Chapter Text
Ilya
January 2021
He’s going to miss the fucking flight.
Ilya’s thigh bounces up and down in irritable, nervous energy in the back of the Lyft, willing the car to somehow levitate through the traffic. A sea of red taillights stretch out before them, crawling along past a three-car accident blocking nearly the entire road. Traffic has slowed to a single lane, being directed by an exhausted-looking police officer. The driver apologizes, but there’s nothing she can do, either. The car has moved maybe ½ a kilometer in twenty minutes.
Ilya curses himself for forgetting his phone in the locker room.
He shoots another text to Harris. The response comes almost instantly:
Dude. We’re boarding.
Well, I will not be boarding. Because I am still eight km away from airport.
OK. Don’t panic. Let me make some calls.
Ilya frowns at the phone. “Calls to who? Airport boss?” The Ottawa Centaurs are in no way important enough to change the airport’s flight plans over. Resigned now, Ilya texts him back and then tosses his phone on the seat next to him.
Do not bother. I will get next plane. Is not so far to Tampa.
Three dots appear, disappear, appear again. The Lyft has inched forward another few cars’ lengths before Harris’s reply comes through:
Great news! Coach knows someone who does charters. I can get you on a plane in two hours. I’ll send you the new gate information.
OK. Thank you, Harris.
“I’m really sorry about this,” the Lyft driver says again.
“It’s fine,” Ilya reassures her, and he means it this time. “But I will need to go to different terminal.”
***
Ilya makes it to the new flight with 30 minutes to spare. But when he arrives at the gate, he’s sure there’s been a mistake.
He stops an airline worker and asks if he’s in the right place. The man checks the info Ilya offers on his phone and nods.
“Yep,” he replies. “Your team’s manager called ahead, Mr. Rozanov. I’ll drive you over to the plane. Do you have any bags?”
“No,” Ilya replies. “Just backpack.” All his gear went ahead of him on the team’s bus. Ilya obediently follows the man out onto the tarmac. The wind is cold and whips dirt and grit through his curls. He folds himself awkwardly to fit in the little golf cart the man indicates and they speed down the runway to a plane that looks more like a toy model of a plane than an actual aircraft. Ilya feels his eyes grow wide and his stomach twist.
“Is tiny,” he says, voice flat.
The airline worker chuckles but doesn’t reply. Instead he parks the cart, engine still humming, and gestures towards the pilot who waves from the cockpit. Shouldering his backpack, Ilya gathers his courage and climbs the short stairway into the plane.
“Good evening, Mr. Rozanov,” the pilot calls from the cockpit. The plane is just as tiny inside as outside - it can fit four people, facing each other in pairs - but it’s well appointed, with cream leather seats and shiny mahogany trim. Ilya returns the greeting and settles in by the window, buckling his seatbelt securely and resting his backpack on the floor at his feet. Something of his nerves must be showing on his face, because the gray-haired pilot smiles with amusement. “My name is John Andre, and I’ll be flying you down to Tampa Bay tonight. First time on a VLJ?”
“A what?”
“Very light jet,” the captain explains. “They can feel like tin cans the first time you’re in one, but they’re more comfortable than you think. I’ve been flying for longer than you’ve been alive. Nothing to worry about.”
“If you say so,” Ilya replies. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks his texts. He fires off a quick message to Harris confirming he got to the plane - the VLJ - and will see them that night at the hotel. He briefly wonders if he should text Shane, but stops himself.
Maybe a bit of distance is good right now?
I think so. Yes. We will talk when we are in the same room again.
Resolutely, he puts his phone back in his pocket.
“Flight time is just under two hours,” Captain Andre continues. He runs briefly through the standard safety talk with an attitude that tells Ilya he's never needed to activate any emergency protocol. “Feel free to shout if you need me, but we’ll have you back with the Centaurs before you know it.”
“You are a hockey fan?” Ilya asks, as the pilot flips a few switches and the cabin lights dim. The engine roars to life underneath him.
“Oh, yeah,” Andre says with a laugh. “I was goalie for my high school team. I have to admit it, though, I’m a Montreal fan. That Shane Hollander is something else - just phenomenal.”
Shane’s face - his dark eyes, his beautiful freckles, the way his nose crinkles when he smiles - flashes through Ilya’s mind.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “He is.”
