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2009 - Regina
Coach Michaels, like most Junior Hockey coaches, would have his star player drawn and quartered for stealing away to smoke a cigarette, and only tangentially because Ilya was still seventeen. However, the man was only human, and Ilya was very good at doing things he shouldn't be doing.
Around the back of the building where the snow pile had just been dumped was a good place to hide, even if that was where the wind was at its most biting. Ilya pressed himself to the wall as the lighter refused to light, shaking it aggressively as the striker rebelled against him. The wind picked up, and he ducked his face into the shelter of his jacket to make sure the flame caught, arranging the dart to sit at the corner of his mouth so he could keep his hands in his pockets. He leaned back against the cold wall and shivered, mentally rationing out the five darts that remained in the carton: Stevens would buy his next pack for him, as long as Ilya tipped him, but that wouldn't be until they were back at the airport.
"Ilya Rozanov?"
Shit. Ilya's hands tangled in his pockets as he tried to pull them out, preparing to rip the cigarette from his mouth and pitch it across the parking lot; if he moved quick, he could avoid the worst of the ensuing punishment, but the window was closing, and Christ, his hands felt frozen solid—
Every thought stuttered to a halt when he saw that Seiren Homoda was standing there, shoulders drawn high against the bitter, dry wind, jaw determinedly set to brave the cold and approach him. He was zipped into a thick parka with a fur-lined hood, and regarded Ilya's lacking outerwear with an unreadable expression — maybe judgmental, maybe jealous. Ilya adjusted his posture as a natural reaction to being assessed, tucking one hand back into his pocket and using the other to languidly pull his cigarette from his lips and blow smoke, squaring his shoulders and letting Homoda that he wasn't to be fucked with.
Homoda either didn't notice or didn't care that Ilya was puffing up like a threatened cat, eyes flicking back to his face and inclining his head in greeting. His mugshot in the Asian League's database didn't do him justice: under overcast skies, pretending not to shiver in his oversized jacket, the wind biting his cheeks pink, Homoda was immediately more handsome than any of the posters that Ilya would never admit to owning. "Homoda Seiren," he introduced; his accent was a fascinating mix of professional expat and suburban Ottawa, circa 1976. "You can call me Shane. Team—"
"Team Asia," Ilya finished, sticking out his hand to shake. The finalists for the Prospect Cup had turned out an interesting line-up, this year: Russia, Czech Republic, Canada, USA, and a team of players plucked from the ALIH hailing from a handful of different countries. The official opinion of Team Asia had been uncharitable from the start, given that none of the represented countries' ministries had expressed interest in sending teams to represent them, and the perception that the players pulled together for this rogue group were only there because they wouldn't be missed from their own teams. The unofficial safe-bet was that Team Asia would wash out in one of the qualifying rounds, and the podium would go to one of the usual suspects.
However, Team Asia had hit the ground running almost as soon as they debuted. Ilya had watched every tape he could get a hold of and tried to sit in on their practices when he could get away with it, studying their plays with fascination. Team Asia's one and only problem was their lack of a lingua franca, but the further they advanced the less that seemed to matter. Besides maybe having a telepathic connection with the puck, team captain Homoda — who by popular rumour was also gunning to be drafted into the NHL this year, which Ilya had no feelings about whatsoever — wasn't fazed by the barrier in communication, having apparently learned the necessary basics across several different languages: Korean for his left and right wings, at least two different dialects of Chinese for his D-men and enforcers, and notably a string of Russian for his goalie and alternate captain. It had been suggested that Ilya might have a competitive advantage on that front, but that was quickly dismissed when he admitted that he couldn't parse the Khabarovsk accent on the fly. In all honesty, Ilya hadn't been trying all that hard to understand what Homoda was shouting to his teammates: playing against Team Asia was an ass-handing in the making for anyone trying to win by espionage, and Team Canada could easily take gold with stooping to that level.
Homoda had finally reciprocated the handshake, shaking his hand once before quickly pulling back. "You're an excellent player to watch. I look forward to playing against you."
Ilya couldn't hold back a snort, wondering if anyone was honestly this respectful. "Wow. I've heard tale of sportsmanship, but this is next level. How many people told you it was bad idea to approach an opposing player while he's alone?"
"I didn't ask." Homoda's mouth pulled in what seemed like disappointment — no doubt he had been expecting an iota of Canadian politeness, but he wouldn't be getting it out of Ilya. Hockey players were exempt, after all: Homoda could be disappointed with his lacking manners all he wanted, it wouldn't change how the game would go down on the ice. Still, Ilya couldn't help but feel a tiny twinge of regret as Homoda rolled his shoulders back with a huffed breath and inclined his head once more, preparing to leave. "See you on the ice."
"Enjoy silver," Ilya called after him, half-hoping to keep him around a little longer; Homoda didn't pause or dignify him with a response, apparently too good to chirp back.
.
"Well?" Yamada said, nose fixed in his book as Seiren returned to their shared room. "How was your fated rival?"
"You'd like him," he replied, hanging up his coat and taking off his shoes. "No fucking manners."
"Is this about the porn?"
"Either get better smut or stop leaving it out in the open, Yamada, it's embarrassing."
2009 - Las Vegas
Seiren Homoda — known to the NHL and the wider hockey world as Shane Hollander — was not nearly as good at keeping a cool exterior as he thought he was. Ilya could feel the seething anger roiling off of him like heat waves as he sported a Voyageurs jersey (bleh), two fingers (exactly), and a sullen expression for the cameras; he grinned all the wider beside him, one finger poised, and couldn't help darting glances his way when the photographer had to urge Hollander to look happier. Silver and Number Two Pick both suited him well, especially if Ilya was in Gold and Number One.
Hours later, in the hotel gym, Hollander's disappointment had hardened and calcified, and the moment Ilya walked in he wanted to poke and prod at him until he snapped. Maybe goading him into a treadmill race wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but it was worth it to see his eyes narrow and his form straighten at the challenge, matching Ilya step for step and escalating until they were both sprinting on their respective machines. He caught a fierce intensity on Hollander's face whenever he dared glance over.
Ilya held out until his chest ached and his legs burned, waiting for Hollander to fold first: as soon as he punched his machine Ilya followed suit, head bowing as the track came to a stop and trying to catch his breath. He heard the treadmill next to him start up again, and levelled a pained look at Hollander as he adjusted his settings for a cool-down. "Dirty play, Homoda."
"It's Hollander." He already sounded almost back to normal, running at a leisurely jog. "Have fun with lactic acid build-up."
Ilya stumbled off of his machine and sprawled his upper body over the front of Hollander's treadmill, grinning when he tsked and swatted his hands out of the way. "What a fucking day, huh?"
Hollander shook his head slightly, face glowing with sweat and set in a natural frown. If only he had inherited his father's disposition — Hollander at his least-observed had an intense case of resting bitch face, only exacerbated by the misery of cardio.
"Everything you imagined?"
"Almost."
Ilya grinned wider. "Sorry," he said sweetly, one hand falling back over the screen.
Hollander pushed his hand back with another quiet laugh. "No, you're not." He hit the end of the cool-down and braced his hands on the handles, bowing his head and stretching out his shoulders. The neck of his white shirt rode up from his nape, and Ilya had the urge to stick his hand down his back and feel the wings of his shoulder blades.
Water, he needed water — he reached over and grabbed his bottle from the neighbouring cup-holder, tilting his head back and to the side so he could keep Hollander in his periphery. Mr Lactic Acid Build-Up had neglected to bring his own bottle, which was probably why he was staring at Ilya like he wanted to drink the water out his mouth.
Because Ilya was an honourable man — and maybe because he wanted to plant the seed that he would be a caring, generous lover in the near future — he held out his bottle for Hollander to share, and shook it insistently until he accepted.
Hollander leaned back against the hand-bars and drank his fill, flushing slightly at how Ilya sprawled further over the treadmill and all but drooled over the column of his throat. Once the water bottle changed hands once more — with another brush of fingers that Hollander was at least partially responsible for — Ilya said, "Montreal will be nice."
"I hope so. Boston?"
"Good city. We'll be seeing each other a lot." He gestured vaguely between them. "Montreal and Boston play each other often. Big rivalry."
"Good to know." His shoulders were relaxing. "I'm a little nervous. I don't know French."
"Mm, your teammates will — and Montreal is pretty bilingual anyway, you can get by with English." Ilya leaned forward again. "I can teach you your first sentence, if you like. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, monsieur?"
Hollander fixed him with an arched eyebrow that made Ilya want to sit up straight and bark like a dog. "Be serious."
"What? You have to know how to flirt, girls love hockey players."
Hollander scoffed, but something in his eyes shuttered at the suggestion. "Will they speak asshole, in Boston?"
Ilya laughed despite himself, and longed to stick around and see how far he could push Hollander off the straight and narrow that he seemed to pride himself on. However, it was late, and baiting Hollander until he broke, when the disappointment was still fresh and Ilya was unprotected by layers of padding, would probably lead to Hollander attempting to strangle him and claiming the Number One spot by default. As hot as that sounded, it wasn't the kind of heavy breathing he was looking for; he filed that particular fantasy away for later review, and pushed himself off of Hollander's treadmill with a groan. "See you at Juniors, Hollander. Silver again, right?"
"Fundoshi wo shimete kakare, Rozanov." Japanese out of Hollander's mouth sounded rich and supple, even if the reply had come in a beat too slow, like he'd had to think about it.
"Oh yeah? What's that mean?"
Hollander stepped off the treadmill and walked past him, almost close enough for their bodies to touch as he translated, "Gird your loins, Rozanov; we're coming for the gold."
2010 - Montreal
Shane missed his patchwork, close-knit team of last year. Their silver medal win had pricked all the right ears for his old teammates: Team China had eagerly taken on Zheng, Lee, and Wu, Ahn and Jeon were on the second-line for Team Korea, and Sidorenko and Sizykh had been scooped up for Team Russia and soon the KHL. Objectively, this was good: the whole point of Shane busting his ass to pull together a multi-national team was to show that Asia could have a stronger presence in the WJHC race, but it still stung to have that team almost completely disbanded before they could win the gold together. Only Yamada had remained on the official roster for Team Japan, a single friendly face amongst a wash of infants who all had opinions on whether a hafu going by a western name was the right choice for captain, and they had just barely edged out Team Canada for the gold.
Still, it was over with now: he had lead his team to the podium, he had celebrated appropriately with his teammates even though he knew that their respect would only ever be begrudging, and now he could leave with pride and focus on Montreal. Even better, his parents were now based in Ottawa for the foreseeable future, and their regular visits were a pleasant break in the monotony of meetings with team management and dietitians and doctors and all manner of other important people who were so glad to have him on the team, and even more glad to find that he had been fluent in English since age eight.
"Ginger ale, please," Shane requested to the waiter as he sat across from his parents, and greeted them in English to hopefully to set the tone early. Try as they might, they had not managed to train him into being able to smoothly switch between Japanese and English, so any conversation between the three of them was usually touch-and-go at the start before they settled on a language. His dad liked to speak Japanese whenever he could, worried that any breaks at all would cause twenty years of practice to slide out of his head, but his mom was always happy to make up for all the years she had wished they were living in Canada. "Sorry for being late, the press caught me before I could sneak out."
