Chapter Text
August 17, 2023 - Ilya
The train rumbled past Ilya’s apartment at the same time every morning, give or take ten minutes (it was Toronto public transit, after all). On weekdays, he’d rise with the first train, shut off his back-up alarm, and have twenty to thirty minutes to be out the door. He worked at a car dealership in Mississauga that his friend Cliff’s uncle managed, which is why he’d been able to get the job without a post-secondary degree. It didn’t pay very well aside from the occasional commission earned when he managed to turn customers to the higher-end models he secretly fantasized owning himself, but it covered rent and paid the bills. More importantly, it had afforded him the opportunity to completely cut ties with his brother and move away from the Southern Ontario town that reminded him of his late father, his failed hockey career, and the boy whom he had almost given his entire heart away to.
Ilya had moved to Toronto as soon as he possibly could after graduating from high school. A tiny room in Little Moscow, sweltering in the summer and akin to an arctic tundra in the winter, served as a landing pad for Ilya. It felt homey and lived-in despite him rarely being there during waking hours. It was close to his gym, the train by which he commuted to work, and an array of authentic Russian delis and restaurants.
Outside of his nine to five, he would occasionally pick up bartending shifts at Kot Schrodingera for extra cash, usually on weekends. He liked the staff there; they were mostly Russian immigrants who would share stories of the motherland, dragging out distant memories of a childhood in Moscow that were almost out of reach for Ilya now. If he was there on a Friday, Svetlana would often grace him with her presence, coming directly from work in her stilettos and tailored suits.
The two of them were childhood friends, bonded from the times they would be left to entertain one another while their fathers talked business over Russian vodka. They’d stumbled through their adolescence together, experimental sex at the tender age of 12 and the occasional relapse over the following year or two until they decided they were better off as friends. It had come as a relief to Ilya to know that she was still there for him afterwards, that she wasn’t going to abandon him just because they weren’t together in that way. That being loved didn’t need to be transactional or earned, like it had felt with his father and brother, it could just be. Even now, he felt a surge of gratitude and fondness for Svetlana, sticking with him while he messily came to terms with his life without hockey, without a family.
She was also his only friend who knew that he did stand-up comedy. It was something that had sort of just…happened to Ilya. One night, a few years after moving to the city, he’d left Kot slightly tipsy, having stayed for a few drinks with a couple of the staff. He had been thinking about Shane Hollander, which, while not entirely unusual, had very much not been the plan. One of the servers, Aleks, had brought up the NHL in a discussion of the best Russian hockey players. It was hardly the man’s fault; Ilya hadn’t mentioned anything about the level of hockey he’d played in high school or the aspirations he’d had, nor his connection to the Montreal Metros star player (aside from a “Hey, didn’t you go to high school in Hamilton too?” that had quickly been forgotten). But then Ilya had taken a wrong turn on his walk home and had ended up in a small dive bar on open-mic night.
It wasn’t pretty but he’d managed a few off-the-cuff jokes that had received some scattered laughs, about trying to sneak dates into his tiny apartment past the ever watchful eye of his well-meaning but homophobic landlord Katya, about how his English is getting better at the expense of his Russian so now he gets to feel stupid in two languages, tossed in with a few jokes about the Leafs, a reference to the infamous Rob Ford. Unpolished, unfettered, more a stream of consciousness than proper jokes.
He’d enjoyed it more than he was expecting; the combination of mild self-deprecation and the echo of his true feelings delivered deadpan to the audience was, quite frankly, more therapeutic than the therapy he’d been going to on-and-off since his father died. By the time he’d admitted to Svetlana that the reason he was suddenly less available was because he was spending the odd evening in grimey bars with a microphone in hand--and not, as she’d assumed, caught up in a new relationship or an affair with a married man or woman--he was starting to pick up a bit of traction and had lined up his first official show (given, he was only the opening comic, but still).
Maybe life wasn’t exactly as he’d pictured it would be when he was a teenager, but it was his own and that meant something to Ilya. On occasion, in the aftermath of a blurry 3 AM hook-up, or sitting in the break room trying to eat while a co-worker released a barrage of words into his ear, he wondered what it would be like if he had been drafted to the NHL like his former classmate. Would his life be better, more full, or would he feel the exact same while also happening to drive a McLaren?