***
Captain Andre wasn’t lying: the plane is extremely comfortable. Within twenty minutes, exhausted from the game and the anxiety of missing his initial flight, Ilya nods off against the window.
He comes to when he feels the plane jerk, dropping suddenly through the air.
“Captain?” Ilya says, voice groggy, coming back to himself. The cabin is still dim, but he can see the outline of John Andre against the lights of the cockpit dashboard. There seem to be a lot of lights flashing and alarms going off.
Captain Andre does not reply.
The plane seems to be rapidly losing altitude. “Captain Andre,” Ilya says loudly, his voice cracking a little. He unbuckles his seatbelt and staggers to the front of the plane and grabs John’s shoulder.
John’s head lolls to the side, unresponsive. His eyes are wide and staring and Ilya realizes with a sickening jolt that he’s on his own. Trembling, Ilya looks out of the plane’s windshield and realizes that not so very far below the plane is a vast expanse of blue-black water.
Panicking, Ilya darts back to his seat and digs under his seat for a lifejacket, trying to remember Captain Andre’s safety spiel at the beginning of the flight. Mercifully, the lifejacket is where it’s supposed to be, and Ilya’s hands are shaking as he pulls it on. He throws himself back into his seat, mind spinning, and buckles his seatbelt before laughing at himself because what the fuck is a seatbelt going to do? He grabs his backpack and hugs it to his chest.
They say, at the end, your life flashes before your eyes: all of your important memories racing through your brain, a chemical reaction to soothe your terror at impending doom: your body’s last attempt to protect you.
If anyone had asked Ilya, hypothetically, what would have been his final thoughts he would have given you some token answers: his mother’s laughter. Winning his first cup. His niece’s scrunched-up little face on the day of her birth.
And Shane, of course.
But it turns out, as Ilya frantically hits the CALL button, that it’s only Shane.
Shane, the first time that they met: huge brown eyes, nervous smile, the warm grasp of his hand. Shane, whipping effortlessly across the ice, a triumphant grin on his face. Shane, gazing up at Ilya from his knees. Shane, and the way the early-morning sunlight highlights his cheekbones at the cottage when Ilya kisses him awake. And Shane, the night he told him that he loved him.
I’ll never see Shane again.
The call won't connect. He's running out of time.
Somehow, despite his shaking hands, he opens Instagram and finds Shane’s profile to send a direct message. He can’t call, can't text, but the plane’s WiFi is thankfully still working. As Ilya hurtles towards the water, he manages to type out a few messages that do not nearly come close enough to everything he wants to say:
You are the best thing in my life.
I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.
I am thinking only about you right now. A million memories. Thank you for those. Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.
Then, slamming his eyes shut, he shoves the phone deep into his backpack and clutches it against his body again, ducking his head and trying his best to protect his neck. There’s a final roar and then Ilya is plunged into darkness.
***
Shane
By the time Shane gets off the ice, he’s made up his mind. He has a missed call from Ilya but he's not ready to talk. Not until he can see him face-to-face, touch him, kiss him.
Apologize.
His last conversation with Ilya is replaying in a loop in his head: Maybe a bit of distance is good right now? I think so. Yes. We will talk when we are in the same room again.
And so they need to be in the same room again, because nothing has been right since Shane left Ilya that night in Ottawa, and Shane has a sinking suspicion that actually, it’s all his fault.
Why did I act like such an asshole when he told me about his therapist? My first thought was about me: am I safe, is my secret still a secret - and not about Ilya even needing to go to a fucking therapist in the first place.
And we fought about - what, Ilya wanting to go to a party? To show me off to the people who matter to him?
Yeah, he’d definitely fucked up.
But he has a plan. Shane, master of overthinking, has spent most of his time since that last conversation thinking of some plan that would show Ilya that Shane is sorry, that he knows he fucked it up, that he wants to be better. Wants more. There’s got to be a safe way to have more.
A vacation, is what Shane has landed on. They’ve never actually gone somewhere together, somewhere they aren’t just pretending to be colleagues for the camp, or just meeting up at a hockey function or a gala for the Irina Foundation where they’re both expected to be anyway. But there are so many places on the planet that don’t give a fuck about hockey, and there are exclusive villas, and there are countries that have strict paparazzi laws.
