got stronger when he was frustrated or tired. Shane hated himself for recognizing it. “...too much.”
The chasm between the two men grew. Shane’s eyes burned, and he tried to blink away the wetness that was threatening to spill over. Across from him, Ilya’s face was still infuriatingly flat.
“So it is me.” Shane failed to stop the hurt from bleeding into his voice. He hated how weak he sounded, especially compared to Ilya’s cold demeanor.
Ilya shook his head. “Is the situation.”
Shane laughed bitterly. “That never stopped you before.”
“What did you expect, Hollander? There is no future here,” Ilya finally seemed to be losing his cool as he swept his arm out, gesturing to the empty apartment. The empty apartment Shane had bought for him, for their secret.
“I thought we were doing better,” Shane whispered, nails digging into his palms. He thought back to the FaceTimes and calls and texts that no longer seemed to center around just sex. That sometimes, just sometimes, seemed to be about more.
Ilya scoffed again. “There is no we. We get together. We fuck. Is simple.”
Shane scowled as he recognized the words Ilya had last said the night after the All-Star Game. Somehow he knew this night would not end the same way.
“Why are you being such an asshole?”
“I am honest. Is not fun anymore. Is…” Ilya paused, like he was searching for the right word. His face scrunched with effort, clearly struggling with English. “Torture.”
Shane’s face contorted in horror. “Torture?”
Ilya seemed to realize his mistake, “Hollander–”
“We’ve been hooking up for eight years and it feels like torture to you? Are you serious?”
“Hollander, no–”
“I can’t– I can’t believe you,” Shane’s voice was shaky and thick with disbelief. He tried to swallow, but it got caught in his throat. Despite his best efforts, a stray tear escaped down his cheek. He wiped it away, but not before Ilya’s eyes locked on it, pain flashing across his face so fast Shane was sure he imagined it. “I can’t believe I was going to…”
Shane trailed off. I can’t believe I was going to invite you to my cottage.
Silence stretched once again. Somewhere in the few feet between the two men something had gone horribly wrong. The icy feeling was sitting heavy in his stomach, pulling him down to the ground even as he struggled to remain standing.
Finally, Ilya spoke. “I should go.”
He paused when Shane laughed, one hand already on the door knob. “That’s it?”
Ilya didn’t turn around. “What else is there to say?”
Shane’s thoughts swirled, making him dizzy and stumble against the chair. There were a million things he wanted to say, but none of them felt right.
Why are you doing this? Don’t you feel what I feel? Don’t you want to stay?
From behind, Ilya was completely frozen. His shoulders were raised, body tense. His knuckles were white where they gripped the doorknob. His head dipped down, and Shane wondered if he could feel the fire he was glaring into his back.
“Goodbye, Hollander,” Ilya said, and then he was gone.
Shane collapsed as soon as the door clicked shut. His knees banged hard against the wood floor, but he hardly felt it through the waves of panic and sorrow. His hands slammed down next, and the tears started pouring freely, seeping down his face and on to the floor.
One hand went up to cover his mouth as he gagged. Fuck. He was going to throw up.
Shane scrambled to the bathroom, making it just in time to vomit into the toilet. He dry heaved a few more times, saliva and tears mixing together as he laid his head on the cool porcelain.
Somewhere, deep inside, he could feel his heart cracking, breaking. The shards of it dug into his chest, pain radiating outwards in horrible, all consuming waves. Ilya’s words repeated in his head like some torturous song set on repeat. But no, of course, torturous was the wrong word. That was a description reserved for Shane’s personality, apparently.
Shane couldn’t stop himself from running through every one of their interactions. When had he been too much? When had he turned so tortuous? Was it during the All-Star game? Or when Ilya had gone back to Moscow? Or before all that, even. Had Ilya felt that way from the start?
Shane dry heaved again into the toilet. His throat spasmed painfully and he half choked, half coughed strings of saliva into the bowl.
“Fuck,” Shane swore into the empty apartment.
He has ruined me.
Shane wondered, briefly, if he’d ever feel normal again.