Chapter Text
"Can I tell you a secret?" Hollander asks.
Ilya braces himself. This is it. The knowledge that he missed his chance-- forever. Because there's no doubt in his mind that if Hollander has found his perfect woman, he will be-- oh, so good to her. It would take a bigger fool than Rose fucking Landry to let this man go, ever.
A fool as big as Ilya. And surely, there is only room in the world for one so very great fool.
"Rose and I broke up."
The words don't compute. Ilya looks around automatically, for eavesdroppers, or maybe a camera. That is a thing, yes? Pranks? Hollander has never been mean, but perhaps-- perhaps being with a woman has changed him. Perhaps the Shane Hollander that can dance with a woman in a club while Ilya's pathetic heart bleeds out in the red light can also breathe life into that sad shattered little organ only to pin it down and watch it die again like a butterfly on cardboard.
Thank God Sveta is here to pick up the pieces, this time. Even if he had to convince her to come with several orgasms and, when that did not work because she did not want to be around this many hideous hockey men (and said she didn't think she could see Shane without stabbing him for running out on Ilya), many very sparkly jewelry pieces. She could buy them for herself, but she keeps them like trophies. And every Russian woman knows the value of portable investment pieces.
But Shane is not mean. He is not cruel. There is maybe, very small chance, perhaps-- perhaps Sveta will not need to pick up his tiny, tiny pieces. He will have to stop her from stabbing Hollander.
Shane is speaking again."She's into hockey but doesn't want to get hit on all weekend, so we decided not to go public with it until after All-Stars. And uh," Shane's lovely awkward face-- is he still in love? Was she gentler, when she shattered his hopes, put distance between them, so that Shane does not run when she offers him her soft underbelly on a plate with a tuna melt? Ilya almost misses the next words-- almost, because he has never missed a word from that mouth if he can help it.
"I wanted a friend. For, uh, emotional support."
"You are afraid we will lose? Is impossible, have best player in league on your team." Ilya's bravado comes naturally, but it's half-hearted.
"That's not important," Shane says. And yes, everyone knows All-Stars isn't serious, but Hollander has never been unserious about hockey a day in his life. Has never brought less than his whole scorching heart to every moment on the ice. "Well, not the most important, not this" he amends, looking around like the hockey police are going to fine him for saying a meaningless PR game isn't the most important thing in the world. He is so fucking precious. "But, uh, there's something else here that I... care more about." He's looking intently at Ilya in a way that is making Ilya's stupid, hopeful heart sit up and take notice.
It is then that Ilya's poor life choices decide to ruin the fragile hope that has been slicing into his flesh like knives.
"So this is the famous Shane Hollander," Sveta says. "I have always enjoyed your... hockey," she says, disdainful. She has draped herself over Ilya's shoulder, wrapping around him in moments to stare imperiously past him at her first in-person encounter with ‘Jane.' To Ilya she says in rapid Russian, "you looked like he was garroting you with sharp wire-- wait, what is your face? Ilyushenka, what is this face? You are not going back to let that boy lead you on when he is sleeping with a woman in front of you, I am not picking up the pieces if you do this."
"No, no, Svet, he says they are not-- they are not." He speaks low and urgent, holding her arm in both warning and reassurance so she doesn't do something more drastic than wrap herself around him possessively.
"Bullshit," she says, unfriendly eyes flashing at Shane. "I have seen the news, she is here, Ilyusha. He brought her here, in front of you. I am not sleeping in the hotel hallway so that you can fuck him and send him back to her arms."
"I guess I should, uh, go," Shane says, and Ilya risks a look-- oh, no, no, he is so bad at keeping his heart off his face and now Ilya is the one with the razors and it kills him.
"Shane-- wait, Shane, she is my-- also. Also. Emotional support, yes?"
Shane looks profoundly uncertain, unsure, and does not sit back down.
"Yes, Ilyushka requires emotional support when all the beautiful women falling at his feet come with big stupid hockey man who will try to slew-foot him next game when they discover their small penises cannot compare to one of his fingers," Sveta says. Curse her having grown up in Boston enough to speak English so fast, so fluently, Ilya is watching his future burn and Sveta will feel badly later but-- later does not help now.
Shane is burning red. "Uh, yeah, I-- I guess,"
In Russian again, Sveta says, "you wanted me to come keep you from ruining yourself over him, I am not letting him--"
"Enough, Sveta," Ilya says. In Russian he says with all the firmness in his heart, to keep that look off Hollander's face and to stop her from tearing apart his only hope of any crumbs from this boy who he cannot look away from, even while she means to protect him. "This is not what you are thinking. He is not, would not say if not true. He said something here is-- is more important than game, to him. I know him, Sveta."
She is still deeply skeptical. She rounds on Hollander, but assessing now, not pure furious. "Your girlfriend, she is as beautiful as your play. You bring her to show off?"