There was certainly no question that things would be completely different if money was a non-issue; he’d quit the dealership for sure, probably live in a nicer apartment, get a dog. But then, would he even have anything to write jokes about? What problems did someone like the perfect Shane Hollander have? He was every teenage girl’s (and probably a decent number of boys’) wet dream: talented, athletic, rich, and beautiful--god was he beautiful. He’d grown into his face more over the years but kept the same boyish freckles and brown eyes that looked amber in the sun. Not that Ilya had been specifically looking, it was just hard to avoid when Shane was the face of Dior and Rolex and probably a hundred other high fashion brands.
An announcement on the train reminded Ilya that the next station was Port Credit, jolting him back into his current reality: sitting on the GO train, watching the blurry green-grey landscape go by. He was going to sell fancy cars, not think about owning them, and he was going to stop thinking about Shane. Seriously, it had been almost a decade since he had seen the hockey player--who most likely didn’t even remember Ilya existed, let alone think about him--he needed to get a grip.
Twenty minutes later, he was accosted by Cliff as he stepped into the office at the back of the dealership. “Hey man, you still free on Saturday?” He held a paper cup of black coffee out for Ilya who took it with a quick nod of thanks. “Connors is visiting from Ottawa and I was thinking of having some people over, nothing crazy.”
Ilya yawned, nodding. “Yes, I will come.”
“Bring a friend if you want”, Cliff said, thumping him on the back on his way out of the room.
Ilya chewed on the lip of the paper cup, considering his friend's comment. He was currently sleeping with his coworker from Kot, Aleks, but it didn’t seem like the type of deal where they would invite each other to small parties like this. And then there was Leah, an OCAD student whom he’d met during an open-mic night and hooked up with occasionally, but he wasn’t sure if Cliff et al would necessarily be her cup of tea. Then again, maybe he would just invite Svetlana - it had been a while since the three of them had hung out together, due to a regrettable fling that Svet and Cliff had had in grade 11 that had ended awkwardly, but they were adults now. He’d make a note to run it by Cliff first.
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August 24, 2023 - Shane
“Lilac will officially be screening at TIFF!” Came a shout through the phone before Shane could even issue a greeting.
He deftly drew his phone further away from his ear, a practiced movement that he had learned early on in his friendship with the energetic woman on the call.
“No way! Congrats Rose!”
TIFF was Toronto’s International Film Festival, and his friend had been aspiring to see herself there for years beside Oscar-winning actors and up-and-comers alike.
“Eeeee, I’m so happy! You’ll be my date, right?”
“Of course”, Shane grinned. “And for the record, I already requested the time off.” The festival was a few weeks away, but Shane had made sure to clear his schedule surrounding the potential screening dates Rose had shared before.
“You DIDN’T. Thank god you didn’t tell me that until just now, Shane Hollander.”
“Yeah, well, I learned the hard way when I wished you good luck before your last audition…” Shane said, grinning through the phone.
Rose Landry had been Shane’s best friend since elementary school and had known she wanted to pursue a career in acting for almost as much time. She had booked numerous small roles over the years--mostly in Indie and Canadiana films--but Shane had known Lilac was going to be her big break ever since he’d run lines with her almost a year ago. The film followed a young woman, played by Rose, who falls in love with her queer piano teacher, causing unimaginable grief and chaos through an affair that ultimately turns out to have been one-sided. Shane wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he had been stirred to tears watching Rose bring the character to life.
He was grateful that he and Rose had stayed friends over the years. Aside from Hayden, she was the only person from high school who still treated him like Shane, and not NHL-Player-Shane-Hollander. And, he had her to thank for the fact that he was seeing someone who also had it in their best interest to keep their relationship quiet: Miles. They had met while Rose and Miles were filming a movie in Montreal, and had immediately hit it off.
Like Shane, the actor was interested in being discreet and casual. He was often away on location for various projects and Shane was constantly traveling for hockey, but they had found a natural rhythm that seemed to work. It had taken away all the stress Shane had been experiencing trying to learn more about his sexuality while staying under the radar (at one point, he’d almost gotten desperate enough to draft an NDA for potential sexual partners). And of course, there was the added benefit that Shane genuinely enjoyed Miles’ company. He was sweet, respectful, and great at letting Shane know that he was deeply attracted to him in a way that scratched an inner itch for Shane that he preferred not to think too hard about.
