Chapter Text
December 2016 - Montreal
ShaneShaneShaneShaneShaneShane…
Hollander.
He’s been hearing it in his dreams for going on six weeks now. Ilya’s laboured confession. Because that’s what it was, right? Shane’s not that crazy. You don’t cum with your name on someone’s lips like that unless it means something. You don’t ask someone to stay unless you want them to - surely?
Shane is fully aware there’s a little memorial in his mind that has carefully and religiously tracked every single time Rozanov has said his name over the years, he knows this. That stupid little voice he just can’t seem to hog tie into submission that’s been hoarding shreds of affection and compliments and damn butterflies like it’s building a life raft for the rest of his stupid heart. So yeah, he’s very very ashamed to admit that he remembers all of Ilya’s “Shane’s” over the years.
None of them were even remotely like this one though. He’s heard Shane Hollander in just about every rolling tone you could imagine - soft and teasing with promise, biting with the blunt force trauma of a board check, and even media ready drawled, like they were no more than coworkers with beef.
All taunting or whining or media trained. All in public. All fully birthed into the world.
Shane Hollander. Purred out in rolling Russian like an infinitely smug cartoon villain. Is that xenophobic? He’s not even sure any more, but he thinks Rozanov would probably like the stereotype for his media persona, less for his life.
It’s ludicrous, really genuinely ludicrous, to be so many years into whatever this is and freaking out because the guy you fuck panted your name when he came. Or at least his version of your name, the one that he will never be able to forget now, the one that belongs to him and him alone. Shane’s not even pretending he’s capable of being rational about it all, with ”Fuck, Shane” ricocheting around in his skull like some sort of haunting, he’s losing his fucking mind.
“Stay.”
Fuck he’s going to have nightmares about that word. Ilya - because he understands now, in this at least, that it was Ilya asking him, not Rosanov, not the hookup, not casual - Ilya, lips pressed plush against his, eyes soft, and all but begging, slouched against him in soft sheets. It’s a heady feeling in hindsight. There’s a lot of feelings Shane is having in hindsight about that day, and he’s just about ready to lay down and scream into the carpet about it.
He’s been tearing every second of their interactions to pieces in his mind for the best part of a decade and just when he thought he’d finally learned where the boundaries of “Is just fun Hollander. Is just sex. God, you are so boring!” sat, Rozanov had yanked it right out from under him. He hates that it’s hard for him, that his near preternatural instincts on the ice abandon him with his skates. He’s bad with people, he’s awful without his media training, and as very much proven, he’s downright cataclysmic in the face of human emotion. Maybe if he keeps his skates on next time the world will make more sense and he won’t fuck it all up with his stupid anxiety. Maybe he won’t get the chance. Maybe - this was his chance, and he ruined it.
The worst part of it all though, what he still sees every time he closes his eyes, is that he can picture how he’d left him. Every single fucking time Shane closes his eyes it’s miles of long limbs slouched in the sofa cushions and pink flushed cheeks still glowing from orgasm. It’s Ilya, a wild halo of curls, eyes building confusion and fear and disappointment. He’s carried that expectation of pain since he was seventeen, alone in a new country half a world away from home and Shane’s only just realising now that he’s only ever seen it directed at him twice.
Rozanov, seventeen and spooked, instinctively prepared to defend himself and being handed kindness instead. Ilya, defenceless and trusting, gutted and abandoned in his own home. For a second of vicious self hatred Shane hopes he never contacts him again, never gives him an opportunity to hurt him again. That seventeen year old in the beanie deserves better.