"It's good to talk to the press," his mom said approvingly — she was still his manager, and neither of them were particularly eager to change that. "It's about time they want to talk to you instead of Rozanov — all he ever talks about is how many goals he's going to score, you're much more interesting to interview."
Patently false — Rozanov talked about plenty of things besides his vow to score fifty goals in his rookie season, and Shane had watched enough of his own interviews back to understand that he answered questions like a cornered prey animal. At least he was consistent about it, just like Rozanov was consistently charming and consistently gleeful in stoking the rivalry. "If you say so."
"I do say so! The Voyageurs will win the Cup before the Bears, I know it." His mom crossed her arms with a decisive nod. "Maybe even this year."
Shane snorted softly. They probably wouldn't win the cup this year, but making the playoffs at all would be a monumental superlative for his rookie season. He could focus on more achievable goals — he'd score more than Rozanov and lead in points, he'd mesh with the team, and maybe he'd get better at dealing with press. Rookie of the Year would be an even better cap to his first season, and considering the high influx of rookies and trades this year for the Voyageurs, he might have a shot at alternate captain by the following season, and then full captain the season after that if Hamelin was really retiring. "Are you still planning to go back home for the summer?"
"Yes," his dad answered, because his mom was pursing her lips — she had wanted to stay in Ottawa, but Dad had convinced her go just once more, since they had the rest of their lives to enjoy Ottawa, and on the condition that they'd spend the majority of it away from the Sapporo Homodas. There had never been a time in Shane's memory when she hadn't clashed with her side of the family over nearly everything, and Shane couldn't really blame her: he loved his grandparents, but the entire extended family could get overwhelming fast, especially when all of them were intent on grilling him for what he planned to do with his life, 'after hockey'. "I know your schedule is tight, but we could always plan something together, if you wanted to fly in for a week. I bet Kaaru would like to see you."
Shane felt he did well to stamp down the panic that Kaaru's name inspired, subtly glancing around the room: no one was seated around them, and statistically he doubted that the blonde family in their vicinity had the worldliness to know that Kaaru was a man's name, even if they caught on to his dad's meaningful tone. "Dad—"
"I'm just saying!" He raised his hands in surrender, like he hadn't just brought up Shane's very-much-ex. Mom pursed her lips again, holding back a smile and pointedly not coming to Shane's aid — there was nothing his parents enjoyed more than ganging up on him about his love-life. "I know you want to focus on hockey, but you've been lonely ever since we left Japan. I worry that you're not getting everything you can out of life, and you two seemed good for each other."
They had been, for a while, before life got in the way, but it had always been a relationship with an expiration date. It wasn't as though Shane would find Kaaru exactly where he'd left him three years ago, seated on a boulder just off their favourite walking trail with a backpack full of sketchbooks, looking down at him with a gap-toothed grin and shaggy hair flopping over his forehead. They'd ended things amicably when Shane had gotten word that his Team Asia gambit was moving forward, Kaaru understanding that Shane needed a clean break and Shane understanding that Kaaru needed more than a secret boyfriend, but sometimes — more and more often lately, when he was trying not to think of sweat-slick curls or a gold chain — he wondered what it would be like to reach out, to have a slice of understanding fixed into his life again, something to soothe the sting of being in the closet.
"Kaaru found someone else," he said softly, rubbing the cloth napkin between his fingers. "Someone from Hokkaido University."
"Oh, Shane." Mom reached over to take his hand. "I'm sorry, I know how sad that must be."
He shook his head with a sigh. "I'm happy for them both," he said, brushing the strange melancholy away to be dealt with later — or maybe never. "And I think I'll stay in Montreal, this year."
2010 - Toronto
Shane's dad was always reminding him to look on the bright side of every situation: the bright sides of this particular ad-shoot began and ended with the fact that Shane was not being asked to strip almost naked. Everything else about it sucked so bad that he was seriously considering asking his mom to never book him for sponsors ever again, even though he knew such a decree was short-sighted and ultimately not in his best interest.
It was my idea, Rozanov had said, and Shane's hackles still raised at the thought. Hours of having cold and slimy elixirs smeared onto his face, hours of skating around pointlessly and acting nice for the camera he had nothing but disdain for, hours of directors and PAs and more directors telling him to look more aggressive, more annoyed, more determined — all on the whim of someone with ulterior motives that Shane had yet to pin down.
He probably wasn't being fair: Rozanov had no way of knowing how little Shane enjoyed doing ads, had no way of knowing that it brought on bad memories of patronizing smiles and not-so-gentle reminders that he had a face for modelling and shouldn't ruin it with hockey. Anymore than he already had, anyway — it was almost impressive how easily those people could spot fake teeth at ten metres. Some days, he could appreciate the additional revenue and even the fact that it was a soft landing for when he did eventually retire — in approximately 45 years, unless he died an untimely death — but today it felt like a capitulation, and he was normally very good at standing his ground.
He dragged a palmful of soap through his hair, feeling greasy from head to toe and hollowed out by the day, and did his best to shake it off — he'd done fine, he probably wouldn't be called back for reshoots, and he could reasonably hold off on the next ad-campaign for a while before he really needed it. The oily, lingering cream on his face made him want to peel his skin off and possibly blow up the building.
Rozanov didn't quite shrink when he stepped into the showers, but his shoulders did tense, and he was less than subtle when looking over at Shane's ass — finally making his move, or the beginnings of one. He didn't balk when Shane caught him looking, gaze sliding easily over his body like the water streaming over his skin, and Shane pretended not to notice that his gaze lingered as he turned his face to the water. He liked to think he was a little more subtle as he snuck his own glances, soaping up his armpits as his eyes traced over the tattoo on Rozanov's chest. When he got bored of that, he let his gaze drift south for a moment, obscuring the direction of his attention out of habit, as though they weren't the only two in the room. He rolled his neck, stretching out the soreness, and took another glance — he met Rozanov's gaze by accident, holding long enough for Rozanov to glance down and then back up with a salacious wag to his eyebrows.
Shane raised an eyebrow back — Rozanov could try to fluster him, but it wasn't like he was soft either. "You look like a gang-member," he said, tapping his chest and holding a neutral expression, just to see what he would do. The tattoo didn't actually evoke an association with organized crime beyond its vague placement on the pectoral, but Rozanov still turned red, and turned to face the spray, apparently unaccustomed to casual observation.
Fun had, Shane turned to the task of rinsing off, holding back a grin. He'd felt wrong-footed in this country almost since stepping off the plane in preparation for his first Junior World Cup, but one place he always had the advantage were communal showers. Canadians and Americans were so shy, it was almost cute — even the most confident hockey player was like a shrinking violet when compared to an old man who had forgotten his towel in the onsen.
Shane turned off the shower and gave Rozanov an impolite once-over as he passed by to leave the showers — leaving tons of room by onsen etiquette and apparently not enough for Canadian sensibilities, since Rozanov's head whipped around to track his movements. Shane glanced back once more after fixing his towel, and Rozanov whipped back around to study the tiles under the shower-head. Cute — almost cute enough to linger and see what he might do next, but Shane had his own schedule to keep to: his parents were waiting to meet for dinner, after all.
Shane was pulling on his shoes when Rozanov finally finished rinsing off and skittishly came back to the lockers, pulling up the laces and counting the crisscrosses on the left shoe, and then the right; Rozanov had steeled his nerve while Shane was otherwise occupied, and was now standing close enough that the sharp cut of his hip-bones were directly at eye level.
"What is your room number?"
Shane scoffed, and kept counting — after all that, he hadn't been expecting Rozanov to actually preposition him, had half-expected it to be an elaborate ploy to psych him out. Further proof that Canadians were so lacking in politeness that honest interest and sexual harassment were indistinguishable from one another. "Not for you to know."
To his credit, Rozanov didn't further incriminate himself by leaping back or stammering out apologies; the deer-in-the-headlights look in his eye only lingered for a moment before he buried it under layers of bravado and calculated posturing — one hand cocked on his hip as his feet set shoulder-width apart, head tilting with narrow, assessing eyes. "You going to tell anyone?" His tone was pitched about an octave deeper than his normal register, and Shane would be more offended by the implied accusation if he wasn't confused with why the hell Rozanov was putting on a Russian accent, when he was born-and-raised Vancouver.
"Yes, I'm the biggest idiot in all of Canada, and a hypocrite to boot." Even if he wanted to tell, the media would be on Rozanov's side, and it was more controversy that Shane didn't have time for. "I don't care, Rozanov, just don't make it my problem that you can't keep it in your pants, alright?" He stood up, and glanced down at his tattoo again — and also the swell of muscle underneath it, but only for a second, because Shane was just a man and it had been a while — as he slung his bag over his shoulder. "See you on the ice."
Rozanov stepped into his path. "I'm in 1221," he said, switching from threatening to flirtatious so fast that Shane almost got whiplash. "If you change your mind."
.
"This is a bad idea," Shane warned, watching Rozanov approach, watching every word go in one ear and out the other; things weren't helped by his own pleased noises as he was crowded against the wall, their mouths fitting together like long-lost puzzle pieces. He couldn't help how immediately he dropped the pretense of just wanting to talk — he'd been expecting the bravado to be covering up a lack of confidence, had been expecting that it would be easy to talk his way out of it since he didn't have much interest in taking the lead in that way, but Rozanov clearly had some experience under his belt. He kissed and groped well enough to steal away Shane's entire cognitive ability, and when they broke apart for air he couldn't remember the important question he'd planned to ask, not until Rozanov beat him to it:
"You ever been with a man before?"
"Yes." Stupid questions had easy answers, even if it took a moment to translate it in his head and come up with something. "Back in Sapporo, I had a—" He hated the word 'boyfriend', probably more than any other English word, had found it childish and silly even when he was a teenager, but it was the only one he could think of, all the other labels stuck in Japanese when he'd never had a reason to say them in English. Even if he could pick out the right word to use, he wasn't sure he wanted to bring it into this space; it seemed gauche to talk about the guy he'd considered giving up hockey for, when he and Rozanov were only using each other to blow off steam. "We were classmates."
"Was it— I don't know, allowed?"
All non-codified rules are suggestions with varying degrees of social punishment, Shane wanted to reply — it wasn't technically breaking the rules if no one was imaginative enough to make it a written law that you couldn't jerk off your classmate while pretending to study for an English final. "Better that it stayed secret," he replied — Rozanov certainly understood that being gay in hockey was less than ideal, even if he didn't act like it. "You?"
He nodded, heavy eyes distracted as his thumb pulled down on Shane's bottom lip, other hand skirting along his waistband. "My coach's son. It was secret, too."
"Does Canada still care about things like that?" He'd been led to believe, mostly by Kaaru's moony-eyed optimism, that Canada was the best place in the world to be gay. He supposed the standard was low, when Japan had yet to recognize same-sex marriage nationally.
"My father would have skinned me," Rozanov replied, pupils blown wide with desire, waiting for Shane to wise up and return to their activities. "But I like trouble."