He can do a vacation. He can take Ilya somewhere where they can practice for a future where they’re together in public all the time.
On the bus he sends several texts to Ilya. He doesn’t reply, which doesn’t surprise Shane; he’s probably just landing in Tampa. Shane lets the chatter of his teammates wash over him, a deep feeling of contentment coming with them.
He’ll get to the hotel, and then he’ll book everything: tickets, and a luxury suite, and then he’ll surprise Ilya with the news.
Shane says goodnight to everyone early and heads up to his room. He throws his bag on the bed and takes a shower, washing the day off. He’s just shampooing his hair when he hears the phone ring. Ilya, he thinks happily.
The phonecall ends and then immediately rings again.
Shane laughs. Here he was, caving in almost immediately after their argument, and turns out Ilya is caving in too. God, he loves him.
The phone rings again. And again.
“Jesus,” Shane mutters, turning off the water and stepping out of the shower in a cloud of steam. He towel-dries his hair and wraps the towel around his waist. He starts to put toothpaste on his brush but the phone continues to ring, over and over, and so he pads into the bedroom and picks his iPhone up from the bed.
He frowns. All of the missed calls are from his mother.
Dad, he thinks instantly, panicking. He fumbles with the phone, trying to type in his passcode with wet fingers, when the phone rings again and he swipes the call.
“Mom? Is everything okay - is Dad -”
“Shane, thank God,” his mother’s voice crackles across the line. It’s noisy behind her and her voice is raised. “Honey, where are you?”
“I’m at the hotel in Washington,” he replies. “Mom, what’s going on? Is Dad okay?”
“Your dad’s fine,” she says, at the same time Shane hears his father’s voice in the background.
“Okay, so what’s the emergency? I have like twenty missed calls from you -” A loud announcement blasts in the background. “Wait, are you at the airport?”
“Shane, honey, it’s Ilya,” Yuna says and at first he thinks he’s misheard her.
“What?”
“It’s Ilya, Shane, he -”
“Ilya’s in Tampa, Mom, the Centaurs flew there after the game.”
“Shane, listen to me,” Yuna says firmly. “I just got off the phone with Coach Wiebe. Ilya missed the commercial flight with the Centaurs, so they got him on a chartered plane. Some little Cessna, experienced pilot. It was due to land an hour ago but air traffic control lost contact with the pilot. It never arrived in Tampa.”
“That’s wrong,” Shane’s ears start ringing. “You’re wrong, Mom. That’s wrong. Ilya - he’s in Tampa -”
“Shane,” David’s voice is loud in his ear. “Shane, is anyone with you? Can you go find Hayden or your coach?”
“You’re wrong,” Shane says again. “I don’t - Ilya is -”
“I texted Hayden,” his mom says in the background, muffled.
“Shane. Your mother is Ilya’s emergency contact. Coach Wiebe called her after the FAA lost contact with the plane. It was scheduled to land in Tampa at 10pm but they lost contact somewhere over the Georgia coast. Your mother and I are getting on a plane to Atlanta. We need to - we need to make a plan, son. The news is already calling the Centaurs for a statement. I think you should be here.”
“I don’t understand,” Shane says. His vision is going dark around the edges.
“Hayden should be there,” David says patiently, like he’s explaining something to someone very young. As if on cue, there’s a hammering on Shane’s hotel room door. “Shane, honey. Ilya’s plane is missing. Let Hayden in, we need to talk to him.”
Robotically, Shane crosses the room and opens the door. His legs feel like they belong to someone else. Then, rough hands are on his upper arms suddenly, and someone takes the phone out of his hand.
Shane, distantly, can hear his mother and father. In front of him, Hayden’s bright blue eyes are full of concern. “Yeah, I’m here. I’ve got him. Yeah, I already called an Uber. Ten minutes. I’ve got him, Mrs. Hollander. I’ll get him there.”
“Shane,” Hayden says and then reality crashes over him. His legs give out, and Hayden bodily moves him towards the bed so he lands on something soft.
“Shane,” someone is saying. “Shane, we need to go.”
“Ilya,” he chokes out, tasting bile, and all the voices blend together.
Ilya’s plane is missing.
We need to go.