Chapter Text
Ilya
He tried to focus on the sound of his skates scraping dull lines into the ice, but even his favorite sound in the world couldn’t drown out his thoughts.
It had been a very long week at the end of an even longer few months. Boston was deep in a losing streak that had begun to feel personal--made worse by the fact that it started with the very team they had flattened last season to win the Cup.
His phone was no refuge either. Every time he opened it, another perfectly staged photo of Shane and Rose stared back at him, each one landing squarely in his chest.
As if that weren’t enough, his father had called from Russia earlier asking him to pick up milk on the way home, and Ilya had then been forced to call Alexei and listen to yet another thin excuse about the state of their father.
It wasn’t any one thing. It was everything. And for some reason, he didn’t have the energy to deal with any of it—let alone all of it. He felt an exhaustion that was bone deep. Gradually, getting out of bed in the morning became a long game of rationalization and bargaining with himself; just five more minutes and he’d really do it that time. Practices became both monotonous and grueling somehow, games all but hollowed him out.
Winning the cup was supposed to make everything better. It was supposed to prove to everyone who had ever doubted him that he was worth something, that against all the odds they threw at him he fucking did it. Lifting the cup over his head was supposed to shed some of the weight from his shoulders, as if somehow pushing it up over his head would reset his scale.
But it didn’t. Which only made everything that much heavier.
If winning a fucking Stanley Cup didn’t solve anything, what would?
Not that he was exactly ever pleasant to be around for most people, but his attitude had long started to chew away what little tolerance his teammates had managed to build for him. Marlow was the only one who even bothered anymore, but even his attempts at pleasant conversation were dwindling. Ilya knew that. He knew he shouldn’t every time he opened his mouth, but that didn’t stop the harsh words from leaving it. After his fourth undeserved bitchy remark—this time directed at a rookie who couldn’t seem to consistently take a pass from Ilya—Marlow swore under his breath.
“Alright, Rozanov, that’s enough. Lay off,” he bellowed across the ice.
Everyone tensed, seemingly nervous for the string of heavily accented and calculated insults that were surely about to fly from him.
He opened his mouth, but upon seeing the way the rookie wouldn’t even look up from the ice at this point, and the heat in Marlow’s eyes as he stared him down, the words died on his tongue. Suddenly, Ilya was very aware of nearly every set of eyes on him. He felt the prickling of guilt within him, but he was too exhausted to care fully.
“Gotta piss, Marlow take over for me,” he managed to spit out, already gliding over to the exit, pointedly ignoring the look Marlow was giving him.
Once inside the locker room, he sat in front of his stall and bent to put his head in his hands—as much as he could in all his gear anyway.
What the hell was wrong with him? Sure he liked to chirp as much as the next guy--alright definitely more--but he usually kept the truly painful shit to a minimum unless provoked, and certainly never with his own teammates. But after the way he was digging on Casper, he’d be surprised if he ever moved confidently with the puck again.
Of course, deep down he knows what’s wrong with him. Ever since the name ‘Shane’ slipped from his tongue, a complete accident, everything had gone down hill from there. Though, for those fleeting few seconds after Shane had whispered his name back, it felt like something had fused within Ilya.
It was no confession of love, but between the two of them it felt close enough. Close enough to fully freak Shane out.
Ilya wanted to hate him for it, but honestly, he understood. Ilya wasn’t the type of person that was loved. He wasn’t the type of person you learned everything about in small doses, he wasn't the type of person you brought home to your parents proudly. He wasn’t even the type you told your friends about unless bragging about a successful conquest. He was a prime candidate for secrecy. A quick fuck when you’re bored, not someone you confessed your love to, damn the consequences —even if the consequences weren’t the biggest fall from grace the hockey world had ever seen, potential contract dissolvement, intense world-wide ridicule, and potential deportation for Ilya.
Sometimes, his whole life felt like a secret. Everyone close to him knew bits and pieces, but no one knew everything. Almost nobody in his life even knew his mother was dead, nevermind she’d killed herself--nevermind Ilya was the one to find her at such a tender age. No one knew that after she died it was like she was never there. No conversation, no reminiscing, no portraits, no bedroom that for all intents and purposes became a shrine—nothing. Only him and his brother knew his father had dementia that was slowly eating away at what made him, him. (Which Ilya sometimes thought wasn’t so bad, yet another reason to hate himself just a little.) No one knew his only brother was a giant piece of shit that took and took and took and took until there was nothing left to give. Okay, maybe a few people knew that, he didn’t exactly hide it.*
And possibly most importantly, no one knew about Shane. His biggest, most precious secret. A secret he scarcely let his own thoughts discuss. Ilya thought maybe Svetlana was beginning to question ‘Jane’, but he knew even she wouldn’t suspect that Jane was in fact not only a man, but Shane Hollander himself. Which overall was good, he’d never been able to lie to Svetlana successfully and he didn’t want to accidentally give Shane away. However, it was also really fucking lonely. Sveta knew the most, but even she couldn’t know about the one thing, the one person, that mattered most to Ilya in this world.