Shane tilted his head and pulled him closer. "So," he muttered, dragging the flat of his palm down Rozanov's ribs. "You know what you like, and I know what I like. Should be fun, right?"
"Please God, let me fuck you," Rozanov begged, looking as though he'd pass out from all the blood suddenly pooling south. "I meant that to sound sexier—"
Shane hummed, coming in for another kiss, eager to have his tongue in his mouth again. As appealing as getting fucked sounded, he wasn't ready for that — it was better to wait and see if this arrangement was worth the potential risk. "Stay there," he breathed against Rozanov's mouth, and slid down his body, lifting his shirt to kiss and bite at every inch of exposed midriff and hip-bone. Rozanov braced himself on the wall as he watched Shane unbutton his jeans and tug down his zipper, breath coming faster as he took a moment to nose against the bulge in his briefs before exposing him to the open air.
Rozanov had looked intimidatingly big in the showers, half-hard and caught in glimpses because Shane was much too polite to stare head-on, but up close he ultimately wasn't any longer or thicker than Kaaru was, which was a relief: he had enough going on without trying to figure out how to deepthroat a new shape on the fly.
"Fuck," Rozanov hissed, watching Shane take him into his mouth, hand knotting in his hair. For all the pooled confidence in the room, they were still eager and over-excited: it wasn't long before Rozanov was pulled him off of his cock, muttering something about it being too good, too fast. Shane preened under the begrudging praise, letting himself be pulled back to his feet and kissed soundly.
Rozanov latched onto his neck, mouthing at his pulse. "No marks," Shane managed to breathe, even though his hind-brain screamed in protest.
"I know." The graze of his teeth was careful, the pull of his lips from flesh loud but not marking. "You like sucking dick, huh?"
Again with the stupid questions. "Don't you?"
"Mm, not as much as you." He had attached himself to his throat again, though he moved easily backward as Shane herded them to the bed. He took the gentle shove onto the mattress with a huff of delight, already kicking off his shoes and peeling off his jeans. "Take off your clothes," he breathlessly ordered, eyes bright in the dim light. "I want to see you."
"Didn't get your fill in the shower?"
"Oh my fucking god, Hollander, it's like dirty-talking a genie—"
Shane turned to hide his smirk as he shucked off his clothes, folding them carefully over the arm of the chair sitting diagonally from the bed. He heard a quiet laugh from Rozanov as he did so, and pointed kicked aside the balled-up socks and discarded shoes as he approached the bed.
"Eyes up here, Rozanov."
"I'm going to rock your world, Hollander." Rozanov's eyes took up half of his face as they hungrily raced over his body. "I want to come in your mouth."
"That can be arranged." Shane climbed onto the mattress, taking his time with Rozanov's mouth and his chest and the right side of his waist before moving down to drag his tongue along the length of his cock. He sighed almost louder than Rozanov when he took him in his mouth, the constant buzzing in the back of his mind falling silently as his mouth worked around something almost too big — he paused at the natural resistance at the top of his throat, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes before sinking down to the base.
It wasn't long before Rozanov had both hands knotted in his hair, before his hips were stuttering against Shane's face, abruptly spilling into his mouth. As Rozanov went limp and tried to recover from losing all his brain matter through his dick, Shane pulled off and scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth: after a significant amount of practice he had come around to the taste and texture of cum, but the sweat that accumulated around his mouth in the aftermath was still unbearable. He slithered back up Rozanov's heaving body and settled beside him, fingers idly skimming over the silky pillowcase beside his head for something to do while he waited for his turn.
After what felt like years, Rozanov was finally catching his breath; Shane wrapped his fingers around his chin and turned his head to face him. "It's polite to return the favour, you know."
Rosanov huffed, voice still almost painfully breathless as he panted, "Oh, you need something?"
"Yes, you ass— mmph!"
Rozanov had rolled himself on top of Shane in one smooth motion, intent on recovering every drop of himself from his mouth — Shane had the absurd thought of trying to count his fake teeth, but before he could push himself into motion Rozanov had pulled off with a wet smack and wild eyes, and he braced himself to hear something wildly horny.
"Let me show you how to do this, kid."
Shane scoffed, ready to remind him that he was the older of the two and that yes, a month counted, but Rozanov was already scrambling down to settle between Shane's splayed legs, arms threading under his knees and hands latching around the soft fat around his hips. Shane found that he had no words, not in English or Japanese or any other language strategically half-learned to describe how unreal Rozanov looked just then, curls damp with sweat and eyes painfully hungry as his tongue lapped obscenely over the slit, taking the time to obnoxiously wink before going all in.
Shane threw his head back with a gasping keen, thighs trembling with the effort it took to not clamp around Rozanov's head and buck wildly into his mouth. One hand closed around a metal finial in the headboard above him like a vice, knuckles softening the sound of it banging against the wall, the cold grounding him just enough to not float away; the other knotted into the curls bobbing between his legs, holding on for dear life but otherwise slackly allowed Rozanov to do whatever he wanted to him.
He reached his limit quickly; giving head always brought him close to the edge. When he gathered the breath to warn Rozanov, he was almost disappointed to see him pulling off — he paused at the tip and made eye contact with Shane, just long enough to wink again, before slamming back down to the base. Shane almost yelled as he came, probably would have if he could have figured out how to breathe around the back-arching, full-body paralysis Rozanov had locked him into. Rozanov carefully breathed through his nose as Shane melted back into the bedding, letting him go almost soft before pulling off with an obscene noise.
He reached up and clapped him on the stomach, like a rough backslap from coach to star player in the American sports movies his mother loved to watch. "Can't catch your breath?" he teased, crawling up to settle beside him, one arm behind his head. Shane barely protested, too busy mapping how the triceps and pectorals and lats stretched, flexing in a way that was hard to see as simple, un-erotic movement now that Shane had watched those muscles flex around the task of taking him apart. "God, I want a cigarette."
"Smoking's bad for you." He was still panting, the sentence cut in half by a shallow breath.
"Really? Hadn't noticed."
Shane huffed; if Rozanov wanted to kill himself with lung cancer, that was his prerogative, but he'd learned the art of guilt from the best. "Bad for the game, too — it'd be pretty fucking boring if you couldn't keep up with me."
"I could kick your ass all over that rink even I smoked a pack a day, Hollander."
"Mm." The sheer scope of what they'd done was starting to weigh him down, and he needed to leave before he started to freak out about it, but the bed was still so warm, and there were still the logistics to be discussed. He turned his head to look at Rozanov, and was immediately distracted by the glint of gold hanging around his neck. He dragged his eyes back to his face, focusing on his chin when eye contact proved too much. "No one can know about this."
Rozanov's mouth quirked into a grin. "Really? I was going to send out a mass-text that I just made Seiren Homoda see God."
He swatted Rozanov's shoulder, a light thump with the back of his hand that in no way earned the way he indignantly squawked; Shane was reminded of a squeaky toy, and the thought made him smirk through his admonishment. "Shane Hollander. Did I suck out some brain matter, too?"
"Sorry." He drew out the syllables apologetically, sincerely: it was better than the sharp, quick way people said 'sorry' when they meant 'what's up your ass'. "Figured you'd want a taste of home."
"It's Homoda Seiren, back home." And maybe Rozanov was a little right, even with a lacking pronunciation: even if Shane Hollander was as much his name as any other, even if it would have been his primary name if he had been born in Canada, he did sometimes miss when his teammates would shout Homoda across the ice, when Kaaru would moan Seiren like a pornstar. Still, he couldn't let himself or anyone else take an inch, or he'd lose a mile: Shane Hollander was who he had to be in the NHL, in Canada, and it wouldn't do to encourage Rozanov's elementary-school teasing. "It's Shane Hollander, everywhere else. Don't forget it."
"Right. Won't happen again." It was a shame that they had to be rivals — Rozanov was almost pleasant, when he wanted to be. "So, that's a no on the mass-text? What if I said Shane Hollander made me see God?"
"No chance." The sweat was cooling and the room was losing its humid warmth. He pulled himself upright with a sigh, stretching leisurely and crossing the room to find his clothes. "I've got an early flight," he heard himself say, thankful that he didn't have to make up a lie; most of his brainpower was devoted to hiding the emotional weight dragging down every inch of his body, making him slow and sluggish. It was imperative that he get somewhere secluded, and fast.
"Yes, me too."
Shane paused at the door, turning back to look at the bed when he realized that he should probably say goodbye, or good game, or whatever it was that one-night-stands said to each other when they weren't stealing away in the night. He turned around, quick enough to catch Rozanov looking somewhat lost and forlorn at the empty space Shane had left in the bed; as soon as he was caught looking, it was all hidden away under layers of confidence and sex appeal, eyes half-lidded and mouth fixed in a smirk.
"Bye, Hollander."
"Bye, Rozanov."
.
Shane barely made it to the elevator on wobbling legs, punching the button for the fourteenth floor and before sagging against the back wall with a sigh. He held out one hand, checking for a tremor — nothing, which meant he didn't need to eat anything, but drinking something with electrolytes would be a good idea. His breath came out shaky when he exhaled, but that was normal — he took care to hide it, but he was always a little nervous about matters of sex, even with Kaaru. The delayed anxiety would hit like a hangover, starting out small and growing incrementally over an hour or so before receding. He'd be able to sleep, once it wore off.
His internal post-coital pep-talk was interrupted by an arm blocking the elevator door as it closed, allowing a man and woman to enter; both spoke English, both were tipsy, and both were on something despite it being a Tuesday night. He pressed himself politely in the corner and begged for the world's slowest elevator to move a little faster: the couple were not acting like they had an audience.
Despite his attempt to melt through the wall and take the stairs, the woman took one look at him and gasped excitedly, pushing her date off of her neck. "You're Shane Hollander!"
Shane hoped his polite smile didn't look too much like a grimace. "Hello."
"Oh my god, I'm such a huge fan—" She dug into her purse, unearthing a notepad and a pen. "Do you think I could get an autograph? My name's Selene."
"Sure." He took the notepad, and noted with some surprise that Rozanov's signature dominated the top half of the page. He signed his name beneath, briefly hesitating over the English letters — he needed to practice a little more, he kept wanting to signature with kanji. "You've got a matched set."
"Oh my god, it's so exciting!" Selene gushed, touching her date's arm. "Alexei introduced me to Ilya tonight, he's such a character — you know he offered to sign your autograph too?"
It felt weird to commiserate about Rozanov being a dick to these people, perfect strangers who were wholly unaware that he had just given the man a blowjob. "Of course he did."
"So, do you guys really hate each other?"
"I respect him as a player. He's going to hate me a lot more after this season."
The man — Alexei — threw his head back and laughed. "I can't wait," he snickered. "Ilya needs to be taken down a notch, you win one gold and suddenly you're God's gift to hockey."
After an insane rendezvous and now an ambush by what had to be a blood relative of Rozanov's, Shane was beginning to think he'd hit his cap on English for the day. "An unfortunate trait of most hockey players," he managed to joke back, handing back the notebook. The elevator had finally reached his floor, but before he could make his escape Alexei had dropped a heavy hand on Shane's shoulder. His back naturally straightened under the weight as he subconsciously drew to his full height, body reacting as though someone had dropped their gloves.