Shane’s been pacing the kitchen throughout his doom spiral ever since he opened the fridge and tried to grab a ginger ale - there’s coke in the fridge, Coke Zero, and it’s Rose’s, but it’s scalded him all the same with the throw back even weeks down the line. Shane doesn’t want it here, doesn’t want Rose here - or - doesn’t want these traces of her where someone else should be. It feels like he’s laced one skate too tight, or missed a tag on his jersey, a bug bite on his psyche he just can’t shake itching at him until it explodes in a fit of panic or rage and leaves gauges in his skin, leaves scars in the world around him. He’s exhausted to his marrow about it all and self aware enough to know he can’t sustain it. He loves Rose. They’ve been dating for over a month, long late nights on the phone and marathon text message conversations he’s never really had with anyone before. He loves it. She’s weirdly obsessed with motorcycles and he’s genuinely terrified of her taste in books but he really really loves being with her too - just not how he needs to love her, not in all the ways that matter. Not how she deserves.
So when the phone rings - he answers - it doesn’t matter that he isn’t in love with Rose, he loves her anyway, for less than that, he’ll always answer.
“I regret answering this call.”
“Shane!” She screeches, making his eardrum tingle. He loves her laugh, it reminds him of Mite’s and Peewee’s weirdly enough. When the girls and boys had still been bunched together and he got ridiculed for being a disgusting boy not a Metro’s man, not half Japanese, not ga- “We want to spend time with you!! I know you don’t really do - well much of anything - during the season, but we’d love to see you! Cody will be there! And Miles and probably Maria. Pleeeease? They want to see you! Cody’s little cousin is in the draft next year!”
Shane’s not sure he wants to do much except microwave his meal plan and curl up in bed - after throwing every can in the apartment directly in the garbage - but he’s watched his mum and dad long enough to know that some battles are easier surrendered early than late.
“What are we doing?”
“Yes!!! Yes! I knew it! Eh- bear with! Hold please cutie!“ He loves this. It’s soothing something in him already, which he kind of hates too, but listening to Rose finish up the details with her friends feels as close to community and team as he’s felt in a long time. They’re not his but he is hers, and that’s enough for them.
He can hear Miles in the back, droll and sarcastic asking why the fuck she phoned if she didn’t have a plan but Shane’s not mad about it. It’s kind of nice to know someone was more interested in his company than the plan he might just have been politely invited along for.
“Okay so Miles and I are finished but I still need to scrape off my second skin and Maria has to pack up - have you eaten? No it’s only five, how about Khristo? They’ve got that baked sea bass thing you liked and the dressings are all vegan?”
“That sounds amazing Rose.” He desperately, desperately, wants to fall in love with this woman. “Eight? I can met you guys down town and save you doubling back.”
“Amazing! See you soon handsome!” ’Bye Shane! See you later cutie! Miss y-‘ the silence after the click is so warm he manages to wrangle down the remaining panic and rage. Rose adores him, her friends adore him, her brother - well, seems to like him as well as a big brother can be expected to - and despite an entire adult life of avoiding social interaction like the plague, Shane likes them too. They’re boisterous in the same way J.J. is but all with a calm underlying steel that reminds him of Hayden, and his dad, and Joe. Shit. Joe. Abandoning his existential crisis he scrawls ‘call Joe’ on the white board on the fridge, underlines it twice, and settles on water from the bathroom instead of the PTSD episode waiting in the fridge.
🏒 🏆 🏒
Khristo’s is busy when he arrives, despite leaving early Rose and her little gaggle have beaten him there and the seat on the bench to her left is wide open for him to slide into. When she greets him with a now familiar open mouthed kiss he blushes to his chest and slips an arm around her waist. She’s wearing jeans and a sparkly gold top that’s going to leave glitter on him for days but he’s so fucking glad to see her he can’t bring himself to care right now. Instead he tucks his face into her hair, hiding from Cody and Maria’s chirps about public displays of affection and soaking up the warmth of her skin. It’s safe here, to enjoy her touch where it can’t get out of his control, grounding. Not quite perfect but necessary and comforting all the same.
“Hey.” God he’s such an idiot. Of course she noticed. “You doing okay handsome?”