“--Hey”, Rose said suddenly, halting her monologue that Shane had only half been listening to, “you don’t think Miles will be upset that I invited you as my date to TIFF, right?”
“Not at all”, Shane replied. “He’s going to be filming in Vancouver, remember? Plus, it would be way too much PR.”
It wasn’t that Shane cared about people knowing he was gay—in fact, he was the second openly gay man in the NHL after the New York Admiral’s captain, Scott Hunter, had beaten him to it the year prior—it was more a matter of privacy. He wanted to live his life authentically, he just didn’t need the entire world knowing who he was having sex with, especially when he wasn’t even in a real “capital R” relationship.
“Right, I knew that.” Rose replied. “Ugh, that blows though, Shane. I just want to see you all smitten in a public relationship!”
“Maybe one day”, he said, shrugging even though his friend couldn’t see him. “For now, I’m more than happy to focus on hockey. And,” he continued, his tone becoming playful, “we need to give the fans what they want.”
He was referring to Rose’s fanbase shipping the two of them non-stop, only slightly running out of steam when Shane had come out publicly. It was kind of funny how easy it was to hide his relationship with Miles by always having Rose around as their “third and most important wheel”, as she liked to call it. Or, “Rose and her posse of gay friends and ex-lovers”, when they were part of a larger group.
“Yes we do.” Rose hummed enthusiastically in agreement. “And what they want is for me to grab your ass cheek again on the--”
“I’m not letting you grab my ass on the red carpet.”
“But the Rane/Hollandry shippers--”
“Rose, we’ve talked about this.”
“Fine”, she huffed. “I love you. I’m going to go, but I’ll text you the details of the screening.”
“Love you too. Can’t wait.”
Shane continued his walk home from the arena, feeling happy for his friend and pleasantly sore from the pre-season training. He was 27 now, and he was beginning to notice it in the amount of time it would take for his muscles to recover and bruises to heal after tough games and repeatedly getting slammed into the boards by players who were significantly larger than him. Then again, his stickhandling and agility were still peaking and his stats reflected it. He was by no means over the hill yet, unlike that dinosaur Scott Hunter who was turning 1,000 years old this year. He chuckled to himself, shocked at his own audacity even though he probably wouldn’t have the nerve to say it to Hunter’s face.
His thoughts turned to Ilya, who, back when they played AAA hockey on rival teams during high school, would chirpse the guys on Shane’s team incessantly. “I hear they need Zamboni driver if you want more ice time”, he would say. Or, Shane’s personal favourite, “Maybe you are left handed?”
He was a bit surprised at the memory resurfacing; he hadn’t thought of Ilya Rozanov in some time. It hadn’t always been that way, though. The year that Shane was drafted, he thought of the Russian man constantly, wondering how he was doing, where he was living, if he would be playing against him if things had gone differently. He’d even tried searching him online, but the man had pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. Still, Shane thought of him here and there: when he saw someone with short, honey brown curls, or when Andropov, the young winger, had transferred to his team and he had heard a deep Russian accent again for the first time in years. The thoughts were always fleeting, a bit painful despite the ten-year gap in communication.
Ilya’s last text to Shane had been sent after the draft results were announced, and had read: Congrats Shane. You deserve it. Shane felt a slight pang in his heart thinking about it, even now. Ilya would have deserved it too--he had been just as good as Shane if not better, although Shane would be hard-pressed to admit that to anyone out loud. Maybe if everything hadn’t gone wrong for Ilya in those important months ahead of the draft, maybe if Shane had been there for him when he really needed it…but no, he couldn’t think like that. They had been kids back then, barely 17, with severely underdeveloped frontal lobes.
Before Shane knew it, his feet had carried him home and he was slipping off his shoes in his carefully curated penthouse apartment overlooking the St. Lawrence. He shouldn’t feel guilty about any of it--he had worked hard for this, and if others were equally deserving, well, that wasn’t really his business. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out.
Miles: Still free tonight? Your ass cheeks won’t grab themselves…
Shane wrote back immediately: That woman is shameless. But yes, I am free. I’ll let you do whatever you want to my ass.
He smiled at his phone stupidly, the pit in his stomach from his earlier ruminations closing slightly. Miles was always great at taking his mind off of things.