"Let me ask you something," Alexei said, leaning in close. "Do you really think you're fooling anyone, going by Shane Hollander?"
"It's my name."
"Except it's not. You don't see us going by the fucking Roses, do you?"
He could think of several reasons why it wasn't a one-to-one comparison, and voiced none of them. "Very nice to meet you, Selene, Alexei. I'm late for something, but have a pleasant evening."
"Of course, of course — thank you for the autograph!" Selene said quickly, patting Alexei's arm warningly. "Say goodnight, Alexei."
"Fine, fine, goodnight — here's hoping you can teach Ilya to stop playing like a pidor, huh?"
2011 - Nashville
On the bright side, Hollander stomping on Ilya's foot when he tried to give him a break from answering an overly-long and complicated question from ESPN had probably fuelled a lot of engagement on the rivalry front. On the less bright side — or more bright, considering how Ilya usually felt about being bodily dragged into an out-of-the-way bathroom — was that Hollander was genuinely pissed at him.
"Don't do that again," Hollander finished, cheeks flushed with anger after a long, hushed tirade — his freckles stood out starkly still, and Ilya felt like he was being hissed at by one of those miniature wildcats, understanding academically that he needed to take the threat seriously, but also hopelessly charmed. "It's not cute when you try and help me, it makes me look like I can't handle myself."
"No one thinks that—"
"Don't, Rozanov. It's important that you don't undermine me." Hollander turned and left, barely sparing him a backward glance. "Wait two minutes before you follow."
So, the All-Star Game was off to a rough start, on the finally-getting-to-fuck-Hollander front — Ilya had been trying to claw himself back into his good graces for the entire weekend, enduring all the most boring drills of hockey with none of the interesting stakes while Hollander continued to give him the cold shoulder, and now he was facing the ultimate challenge: Scott Hunter had put himself between Ilya and the opposing team's bench, and every time he wanted to chirp at Hollander he had to lean around Hunter's walker to do it.
Hollander returned to the bench, having blown past Ilya's broken record in the shot-accuracy competition. Ilya leaned around Hunter and called, "You're distracted tonight, Hollander! You could have made that half a second faster, something on your mind?"
Hollander's face scrunched in confusion as he considered the merits of what Ilya had said, as if there was any: half of what came out of Ilya's mouth to Hollander's ears was nonsense intended to confuse, irritate, and then arouse him, in that order. "I was faster than you, Rozanov."
"Ah, you're slow on the comeback too." He leaned back to to ignore Hollander's offended scoff, and immediately cringed, leaning back around Hunter's oxygen tank; Hollander looked properly pissed, probably reminded of Ilya's earlier blunder, and Ilya had one and only one shot to blow past that and get things back on track. "Hey, you have a good time with your team last night?"
"Do you want me to go?" Hunter asked, exasperated face tipped up at the jumbotron — if their bench had a backrest he'd probably be asleep by now. "I sense that I'm in your way, somehow."
"Please excuse our rudeness, Mr. Hunter," Hollander said, sliding back into that bland, placid tone he used when he didn't particularly care if anyone caught on to how little he cared about the given topic. Hunter nodded to him and returned his attention to the drills; Hollander's mouth ticked in smothered humour as he returned his attention to Ilya. "We had a good time. You?"
He see-sawed his hand, nodding unsubtly to Hunter. Hunter grunted irritably. "I'm going to bed early tonight."
"Trying to be like your mentor?"
"Jesus Christ, leave me out of this," Hunter prayed, eyes closed.
"Rozanov!"
Ilya was up and over the boards almost before he registered that he was being called; as he skated by the opposite team's bench, he leaned in close and delivered his room number, skating away before Hollander could see the insane grin on his face.
.
"Scott Hunter is next door," Shane hissed; after a very, very, very long day, the infrastructure maintaining the favourable and gamely demeanour his dad naturally inhabited was falling, and he was still a little sore with Rozanov for the press conference. Still, he was here: if he could be certain of one thing it was that Rozanov could handle him being pissy and irritated, especially when he followed it up with a bruising kiss and the start of a fantastic blowjob.
On the nightstand, Rozanov had made his intentions clear: a bottle of chocolate-flavoured lube and an accordion of condoms had been arranged in anticipation of Shane's arrival. Shane gave himself permission not to worry about it just yet, fingers curling in the bedding as Rozanov stared up at him, cheeks hollowed out on his cock.
"Not here," he gasped, feeling the questioning brush of fingers against his hole. The headboard was already dangerously close to banging against the wall and announcing more than he was comfortable with, if Scott Hunter was there to listen — not to mention that Shane was not capable of being quiet when something was in his ass. "Next time." He'd buy out the whole floor, or possibly the whole building, just for some fucking privacy: he was starting to think that hotel designers had a fetish for embarrassing closeted hockey players with thin walls and squeaky bedsprings and noisy headboards that may as well be set on hinges.
Rozanov pulled off with an obscene noise. "Next time?"
"You play Montreal in two weeks." He sat up to kiss him, hoping to pull him out of whatever short-circuit had left him so dumbfounded. Rozanov ground their hips together with a whine, and Shane pulled back to look him in the eye. "You can wait two weeks, can't you?"
"You're so mean to me," he keened, attached himself to Shane's neck. His teeth sank slightly deeper in, under his jaw.
"No marks."
"Sorry." He tucked his teeth away and licked him in apology. "Why not just lie?"
"Gets too complicated." He could lie, he wasn't some fey creature, it was just that it never stopped at one: he'd say a girl left the marks, the guys would ask who she was, where they met, how good was she. All things that he could reasonably lie about if he rehearsed, sure, but all that mental space was better spent on hockey — and on cataloguing the spots on Rozanov's body that made him say fuck, Hollander.
It had been a while since he had gotten to review his findings on that matter. He wrapped his arms around Rozanov's torso and flipped them over, chasing out a surprised huff of delight that quickly turned to moans as Shane settled between his knees and rewarded him for his patience.
.
When Shane came out of the shower, Rozanov held out his phone, opened to a new chat and awaiting a phone number. Shane blinked down at the phone, and then at Rozanov. "What?"
"You have a phone, don't you?" He manually placed the phone into Shane's hand, rather than wait for him to take it himself. "Put in your number, that way we can plan better."
It seemed simultaneously too-much-too-soon and why-the-hell-did-this-take-so-long. One of Shane's hoodie strings migrated into his mouth as he typed in his number, sending off a message before he could decide against it; Rozanov grinned wolfishly as he handed it back, seeing the winking kaomoji Shane had sent to himself and wisely choosing to keep his opinion of it to himself. He bent down to type something extra into the thread with a devious smile — Shane took out his own phone and navigated to the new message, and found himself stumped with what to do next.
"Hey," Rozanov said, turning his phone for Shane to see the new contact: Sexy Montreal. "Put me down as Boston Hottie."
"I'd rather die." If he bothered with regular hook-ups, he liked to think that he would respect them enough to have their actual names in his phone, rather than 'Tinder Red Hair' or whatever Rozanov thought was acceptable. "You can be Lily."
He blew a raspberry. "Boring." Shane's phone vibrated with a new text. See you in two weeks, Jane. xo Lily.
2013 - Montreal
Ilya decided he would take back all former complaints on the fact that he and Hollander had not yet had penetrative sex — the pause in momentum was actually super cool, so long as Hollander slammed him down on the bed and pinned his wrists every time they met, instead.
"If you say 'notice me, senpai,' ever again, I'm going to kill you and then myself in front of everyone," Hollander snarled from above, only growing more incensed at the way Ilya was staring at his freckles. He hadn't mentioned the sexting, which Ilya took to mean he had one more freebie before Hollander got in his head about it. "Got it, Rozanov?"
Of this transgression, he was absolutely guilty — an inside thought carelessly said aloud while checking Hollander into the boards, and he had immediately cringed even before seeing Hollander's murderous glare. However, in the aftermath Ilya was unbearably hard, and wiggled his hips to communicate this fact: maybe he could find something that was less objectionable to say but still triggered this reaction, somehow. "In a sexy kind of way?"
"In a 'kiss the hall of fame goodbye' kind of way," Hollander said venomously, cruelly ignoring how they were about to have a medical emergency on their hands if he didn't touch Ilya's dick right this second. "You think you're the only one to make that joke? It makes you sound just as idiotic as everyone else — I don't care how cute you think you're being, keep it to yourself."
"I'm sorry." He halted all movement, meeting Hollander's eyes so he'd know he meant it. "It was a stupid thing to say, and I won't do it again. I swear."
Hollander's jaw ticked as he regarded him closely, so focused on scanning Ilya's face that he wasn't masking his own: under the seething rage he looked achingly tired, and Ilya suddenly wondered how many times he'd added to that tiredness, how often he'd thoughtlessly said or done something that had him marked into the same box as players who threw slurs and made jokes about broken English.
"Hey." He twisted one hand free and carded it through the short hair at the back of Hollander's head, heavy palm closing at his nape and giving him a light shake. "I really am sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with that."
Hollander shrugged in the way he always did, more like a flinching roll of his shoulders than an intentional shrug, already trying to pull back from getting too vulnerable. "I know you don't mean it."
"Still." His thumb gently pressed on the cord of his shoulder. "It won't happen again."
"And what if I don't believe you?" The words were spoken half an inch from his mouth, a challenge Ilya was desperate to meet. For all that Hollander had the speed advantage, Ilya was just a little bit stronger: flipping their positions was easy, especially when Hollander gasped so prettily upon finding his wrists pinned just the same, back arching as he tested Ilya's hold on him before melting back into the mattress with a heady sigh.
Ilya leaned down and said, just barely separated from Hollander's mouth, "Tell me how to make it up to you, Hollander."
Hollander writhed prettily, trying to arch up and kiss him; Ilya pulled back with a smirk, tightening his hold on his wrists and watching how it made Hollander's eyes glaze over. "Rozanov—"
"Tell me, Hollander. Want me to suck you?" He ducked down, dodging his mouth to bite his earlobe. Huh, pierced — interesting. "Edge you?" He tugged Hollander's wrists together over his head, using his freed-up hand to skate his fingers over his navel, pushing his shirt up. "Should I come in your mouth?"
Hollander gasped as he lightly scraped his teeth over his nipple, hands breaking free to grab him by the face and drag him close enough to kiss — Ilya gasped first, a rarity that Hollander clearly felt smug about given the volume of his answering moan. Ilya ground his hips down on Hollander's thigh as they kissed, barely remembering to breathe until he got dizzy; after the fourth time they broke apart gasping, Hollander leaned their foreheads together to catch his own breath, eyes open and staring at Ilya like they were facing off on the ice. "You should fuck me."
Ilya paused, taking a moment to just stare down at Hollander's wrecked expression. After so long of just missing each other or plans not working out, he was half-afraid that Hollander might evaporate into mist. "You're sure?"
He nodded quickly, apparently equally worried that someone would lose their nerve. "No neighbours — I own the units on either side. Might turn them into one place, but—" He gasped as Ilya scraped his teeth over his neck. "I want you to fuck me."
.