“Long day.” Understatement of the Cola and ginger ale fuelled panic attack century. “Mums negotiating a deal with Aston Martin, she’s really happy about it.” Not a lie.
“I adore your mother, but has she ever considered Xanax? Didn’t you literally just get back from Rolex?”
“Yeah but - Aston Martin.” His mums not wrong, neither is Rose, but - Aston Martin.
He does get the sea bass, with the garden salad and all its tiny unidentifiable micro-greens. Dressing on the side that he ignores and gives to Maria when she complains about rich people portions and not being one of the Famous People Eating Disorder Division. He takes a couple of her fries when he’s offered and the burst of garlic and salt on his tongue washes away the little niggle of temper at his diet choices.
“What was the draft like?” Cody asks, apropos of nothing, licking garlic butter off his fingers. “My baby cousin is up next year and he’s bricking it.”
“I’m not really sure what the actor equivalent would be-“ Shane knows of Cody’s cousin vaguely, all the captains watch the draft prospects to some degree, but he can’t really picture the kid. Plays center, fast, agile, still growing into his legs and a wicked assist ratio for his age. He’ll place high for sure and Montreal won’t even get a look in after three cups in a row. Shane’s fairly sure they’re angling for another goalie anyway. “It’s like - you spend every minute working for this goal, and someone comes in and tells you if you’re good enough. Or you’re not. It’s terrifying.”
“That’s reassuring.” Cody’s chuckle is lovely even when he’s being droll, low and warm, sparkling blue eyes in a pale European face making it feel like a full body experience. He looks like he fell out of a ski commercial and Shane’s never been quite sure how to take him. He’s Rose’s co-star in the new X-Squad, all lean lines that apparently make him the “perfect speedster”. They’ve also had enough conversations now that Shane knows Cody incorporates some skating into his physical performance, that he’d learned as a kid, and it had landed him the job because he ‘moves with intention’. Still doesn’t know what that means though - surely every movement is made with intention? Still isn’t quite sure how to handle his surprisingly cutting dark humour.
“So I shouldn’t wind him up any more than he already is?”
“Not if you want him to make it to rookie season.” Shane laughs. “My draft I was so scared. God. You wouldn’t believe how nervous I was, it felt like I’d forgotten how to tie my skates.”
“Surely the great Shane Hollander wouldn’t forget that!”
“Well he managed to get on the ice so there’s that.”
“Weren’t you second pick overall?” Rose doesn’t mean it to sting, she’s just proud, boasting about him to her friends, but second place still smarts all these years later, and the reminder of Rozanov bites hard. He wishes vaguely that he’d ordered dessert so he could at least have something to do with his hands that isn’t clinging to his sweaty beer bottle.
“Yeah. Montreal drafted me. I’ll probably retire there, if I don’t mess it up before then.” Like everything else in my life.
“Oh trust me I know.” Cody says. “You and Rozanov were all I heard about for months. Years. Millennia.” He whines, flopping dramatically into Miles shoulder and laughing. “Oh my god Cody, Hollander is so fast! Look at his edges! Holy shit Cody! Did you see Rozanov! Look at that!”
“Yeah yeah. Tell him to listen to his coach and work on his telegraphing. I’ve watched his tape and he thinks he’s too quick to catch. He’s going to get caught by a defence man and flattened.”
“Yes Capitain!”
In the end he has a really nice night, and the promise of an early practise in the morning along with more shooting for the celebrities takes him home before Rose can offer to come back with him. He tries not to feel guilty about it.
Lying in bed, clothes folded, freshly showered and mind still ticking over on a brisk simmer he lets himself just stew in the night. They’re scheduled to go out for a group meet up and clubbing after the game in Boston next month and he hates clubbing, but this group of people, this network that Rose is helping build around him make it seem a little less - everything.
Maybe he might even have fun. Quietly, as he slips off into a deep, exhausted sleep his brain coughs up one last image of Ilya, bathed in sunlight and smiling like the sun.