"She ah-- uh, no?" That poor boy's head is spinning so hard. God.
Ilya's eye catches Shane's teammate, not just for this show but his real teammate, his first-pairing defenseman JJ Boizeau incoming. Defensemen, so it is probably to defend his stupid captain's honor. He cannot tell Hollander they must speak privately later, with such an audience. Sveta would never permit it, either, not when he broke down and asked her-- well. She is not wrong. Would not have been wrong, if it had been five minutes earlier, if Shane had said what Ilya had so feared. So instead Ilya says hurriedly, "two most beautiful women at camp, two most beautiful hockey, is... unfair to all these sad losers, yes? We must form team."
Shane and Sveta are both looking at him like he is insane. On Shane, it is bewildered, hurt, hopeful. On Sveta it is pitying, furious, analytical.
"Team needs strategy meeting, yes? We will do this. We will... get dinner? Four of us."
"This guy bothering you, mon capitaine?" Boizeau says, and Ilya wishes, briefly, that Hayden Pike were not so terrible at hockey that he had no hope of an invitation to the All-Stars. Perhaps he would not be as annoying as this Quebecois guard dog yapping in his face.
"It's fine, JJ," Shane says. "Yeah, sure," he says to Ilya. Uh. later?" He still looks deeply unsure.
"He trying to get you alone, mon capitaine? I will--"
"No, no, nothing like that, just uh--" Ilya lets himself appreciate the less dreadful panic on Shane's face as he tries to imagine anything to say.
"His woman, you have met?" Sveta says, playing up the accent in a way she usually despises. "Is actress, da? I am, as they say, big fan. Want her autograph. And number of her stylist."
And oh, he could kiss Sveta. It would be very much a bad idea, for many, many reasons, but she is the most brilliant woman in the whole entire world.
"Yeah, uh, she's always happy to meet--a fan, yeah. I'll introduce you two later?"
"Ilyusha will come with us," Sveta says. "Or he will think I get her number also, and will be so jealous." No, Ilya was wrong, Svenka is a menace to the whole entire world and Ilya will have to kill her. They are in Florida, the alligators will surely dispose of the body.
"Don't even bother!" The Quebecois defenceman says, halfway between the inevitable charmed devotion that any man who likes women falls into around Sveta-- Ilya does not consider himself an exception, just more experienced-- and defensive anger. "She's signed stuff for the team, but he won't even give the WAGs her number."
"I can be, how you say, persuasive," Sveta says. "We will go now, Hollander. You will find us later." She has the mercy not to command him to text Ilya.
"Yeah, sounds good," Hollander, the poor rabbit, doesn't seem to clock the inherent threat in that command. In other circumstances Ilya might think fondly of how easily Shane folds in the face of forceful Russians, but he must first convince Sveta not to eat his heart before Ilya has a chance to discover if any small crevice of it has space for him to curl up in like a shivering wounded animal.
"We will go now," Sveta says, turning her sharp eyes on Ilya. "Ilyukha owes me a fucking explanation," she says ever-so-sweetly, switching to sharp Russian.
"Of course," Ilya says, regretfully getting up from his stool while Shane's whole body says he does not want to leave this unfinished, leaning towards him even in his teammate's protective-friendly grip. He probably does not realize it, and he surely does not realize that Ilya would tear Boizeau's arms off and feed them to an alligator and not lose a moment of sleep if it meant his hands were off of Ilya's... no. Ilya's nothing. Not yet.
But Sveta would feed him to the alligators first if he did not yield to her small hand with its sharp fingernails dragging him towards a door and out into the miserable Florida heat.
"You will explain," she hisses at him, still in Russian. "I do not want to eat dinner watching you vomit your heart onto your plate as he plays all sweet with his new woman in front of you, Ilyushenka, you may not torture yourself like this in front of me."
"He told me, Sveta, the first thing, he said is that it is a secret--they broke up. She is here for hockey and-- and emotional support," he uses the English phrase. Russians do not do emotional support. "Because he is hoping, he says, that something will happen here with someone more important than All-Stars."
"All-Stars is meaningless game," Sveta says, frowning.
"Not to him. He is never, ever, not caring the most about hockey. He is saying, maybe, that all is not over for--me." Us felt nuclear in his mouth, and he bit it back. There was no us. Just the possibility, the hope, of a little more of Shane.
"You will make your own choices," Sveta says with a sigh. "But if he is not being honest with you, Ilyushka, if he makes you a mess and leaves me to pick up the pieces, they will never find either of your bodies."
"I know," Ilya says, and he cannot help his small grin. Soon, he is beaming. Sveta is such a good friend, even if she did almost just ruin everything. In English he adds, "Is many alligators in Florida, yes? Will not be hard."
"You think I need alligators? Please." After responding in English, she switches back to Russian. "Now, find us a restaurant with vodka that will not make me want to be sick before this useless pining ruins my appetite."