The extremely valid concerns Shane had had with rounding fourth base with Rozanov seemed unimportant, now. Logically, he knew that he was too loud for most hotel rooms, too keyed-up to relax without an hour of foreplay, that things would only get more precarious the longer they let this drag on, but when faced with the sensation of weight and heat bearing into him, he wanted to curse his past self for being so paranoid. 2011 Shane had cost him almost two years of having Rozanov's mouth on his neck, his weight languidly stretched over his back as they moved together on their sides, twisting the bedsheets around them in a flurry of grabbing hands and pitching moans. He wanted to go back in time and throttle himself.
He had to figure out a way to have this on-tap, going forward. Maybe he should buy a high-end condo in every major city on the continent, just so they could have this whenever they crossed paths. Mostly though, he needed Rozanov to remember that this wasn't Shane's first time; at a lull he pushed them both onto their knees on the mattress and set Rozanov's hands on his hips, keeping his back against his chest as he reached back and knotted his hand in his hair to make sure he was listening. "I have some notes, Rozanov." The words were breathless — the new angle was exactly as good as he remembered it being.
"Oh yeah?'" Rozanov's hips were flush to him and slowly grinding, making it very hard to focus. "You gonna hurt my feelings?"
"Ah— harder, you think you can do harder?"
Rozanov growled, sinking his teeth into the swell of his shoulder, pulling back just enough to not leave a mark. "Think you can take it?"
"Fuck you—" A particularly hard thrust had him bowing forward with a shout, until Rozanov's arms wrapped around his chest and pulled him back against his chest. "Fuck, Rozanov—"
"Think I'd like to hear you beg," he whispered in Shane's ear, hips smoothly rolling against him. "Think you can do that, Hollander?"
"Please," he breathed, one hand reaching back to keep Rozanov's mouth on his pulse. "Please fuck me, I need it, I need you—"
2014 - Sochi
Ilya probably would have liked to visit the place where his mother had been born, if his family hadn't invited themselves along.
Alexei was easy to ignore — Ilya hadn't been wounded by his garden-variety insults since he was sixteen, and he had found myriad other ways of entertaining himself since landing in Russia, most of which kept him away from the Team Canada games thus far. His father was much worse: in all the excitement he seemed to have forgotten that he was no longer Ilya's entire team, pulling triple duty as coach and manager and agent, bullying his way into all the places that Ilya had presumed safe from his influence. Even now, his father was swanning around the stupid gold-medallist gala, no doubt giving every dignitary in attendance an unflattering picture of Canada's Russian diaspora.
He missed Svetlana and Sasha, back home in Vancouver; between the three of them this night could be almost bearable. They might have even kept him distracted from Shane Hollander, who had emerged from the bathroom where he had been very obviously splashing his face with water, looking more and more miserable as the night dragged on. Their eyes met across the crowded room, and Ilya carefully and deliberately looked away — they couldn't risk anything here, not until they were back in a known environment, not until they were facing off against each other on the ice. He had been so sure that they'd clash, playing together, but the reality was so much worse: they had played together so well that it hurt to know that it couldn't last, and he just wanted to rip the band-aid off, to go home and get a head-start on the unique pain of going back to separate teams and this stupid rivalry that barely made any sense.
His gaze slid onto the back of his father's head, having ditched Ilya and was now heading straight for Shane. Not good — Ilya detached himself from the dignitary he had been working hard to keep his father from offending and all but sprinted after him, dodging finely-dressed party-goers and trays of hors d'ouerves and trying to intercept, but he was too late. His father had ensnared Shane in conversation with ease that came from a lifetime of domination, and by the look on Shane's face — neutrally attentive, with eyes screaming 'why are you talking to me' — it seemed his father had already managed to ruin his night.
"Papa, Minister Popov is looking to speak with you," Ilya said loudly to cut off whatever his father was saying, fitting himself into the gap between them. "He wants to trade war stories, yes?"
His father harrumphed at being interrupted, but was clearly pleased enough with the summons, detaching himself to go and find the dignitary that Ilya had invented. Before Ilya could follow, Hollander cleared his throat.
"Your father knows good hockey," he said lightly. "Though I'm not sure he actually watched the game."
Ilya winced. "I'm sorry about him, he's—" He paused. Slowly slipping away? Of course, even if Alexei and Polina would never admit it; faced with the gears already turning behind Hollander's eyes, Ilya didn't want to admit to it either. "He's just like that. Sorry."
"We can't choose our parents," Hollander said diplomatically. "He thought I was Bruce Yoshida."
"Oh? There's another devilishly handsome hockey player with a weak backhand? It must be my birthday." That was borderline, and by the flashing behind Hollander's eyes he'd hear about it later, but a lot could be dismissed as a joke, especially between hockey players — Team Russia's captain had promised his goalie a blowjob if he could block more goals than he let in. Not for the first time, Ilya considered the merits of learning dirty words in Japanese, just to see what Shane would do with that; after a moment of consideration, he decided that it had an equal chance of triggering the best sex ever or Ilya's untimely death.
"Would be, if he hadn't died in '96."
This must be how his opponents felt when Ilya chirped them, body hot and pulse pounding, reeling from how easily someone could see the things he was trying to hide, how mercilessly they could be dragged to the surface for all to see. He stood there with his jaw clenched, glad that he wasn't holding a glass because it would certainly crack in his grip, wondering what game Hollander was playing, why he saw fit to spoil a perfectly fine conversation like that.
He had been standing mute for too long. Hollander cleared his throat and set down his champagne. "I'm sorry, that was—"
"I, uhm," He scratched his nose and cleared his throat. "I should go. See you on the ice."
2014 - Vancouver
Playoffs were around the corner, the Bears were clinging onto their wildcard spot for dear life with Philadelphia nipping at their heels, and for some reason Ilya had been convinced to fly to Vancouver to attend a party as his father's prized progeny.
He had thought he was safe during the season, but he was wrong, just as he was wrong to think that purposefully leaving his tie askew for his father to hone in on would protect him from the broader criticism in store. It was much harder to be unaffected by the castigation when his father had him pinned down to adjust his tie, likewise pinning down every detail of his career and squeezing until something unpleasant came out: missed passes were laziness, his fault; failing to block an opposing goal was a lack of discipline, his fault; letting the game go into overtime was sloppiness of the highest order, even if the Bears won, and as always it was his fault.
After a long while of dissociating between his father and Sergei Vetrov's discussion of the sorry state of hockey players today, thinking about the Olympics and the fact that he hadn't talked to Hollander since, Ilya was finally rescued by Svetlana, friendship and heroism incarnate as she smoothly detangled Ilya from the conversation and led him through the ballroom.
"Spasibo, Sveta."
"Yes, yes, I'm an angel, as you keep forgetting," she told him, pulling him into a backroom suite — the long, angular form of Coach Belov's son Sasha was turned away from them, bent over the vanity to snort something that was doubtlessly more exciting than this party warranted. "Privyet, Sasha."
"Privyet, Sveta," Sasha greeted, through the mirror — his sharp eyes and sharper smile shifted to Ilya, and his voice dropped to a purr. "Long time, Ilya."
He nodded back, not trusting himself to speak — he could speak and understand Russian fine, it was all his mother ever spoke to him and Alexei, but Sasha and Svetlana had grown up splitting their time between Vancouver and Moscow, and sometimes his Sochi accent and heritage-speaker diction weren't quite up to the task of keeping up with them. Besides, that wasn't the real problem: Sasha's presence used to fill him with a sense of danger and anticipation, tempting each other into a tightrope dance that was too enticing to refuse, but now it was just danger — and Sasha, like Svetlana, was too fucking perceptive to let that go unnoticed.
"You'll have the cup this year," Svetlana was saying, boosting herself onto the vanity. Her accent was soft when they spoke like this, caught somewhere between the smooth tones of Russian and her mother's afro-PNW inflection. "I can see it."
"You should tell that to my father. He'd decided we're already out of the running, somehow." It hurt to give voice to it, but it was either admit it or let Svetlana and Sasha pry it out of him like meatball surgeons.
She waved her hand dismissively. "He'd punish you even if you found a way to bring the cup to Vancouver," she said. "Stop caring about what he thinks, and focus on the run. Philadelphia is your biggest threat right now, but they're too eager, too nervous — they keep moving things around unnecessarily. They'll stack up their first line to try and overwhelm you, but it'll just tire out their best guys — you'll be able to get it back in the second period. After that, Admirals won't make it past Jersey, and Jersey won't make it past Hollander in Montreal—"
"Mm, lots of things can't get past Hollander in Montreal." Sasha was likely just saying words to feel included, a self-proclaimed nonbeliever in hockey and all hockey-adjacent topics, but the way he said the words and then glanced over at Ilya was telling — pupils the size of quarters, but still with the ability to see right through him as he lounged in the bathtub like a spoiled prince.
"But you will," Svetlana continued, ignoring Sasha in a way that probably seemed nonchalant, to her. "Their best goalie's hurt, and you can only go so far with an injured goalie. After that, it's East versus West: Chicago's dead in the water, so it'll be San Francisco, and they're good, but they're young. Beat San Francisco, and the cup is yours."
He didn't have it in him to doubt her, even performatively. "You should go into the crystal ball business, I hear they love a good psychic."
"Don't insult me: this is cold, hard analysis."
"Yes, Ilya, don't insult the beautiful lady." Sasha had grown bored of the shop-talk, stretching out a long arm to offer Svetlana a baggie of coke — she shook her head with a decisive sniff and begged off to bed, leaving Ilya and Sasha to reacquaint themselves with each other.
After a long while of Ilya doing his best to come up with of a reason to leave and a subsequent escape plan for the evening at large, Sasha huffed with sardonic laughter. "Long time no see, Sasha. How's Paris, Sasha?" He leaned his head back but kept his eyes firmly on Ilya. "Oh, you know — c'est magnifique. The clubbing, the girls, the boys." His eyebrows jumped, and he grinned salaciously. "I guess you'd know about French boys, right?"
Ilya finally turned his head to actually look at him. "What are you saying, Sasha?" He couldn't be sure of whether English or Russian would be safer to speak right now, so he settled for a low mix of the two.
"Nothing, out loud." Sasha smoothly unfolded his body from the bathtub, stepping out and casually tucking his hands into his pockets. "Are you too busy for old friends? Is that why you don't flirt back?" He came closer, tapping the toe of his dress-shoe against Ilya's to make room for himself; Ilya found his head tilting up to meet his mouth by reflex, letting Sasha catch his bottom lip between his teeth and gently tug.
Shane didn't bite when he kissed Ilya on the mouth. He pulled back and fixed Sasha with an unimpressed look. "Here? Seriously?"
Sasha bit his lip, heavy eyes fixed on Ilya's mouth. "Do you remember that party, right before you left for Boston?" He inched closer, and cupped Ilya through his pants. "I think I still have the hickey you left on my ass — I wouldn't mind another."
God, he wanted to leave hickeys and bite-marks on Shane, everywhere he could reach. He planted a hand on Sasha's chest and gently but firmly pushed him back. "Nyet, Sasha."