Besides, it was a moot point now that Shane had apparently begun dating a movie star. He’d never forget the way his stomach dropped when Victor handed him the phone. “Is Rose Landry dating NHL star Shane Hollander?” The question bounced around his skull all day. Everyday he tried harder and harder to swallow the fact that the answer seemed to be yes.
The worst part was he couldn’t even be angry with either of them directly, not rightfully anyway. Rose Landry was a successful, gorgeous movie star, and also apparently actually a decent person. He couldn’t imagine Shane wanting to be around anyone who wasn’t.
Except maybe Ilya—but then again Shane didn’t want to be around him, did he?
Rose made perfect sense. Shane was the golden boy of the NHL, a tried and true Canadian, and the whole country, the whole world, knew it. He was beautiful, had a great work ethic, highly disciplined and incredibly healthy. He'd perfected routine to a science and it showed in every game he played. He was a strong, fast skater—almost as fast as Ilya, sometimes just as. The puck acted like it was made for him the way he was able to manipulate it around the ice, his stick merely an odd extension of his arms the way it responded to him. He knew the game and its pieces inside and out. Better than Ilya.
He wasn’t blunt, he wasn’t cocky, he wasn’t selfish, he was a team player in every sense of the term. He loved to do what he loved and he looked great doing it. Ilya often wished he could be in the stands at his games, able to fully immerse himself in only watching Shane, watching an artist at work.
The golden boy wouldn’t be the one to shatter the heteronormative image of hockey. Hollander would be the type to marry a woman anyway, have 2.5 kids and some kind of dog. Hollander was the type to live and breathe the picket fence.
And so would Ilya, probably, eventually. Surely at some point throughout his numerous conquests Ilya would find a woman who he could imagine monogamy with. A woman he’d be willing to put everything and everyone down for the rest of forever. Right?
Besides, Ilya wasn’t even sure what he wanted from Shane. It wasn’t exactly like he was going to come out anytime soon either. So he clearly couldn’t have been expecting a relationship or anything. That wouldn’t work. Their lives were just far too separate. Sure they had a few days here and there, a blissful off season once a year, but those breaks were in Boston, or in Montreal. It would be too much to ask for Shane to come down for some breaks, or to ask him to open his home to Ilya for others. It would be far too much to ask someone to fly all the way to his home and risk being spotted in so many different ways. And all for what? For him?
He knew himself well enough to know that asking someone to lend him a stick of gum was pulling on favors he didn’t have.
He was nothing special. Just a loud, rude Russian who people tolerated because he could score goals. He barely spoke their language; even when he found the words, he heard his own accent struggle through them. He could only imagine what he must sound like to native speakers. Sure he was deeply attractive and a great fuck, but that was about it. He was perfect for a one and done. Ilya just wasn’t sustainable in that way. Ilya wasn’t the type you brought home to parents and Ilya would never put anyone through the misery that was his father. He wasn’t particularly smart in either language quite frankly, and American/Canadian humor confused him slightly, so he was pretty sure he wasn’t very funny.
He had very little substance to him, just a lot of baggage and fucked up-ness that he’d never want to put anyone else through.
It shouldn’t shock him at all that even after all these years Hollander still viewed him in the careful way he presented himself: an arrogant, but deeply talented hockey player with an ego the size of Russia itself, who seemed to ooze sex from his very pores. He shouldn’t be surprised that was all Shane saw him for. That the moment he opened the vault just a touch, Shane retreated with all the fear of cornered prey. He should expect that the sex was all Shane needed.
And honestly, it could be all Ilya needed.
Anything was better than this.
Just then, the locker room door smacked open, giving way to a rather pissed-off Marlow. “What the hell is your problem?”
“What?” He asked, shaking his head back to reality.
“You know exactly what, Rozanov. Don’t bullshit me,” Marlow pressed on.
Ilya deflated.
“I know,” he sighed heavily. “I don't think I’ve been getting enough sleep. I’ll get it together.”
“Roz, I’ve seen you lift a Stanley cup running on four hours. I thought I said don’t bullshit me,” he needled, though softer now.
Ilya bristled, beginning to feel backed into a corner. Of course Marlow was right, there’d been plenty of nights in Ilya’s life where he’d gotten no sleep at all. But most of his life was a secret, if he started to give one away, slowly it’d snowball into all of them. And he’d be damned if he was gonna sit here and give his whole life story to Cliff Marlow in the middle of the Boston locker room.
“I said I’ll get my shit together Marlow, give it a rest,” he snapped, holding his eyes tightly. “I still have the C.”
“Then start acting like it, shithead,” Marlow snarled, heading back out to the ice.
He thought about calling after him, but honestly, he deserved that. He didn’t have the energy to argue anyway.
Glancing up at the clock, he saw they only had about twenty minutes of practice left. Figuring he’d be decent for the first time all afternoon, he started stripping his gear and let them finish their practice in peace.
Maybe he’d call Sveta tonight, it’d be nice to not have to have quite so many secrets, to have a familiar body to hold him. Even if just for a night. Even if he were wishing that body had strong thighs and freckles smattering his nose.