If he was wounded, he hid it well. "Fine. I'm going to find a party." Still, he lingered until it was clear that Ilya wouldn't run after him. "Bye, Ilya."
"Good to see you, Sasha." If only he could figure out whether that was the truth.
2014 - Las Vegas
Losing Rookie of the Year still stung even years later, but not for the reasons Hollander likely still believed. Ilya had a little more depth of personality than just winning, and if Hollander were any less goddamn perfect he'd be insulted at the ease of his biting words: mad you can't take another victory lap, Rozanov?
But that wasn't worth lingering over, when he had a shiny new trophy to bring home to Vancouver and none of the glee he'd expected to feel over winning. He scrubbed a hand over his face as he waited for Hollander to get his ass to the penthouse, tiredly looking out over the skyline and wrestling with his stupid, fancy clothes. His family barely knew what an MVP was, and yet he could expect to hear all about how it wasn't good enough, how bankrolling their lives from Boston wasn't good enough, how nothing he could do would be good enough. The only person he looked forward to seeing was his niece, and he wished that could be enough to overcome the trials of having to then spend time with his brother and/or sister-in-law.
He poured himself a drink, and did his best to look cool and composed as Hollander came into the penthouse — they didn't need a repeat of the Rookie of the Year debacle, he just wanted to focus on making Hollander feel good to balance out everything else that Ilya was predisposed to fucking up, and hopefully give himself something to sustain him for the next two months.
And wasn't that a terrifying thought: when faced with two months of hooking up in Vancouver and ostensibly having a vacation, his primary concern was surviving on scraps from someone he couldn't have, someone who could easily have anyone else and would move on as soon as a better, less-treacherous situation opened up. He was setting himself up for disappointment at every step: it made sense for Ilya Rozanov to stick around for Shane Hollander, but it didn't make sense for Shane Hollander to stick around for Ilya Rozanov.
.
All alcohol tasted gross, but vodka was certainly the worst. Shane was half-sure that Rozanov was faking his enjoyment of it out of some misplaced loyalty to Russia. If he tried hard enough, he could pretend that the effort of the charade was the thing making the conversation grind.
"Going back home?" Rozanov asked, after they'd been silent for too long. "Japan?"
"Maybe. Haven't decided yet." His summers were usually half family trips back to Sapporo and half kicking around his house in Montreal, rigidly scheduled and comforting in routine, but the thought of jetting to a different time zone seemed exhausting. He'd finance his parents' flight, though, for wherever they wanted to go — they'd given up too much for him not to do so. "You? Back to Vancouver?" Vancouver might be nice to visit, he idly mused: it seemed like a cool and stylish place, historical in a different way from Montreal and Sapporo.
"Yeah." Rozanov had a cigarette between his lips, but hadn't lit it yet.
Shane glanced over at him, noting the preoccupied way he had answered, the way his hands were limp and still on the bed-covers. He bit his lip and longed to reach out to take Rozanov's hand, wanted to slip the spare key to his cottage into his pocket and tell him that he was allowed to run away. But Rozanov was loyal, too loyal to people who would do nothing for him: Shane had felt that same loyalty every time he was faced with the looming administrative reality of having to give up Japanese citizenship, holding on tightly to a slip of paper with both hands even though he never intended on returning for more than a visit. He felt it every time people assumed that his name-change was an act of shame or self-hatred, that his relocation was more of the same: patriotism roiled in his chest, even though he'd so rarely felt more than tolerated in Japan. Maybe it was because he sometimes felt no more tolerated in Canada.
"I should go." It was better to leave now than to linger long enough for Rozanov to kick him out. "Early flight tomorrow." He tossed back the last of his vodka and grimaced through the burn of it as he slid out of bed. Rozanov didn't move, staring holes through the far wall as Shane collected his underwear, tossed aside, and his suit, carefully folded. After a moment's hesitation by the couch, he wandered back to the bed, idly pretending that he was looking for some lost article of clothing until he got close enough to slide one knee on the bed, looming over Rozanov and moving fast: before he could react or move to stop him, Shane had plucked the cigarette from his lips and firmly kissed him.
After a beat, Rozanov pulled back and looked away, back to staring distractedly. "I need to sleep."
Well, there was his answer. Shane moved off of the bed and plodded out the door, calling out a farewell and not lingering to hear if he replied. He made it all the way to the elevator before he looked down at his hand, still holding the cigarette he had taken from Rozanov's lips. Smoking had never appealed to him before, but he found himself tucking the cigarette into his pocket anyway, promising himself that it was just until he could find a trashcan, and considered what kind of text he was supposed to send to Rozanov after all that. See you next season was a safe bet, but it wasn't what he wanted to write: I wish we didn't have to be apart, I wish you'd let me stay, I thought I could be cool about it but I need you to kiss me like you're trying to eat me whenever we cross paths, I need more than what you're willing to give and I don't want it from anyone else.
He tapped his head roughly against the wall, and decided that he would go back to Sapporo, for a while: some distance would be good for him, and after a summer of detoxing he'd end things with Rozanov. Things had run their course, and they both needed a clean break.
2015
L: the ref is blind, Jackson definitely slashed you
J: I know, I was there.
L: you should drop gloves next time
L: so hot when you got into it with Hunter
L: you ever going to tell me what that was about?
J: Never. We worked it out.
L: then what's the harm?
J: You might pass out from the head-rush and die. I'm too busy to find someone to replace you.
L: say no more, nothing could possibly be better than the fanfiction i'm writing in my head
L: and i don't pass out, that's you. remember last time?
J: That doesn't count, orgasms are different.
L: whatever you say Jane. all i know is that you had trouble walking out of my place last week 😈
.
J: I'm sharing with Hayden. You?
L: boston can afford to give their beloved captain a room to himself, if that's what you're asking
L: or so i've heard
J: Fuck off, I like rooming with Hayden.
L: does he ever stop talking? is he like white noise, helping you sleep?
J: That's racist. He helps me practice my French.
L: extra-white noise. caucasian noise, even. i can say this, because i am white
J: It's nice, listening to him talk about his family. Even if he keeps trying to set me up with yoga instructors.
L: how sad for you lol
L: i bet can sneak a keycard into your pocket tonight without you noticing
J: I doubt it.
2016 - Boston
Things had been a slog for a month now, and Shane wasn't sure how to fix it. He lingered in bed for longer and longer in the mornings, compressing his days into shorter and shorter spans of time, something cutting things so close that he was almost late to practice, to games, to flights for away games. Hayden and J.J. both had tried to talk to him about it, but he had brushed them off with a lie about feeling homesick — the real problem was that here felt too much like home.
Press was the same everywhere: what does Montreal need to do to win, how good are Montreal's chances of ending up in the play-offs, do you feel at home in the captain's seat, are your teammates happy to have you leading them, do you have any regrets about leaving Japan, on average how many times a day do you think about how everyone perceives you? He was sick to death of thinking about it, and whenever they weren't hammering down the fact that he was a highly-visible minority in this country, they were hammering the eligible bachelor angle, pressure building with each pointed question about whether he had a girlfriend in Montreal or Japan, each reminder that there was only one right answer to that question and he was unable to give it. He was tired in a way he didn't know how to fix, a deep exhaustion that couldn't be excised, but maybe it could be helped by a few hours in Rozanov's house.
He felt shaky and off-balance as he walked up to Rozanov's front door, to the point where he had to paused and calculate whether he had eaten enough that day, whether he was feeling too off to enjoy himself, whether he'd be good company, and before he knew it he was standing on the stoop and trying to convince himself to press the doorbell. The door opened without him having to make a decision, and as Rozanov grinned widely at him and tugged him inside and invited him to wear out his welcome, Shane had to dig deep for any answering enthusiasm.
.
Ilya had not moved from the couch in some time, and it seemed that Shane — Hollander, he angrily reminded himself, he was only Hollander from now on — was not coming back. It had been too much, to do all of this: too much for Ilya to ask, and too much for Hollander to give. What had he been thinking?
Obsessively his mind combed over the last few hours, looking for the breaking point: insisting that Hollander sleep in his bed, just so happening to have ginger ale and the makings for two tuna melts ready to go in his fridge, the way he had spoken to his own family? He had tried to distance himself with the phone call, since he couldn't hide behind Russian when his father had regressed beyond understanding of anything but English, but maybe Hollander had heard something that had put another strike against Ilya's name. Maybe he understood what Ilya had called his brother in a voicemail.
His phone rang, and he picked it up without checking the Caller ID, stupidly believing that Hollander was calling to say he'd forgotten a sock and would be back before long, that they could talk things out or just go back to the way things were, but it was his brother's voice that filled his ear instead:
"Why the fuck are you calling me about Papa? You're being a goddamn pest!"
That was a good question. Why had he called, again? "You weren't with him. I pay you to be there."
"I needed some fucking air, is that a crime?"
Ilya didn't answer, already checked out of the conversation — that was okay, Alexei never needed a willing partner to keep an argument going. By the time he hung up, he doubted that Alexei had noticed how Ilya hadn't fought back once. At least his father hadn't tried to call again — that meant that his brother was indeed back in his vicinity.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling dizzy and sick. He wished someone else would call — he wished Marleau or St. Simon could have some kind of stupid emergency that only their captain could fix, just so he didn't have to sit here and think about how panicked Hollander had looked, fleeing his house. He lolled his head to look down at his phone, finding Svetlana's number through blurry eyes. Maybe she'd have a mission for him, a task to occupy him for the next two years while he got over the worst mistake of his life.
2016 - Montreal
Rose Landry was one of those names Shane struggled with, if he had to say it in one go, something about the proximity of the r sound and the l sound getting mixed up in his mind, a blind spot made worse by a lack of practice. He carefully didn't think about another name with proximal r and l sounds that had never posed an issue for him, and reached out to shake his booth-mate's hand when she offered, "I'm Rose."
"Shane. I'm a big fan."
"Would it surprise you to learn that I'm a big fan of yours, too?"
"Depends on the kind," he half-joked.
She gasped in mock-offence. "I would never watch hockey just for a pretty face," she scolded. "I'm a Michigan girl with three brothers, who do you take me for?"
He raised his hands in surrender with a laugh. "Alright, alright, I didn't mean to imply anything."
"Good, because I do also watch for the pretty faces." She raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm only human."
"I guess so." He rubbed his jaw self-consciously, dragging his thumbnail over his freckles and trying to think of anything to move the conversation forward. "So, have you been in Montreal before?"
"A couple years ago, I think? It was for a week in the summer, I didn't really get to see the sights."
"Bet the cold is a bit of a shock."
"Michigan, remember? Your winters don't scare me." She paused for a moment, as though debating whether to say something else, and finally said, "My dad says that Shuangyashan was much colder anyway, and that we're all babies for complaining about it."
He blinked at her, wondering if he was understanding her meaning correctly: he knew better than to decide that someone didn't look half-Asian, but he wouldn't have guessed it just by looking at her. "Shuangyashan?"
"Northern China. Almost Russia." She slid over her plate for them to share. "Have a fry, Homoda."
.
Rose's parents had met in Honolulu, two lifelong snow-people trying to see what the rest of the world had to offer before deciding that the snowy cold was what they preferred. They had pen-palled for a few years after before Rose's father had saved enough to move to Michigan, and from there they had four children and many cats.
"So, how did your parents meet?" Rose folded her hands under her chin, regarding him with uncommon interest, and he had no reservations with sharing the story.
"McGill University. My mom was getting a business management degree, my dad was in for accounting, but he played hockey for the school too. My mom wound up in the arena nosebleeds during practice, looking for a place to study." The first time was accidental, the hundreds of times after were certainly not. "My dad got distracted looking at her, and slammed into the boards. He says it was love at first sight, she says it was a concussion and Florence Nightingale Syndrome."
Rose laughed, and he was struck with how right it felt, having people to talk to like this. And sure, past relationships with women (totalling a month of of his life, cumulatively) had irrefutably proven that he wasn't attracted to them, but as far as the rest of the world knew, that wasn't the case. If he wanted people to stop prodding about his love-life, if he wanted to continue on discreetly having sex with men (not Rozanov, not anymore, he'd fucked that up too badly to salvage, but there were other men), then he had to start thinking about finding a like-minded woman who would agree to be in a public relationship with him. And Rose was so nice and easy to talk to, and she seemed to enjoy his company as well: he really wanted it to be her.
He leaned forward and put on his most charming smile, feeling like he was staring down the barrel of a gun as he asked, "Do you want to get out of here?"
She pursed her lips around a smile, and for a moment it seemed like she might say yes, and then: "Sorry, Homoda. I'm not the girl for you."
He blinked at her, wondering if she could read his thoughts. After loaded silence, the only thing he could think to say was, "Oh."
"Sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound rude, it's just— the Shane Hollander, famously doesn't do anything but hockey, suddenly needs a girlfriend? Seems like someone's asking when you'll bring someone home."
"It's not like that, it's just—" He trailed off with a frustrated groan. "It's so fucking loud in here."
She laughed at him again. "Tell you what — you can walk me home."
Extracting themselves from the party was easy enough, J.J. happy to let him leave as long as it was in Rose's company, and soon enough they were walking down the deserted streets toward Rose's hotel. Shane found himself unwilling to break the companionable silence, until Rose prodded gently,
"So, what's it about?"
"I'm gay," he confessed, quietly, after making sure no one was around to hear it.
"Right." She could stand to sound a little more surprised, and she raised her hands in mock-surrender when he levelled a grimace her way. "Sorry, but I went to theatre school. Lots of people are gay."
"Right, but that's theatre school. Being out is not something I can be, in hockey."
"I get that. A lot of actors are queer, but they stay closeted for a lot of different reasons." She bumped his shoulder with hers. It felt like a butterfly kiss after the rough check he'd had last game. "So, looking for a lavender situation?"
"I don't know what that means." It was still painful to admit such a thing, to anyone. Maybe Rose was fluent in her father's language too, maybe he had no reason to worry, but he was still braced for the poorer reactions he'd had when he'd admitted that being fluent in Japanese and English still had its blind spots, that instead of being 100% fluent in a single language it felt like he was only ever 75% fluent in two.
"Basically when you marry someone to hide being gay."
He committed the term to memory. "Yes, that."
"Mm. Well, I've already decided that I'm marrying for love, so that rules me out."
"Money doesn't sweeten the deal?"
"I've got my own money, Shane." She stepped into his path and halted their progress. "Why now? It never bothered you before."
"Before?"
"We've been watching your games since the Asian League, Hollander, keep up. My brothers all want to be you or eat you alive." A pensive look crossed her face, and she pulled out her phone. "We're pretty sure John's bicurious, if you're interested, I have a picture—"
"I'm not dating your bicurious brother, Rose."
"Your loss." She put her phone away. "You have someone, don't you? It's serious, that's why you're trying to keep the heat off."
To his surprise, it didn't feel like being flayed alive to be seen so transparently. "You terrify me, Yu Mei."
"And you are an open book, Homoda Seiren."
2017 - Tampa Bay
Ilya was still pretty sure he didn't like Corona, but he knew for a fact that this bar didn't have his preferred brand of vodka. Even if they did, he'd feel weird about ordering it: everyone always got so squirrelly when they saw him drinking hard liquor in the middle of the day, like he had personally killed their dog. So, Corona it was.
It helped to have something cold to hold onto when he spotted Hollander walking toward him, looking uncharacteristically well-dressed, and it helped to have something to stare at so he didn't accidentally make eye contact or prostrate himself at Hollander's feet to beg for another chance. All in all, it was very inconsiderate of Hollander to ignore all of his fuck off signals to take a seat right next to him.
"Rozanov." His accent had changed slightly, as it was wont to do when they only saw each other in person three times a year; this time it sounded as though he'd been hanging out with west-coasters, which made sense since Rose Landry and her posse hailed from LA or some such godforsaken place. "Looking forward to playing together again?"
"As much as you are, Captain." He wasn't bitter about Hollander getting the top billing, even though his tone was sarcastic: he'd already been Hollander's captain, back in Sochi, and he'd been eager to see how the reverse might play out ever since the World Juniors, though he'd never admit it. The silence stretched, and Hollander flagged down a waiter to order a round — when the fresh bottles were delivered, Ilya cleared his throat and glanced over in what he hoped was a casual manner. "You bring anyone with you?"
Hollander shrugged slightly. "My parents thought about it, but they're going to Mexico in two weeks."
"Ah." This was painful. This was worse than listening to St. Simon wax poetic about his situationship. He heroically did not grab Hollander by the lapels and shake him just to see if Rose Landry would fall out.
"How about you? Bring anybody?"
"Nope." If Hollander wanted to dodge the question, Ilya was game; he kept eye-contact and lifted the bottle to his lips, letting his eyes dart down to Hollander's mouth as he sipped his beer. Hollander looked back at him with open interest, almost invitation, but there was no time to analyze it before Carter Vaughan swept in to remind them of where they were, and unceremoniously swept away again. Again the conversation lagged, before they traded compliments on each other's fashion choices with wildly different levels of sincerity — Ilya meant it when he said that Hollander looked well-dressed, but he knew for a fact that he was not pulling off the shirt Marleau had picked out after he had lost a bet, and Hollander insisting otherwise was confusing him enough to abandon subtlety.
"Landry's picking out your clothes?"
"No — I mean, she definitely helped a little whenever we hang out, she's great like that, but she's got her own schedule outside of making me look presentable. I hired a stylist."
"Mm. You looked very stylish in TMZ." Far more put together than most celebrities papped outside of clubs, which was even more irritating. Hollander and Landry had been spotted exiting several establishments in Montreal over the past couple of months, looking every bit like the power couple of being fashionable and looking regal.
"Are they still saying we're dating? I really thought those stupid rumours die down by now."
Ilya head filled with static. "Rumours?"
"We're not dating," Hollander finally confirmed. "Just friends. Did you think—"
"No." His bottle was empty, which he only realized after he lifted it back to his lips for something to distract himself. "I don't watch TMZ."
"You just said you did. The tabloids thought I was a skincare model too, did you belief them too?"
"No, Shane Hollander is not a model, not with his tragic lack of fashion sense; he is the second-best hockey player in the NHL, I wrote to tell them that myself." He set down his bottle. "But oh, woe is me, the world thinks I am dating megastar Rose Landry, what an inconvenience."
"Fuck off," he said fondly, and uh oh. Before Ilya could come up with some reason to run off to the bathroom for totally innocent reasons, Hollander smiled at him again and rose out of his seat. "I should circulate. See you on the ice."
.
"So, you know I'm—" Hollander paused, working up the courage to finish his sentence. "That I'm gay."
Ilya stared at him, trying to decide how he was supposed to answer that, trying to decide how likely it was that this was an elaborate, life-ruining prank. "And I'm bisexual," he replied slowly. "So what?"
"I don't like dating women, or doing the things with them that I do with you. With other men."
Ilya was seized with a jealous need to know exactly who these other men were and what they had done to Hollander specifically, and also a desperation to never, ever find out. "Really? I thought I was fucking a straight guy all these years."
"Fuck off, Rozanov." Hollander's eyes were flashing. "Last time we were together, it was— different."
Ilya gritted his teeth, burying the desire to snap at him, to tell him that he already knew it had been a mistake, had known it watching Hollander tell a clumsy lie and then sprint out of his house — they didn't need to rehash the past, they didn't need to pick at the scab every thirty seconds, they could just move on and pretend it hadn't happened. "Different how?"
"I'm sorry that I left like that, I just panicked—"
"Panicked over nothing—"
"It wasn't over nothing!" Ilya almost flinched back at the sudden volume, the stern tone Hollander's voice had taken on; Hollander pressed his lips together regretfully, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh. "Things aren't the same for me as they are for you, you know."
"I don't stop wanting to suck cock when I'm with a woman, Hollander, it's not a faucet."
"That's not what I'm talking about." He pointed to Ilya. "Canadian." He pointed back to himself. "Japanese. The expectations are different. You might be able to be out and proud on the ice, but I have to think about how that looks in Japan, how it looks for the representation of my entire fucking race in North America. I'm on a shorter leash than you."
"I'm not asking you to come out!" His voice had climbed as well, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. "Is Japan dangerous, for you?"
"Depends on the area, the people. I couldn't marry a man, even under normal circumstances — it's just not practical, when you're a public figure." Hollander was quiet for a moment, eyes downcast as he rubbed the duvet between his fingers. "I'm telling you that I might have to marry a woman for appearances, if it comes to it. A lavender marriage."
The thought made his heart roar in jealousy, before turning to gnaw on his lesser organs. "Fine. Do what you want."
"What I want is you." Hollander leaned forward, eyes on the floor between them. "I want everything that you're willing to give me. I can't keep on pretending that I don't like you, and maybe publicly having someone for everyone else to focus on would help with that."
"You don't like me." He came over and thumped down on the bedding beside him anyway, rubbing his nose. "Don't plan things out like this, Hollander — we can't be anything. I can't come out, either."
"I'm not asking you to." If only that made a meaningful difference. "Because of your family?"
"Because Canada isn't a fucking safe-haven just because we have marriage equality." He rubbed his face again. "It's not just my family — it's our entire social circle. High society Vancouverite pricks. But my family would make things even more miserable." It was still so fucking embarrassing that Hollander had been subjected to both his father and his brother's presence, had accidentally bore witness to the ugly upbringing that Ilya would not have ever revealed unless he was waterboarded, and maybe not even then.
"What about your mother?"
In that moment, he resented Hollander for asking — he already knew that his father and brother were awful people, why couldn't he know enough not to ask about his mother? He shook his head and focused on the duvet, rubbing it between his fingers. "Dead."
"I'm sorry."
"I was young." He took a deep breath, and forced himself to admit, "My father is sick. Dementia, I think. I'm the only one who seems to care."
And for all that is was paradoxical and stupid to stay and keep carving away pieces of himself to keep his father comfortable, Hollander didn't ask him to explain himself, just reached out and took his hand. He said something, but Ilya was too busy looking away and willing himself not to cry to listen. Suddenly, his lap was full of Shane Hollander, kissing him tenderly and holding him like he was about to break into a million pieces, and it didn't seem like such a terrible thing to let himself weep into Shane's shoulder.
2017 - Montreal
Ilya would be back from Vancouver soon; once he was back, Shane would broach the idea of going to his cottage during the summer. He wished the timing had worked out a little better, it would have been convenient to talk after the game tonight, but Ilya would be back soon, and once he was back Shane could ask him to go to the cottage. He wouldn't chicken out, not this time — he just wished that Ilya's father could have dropped dead a little sooner, as awful as the thought was.
There was a brief moment, between Marleau's hit and the subsequent crash-landing, where Shane was extremely aware that he had never been checked so hard in his life. It was nice to know that Ilya had never really hated him, not even after the tuna melt: compared to the speed and angle that Marleau had hit him with, Ilya's lighthearted checks felt like when they'd wrestle in bed, enough to surprise and to show off but not enough to hurt. It was a good thing that Ilya wasn't there to see it — if either of them went down on the ice in front of the other, it would be the end of any secrecy. Everyone would see exactly how badly they had fallen for each other, if Ilya dropped gloves to fight his own teammate.
He slammed into the ice, and all existential concerns were dropped in favour of the immediate pain racing through his arm, and the way his head seemed to weigh roughly eight hundred pounds.
.
Shane was asleep, and Ilya counted his blessings for that. He shut the door quietly and moved soundlessly to his bedside, scanning over the monitors with no clue as to what they meant. Nothing was beeping with alarm, so he had to assume that everything was okay.
He crumpled into the chair beside Shane's bed and sighed. He'd bullied Marleau into visiting the hospital room on Ilya's behalf — apparently the run-in with Yuna Homoda had left him quite shaken, but he'd reported that the injuries were on the mend and could have been much worse: fractured collarbone, concussion, out for the play-offs. God, it could have been so much worse.
It was stupid, but Ilya wished he could have been there — maybe he could have prevented it, somehow, if he hadn't been in fucking Vancouver, if he hadn't been busy arguing with Alexei and burying a man who was barely a father. He could have been the one to visit Shane in the crucial aftermath, would have at least witnessed it from the source instead of from a chain of alerts he had set on his phone.
He rubbed his hands over his face, listening to Shane breathe. But then what? He wouldn't have been allowed to ride in the ambulance with him or follow it to the hospital: that was reserved for his emergency contact, his parents and whoever he might take on as a public wife. Ilya would have been expected to go back to the game, as though he hadn't just watched the one person he loved most being carried away on a stretcher, an afterthought in his own relationship.
He scoffed into his hands. Was it a relationship? The furthest they had gotten was being honest about how much it fucking hurt to be apart, and that was it.
"My father is dead," he quietly said into the empty air, watching Shane carefully for movement — he wouldn't have the nerve to say it if Shane was listening. "I don't care about going back to Vancouver, ever. I'm not responsible for those people anymore, and still I can't even say good riddance, because—" He coughed quietly to clear his throat, ashamed of crying, even now. "I don't know. Because my mother loved them, and maybe I worry that it hurts her to see me hate them so much. Because Alexei was the one taking care of Papa, not me. Because if I finally say the words, it means I have no one. Sasha is gone for Paris, he's never coming home, and Sveta has her own life in Boston. I don't deserve all the love she has for me, and I can never have enough love for her, but—" The softest parts of him were breaching the surface now, his mother's Russian frantically bubbling out of his mouth. "But it's different, with you. I'm so in love with you that it hurts, and I don't know how to fix it when I know you can't love me back. Every day it fucking kills me that I can't be near you, that I can't be the one they call first when you get hurt, that there will always be someone above me in the pecking order." He bowed his head, one hand tangling into his hair and tugging lightly. "I wish I could be cool about it, but I don't think I can. I want to be everything to you. I want everyone to see how much better my life is with you in it."
"Not fair."
"Jesus, fuck!" Ilya jumped almost out of his seat. "Shane—"
Shane groaned and turned his head to look at him, expression loose and open. "Not fair," he insisted, voice slightly slurred. "No Russian, I only know the bad words."
Ilya relaxed, smiling despite himself. "Oh yeah? Which ones?"
"Blyat." His brow furrowed slightly, eyes closing in concentration. "Suka. Passossee mayee yaitsa." His hand patted over the duvet, blindly seeking Ilya's. "Hey, heeeey—"
"Shh, shut up," he chastised, grabbing his hand and peering at the door for onlookers.
"Better," Shane sighed, and turned his face to Ilya as he thumbed over his freckles, eyes still closed. "Marleau visited. Kaa-san almost tore him a new one, even after he said sorry."
"He feels really bad. He didn't mean to hurt you."
"Mm, it's hockey. We all get our bell rung eventually." His eyes opened again, with what seemed like herculean effort. "I was going to ask you something, when you got back."
"Hollander—"
"You should come to my cottage this summer," he said, all in one breath. "Not Vancouver. Come to the lake, I have great water pressure, there's this, fucking, what do you call 'em—" His brow furrowed in frustration. "Shinrin. Hayashi. Whatever. It's so private."
"We really can't—"
"We could have a week, or maybe two," Shane wheedled. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "Completely alone, together."
Ilya's chest burned with how badly he wanted to say yes, almost nodding along before he could salvage some kind of control over the situation: "Maybe. Maybe."
Hollander didn't look happy with that, but a nurse saved him from the forthcoming, and Ilya beat a hasty retreat.
2017 - Ottawa
Mom was watching the Bears play with a focus that bordered on terrifying, leaned forward with a glass of wine that had been poured at the start of the game and had yet to be brought to her lips. Shane glanced over at her periodically, just to make sure she was still breathing, but otherwise was happy enough to watch Ilya play. They probably weren't going to make it past this round of playoffs, not unless the Admirals' goalie suddenly keeled over and died, but Ilya wasn't letting that get to him: he'd skate like it was a tie-breaker until the buzzer sounded, one of the few things Shane was allowed to openly and loudly admire about him.
"He's playing hurt," Mom suddenly announced, nodding to herself and leaning back against the coach. "His ribs, I bet."
"How can you possibly know that?" Shane had only realized after seeing the bruise over Facetime, and even then he'd had to bully Ilya into admitting it.
"Just watch." She studied the game for a while longer, and pointed at Ilya's 81 as he made a pass that didn't connect. "He's weaker on his right side, he's trying to compensate."
He honestly couldn't see a difference. The world would be a terrifying place if his mother were ever to use her powers for evil — or maybe he had a blind spot where Ilya was concerned.
"So, he visited you in the hospital?"
He blamed the concussion for how obviously he tensed up. "Yeah, he did. I was still pretty high, though."
"Nice of him."
"Yeah, it's good sportsmanship."
"Mm. I hate him a little less, then."
"You don't have to hate him at all, he's just good at playing the asshole." He absently massaged the ache in his clavicle, lightly pressing in until it started to hurt and letting up the pressure, before getting bored and pressing in again.
"Mm." Mom was studying him out of the corner of her eye with a look that he recognized, from way back when he had tried to say Kaaru and I are just friends, I swear. "Oh, bad trip for Rozanov."
It was a mean but also very characteristic trick of his mom's, to test a man with a concussion. He did his best not to fall into the obvious trap, but he couldn't help but check — that could easily be explained away by an interest in the game, it didn't mean he was confirming any suspicions his mother might have. Ilya was holding out his hand to help one of his rookies to his feet, exchanging some encouraging words before sending him off with a tap on the helmet.
"Seems like a nice young man," Dad said, leaning against the door frame to watch the clock run out. "Okay, game's over, time to eat."
2017 - Ottawa
Ilya knew that it was too good to be true. Marathon sex, swimming in a lake that was on the edge of too cold, teasing Shane as he cooked too many burgers, having normal, serious discussions about their future and how to slowly move away from the rivalry they were both sick to death with, saying 'I love you', more marathon sex: that was all just the universe getting Ilya to lower his guard, buttering him up for the inevitable screaming disaster of Mrs. Homoda walking into the cottage while he and Shane were doing activities not suited for meeting the parents. Now, Shane's mother was sitting on the couch and politely making conversation, and Shane had left them alone to go and let David Hollander into the building.
Shane had gotten his assessing eyes from his mother, and Ilya could see him in the way that every emotion flitted in plain view across her face, micro expressions he had spent seven years learning like a third language telling him that she wasn't sure what to make of him, but that she didn't hate him. He sat up straighter, hands curling around the hems of his shorts. Her eyes flicked down to his shirt, and he wondered what information she was gleaning from the fact that he had been wearing a Boston Bears t-shirt while pressing her son against the glass window to her left.
Shane returned with his father in tow, and left again to go and prepare the tea. Faced with both parents without back-up — Shane's dad seemed exactly as placid as always, though there was a hint of panic behind the eyes that Ilya knew very well — Ilya clumsily extracted himself and all but ran to the kitchen. Shane seemed freaked out, but not so much that he couldn't accomplish basic tasks: he was preparing the tea on autopilot, hands trembling slightly and eyes staring vacantly.
"Hey." Ilya fitted himself around Shane's back, after checking that they were absolutely out of sight. "How do we get out of this?"
Shane shook his head with a grimace. "No getting out of this," he said. "I wanted it to be a little less sudden, but no time like the present, right?" He paused and braced his hands on the countertop. "I'm fucking terrified."
Ilya rested his chin on Shane's shoulder and kissed his ear. "Guess it'd be easier if it wasn't me, right?" He'd meant it as a joke, kind of — it seemed like one, when they were talking about whether to tell Shane's parents, but now he found himself dreading the answer.
Shane sighed and turned to face him, pulling him closer by the hips. "It'd be easier if it wasn't someone that I'm so stupidly in love with," he said, like that still wasn't the most insane thing Ilya had ever heard. "I don't want you to feel like I'm ashamed to tell them about you."
"I would understand, if you were. Hockey's golden boy Shane Hollander, slumming it with Ilya Rozanov—"
"Second best hockey player in the NHL," Shane reminded him. "Stanley Cup winner, two-time MVP, leader in points this year." He pressed in closer, eyes darting his lips as he continued to list off, "Kind. Loyal. Funny. Loves me back."
"Oh my god, Hollander, you're obsessed with me—"
Shane kissed him sweetly, hands winding around his neck and pulling him close to press their foreheads together. "I am so in love with you, and I need you to know that before we go in there, because I might have a heart attack and you need to be prepared to resuscitate me." He paused, thinking for a moment. "No mouth-to-mouth in front of my parents."
Ilya laughed, not smooth and confident like he wanted but strangled and a little hysterical. "Okay, got it."
Shane kept holding on, gaze sliding to where his parents sat, definitely wondering what was taking so long and likely psyching themselves up to go looking for them. "They're good people. It's okay to tell them." He couldn't have sounded less convinced of it if he tried — it was a good thing that Ilya believed it enough for the both of them. "Fuck, I'm scared."
"I know. Change is scary." He kissed his shoulder. "But we're brave."
The corner of Shane's mouth ticked upward, and he wiped away the traces of tears before they could fall. "There are cookies in the pantry. Can you plate them up?"
.
The basic and not-so-basic questions had been answered, a panic attack had been threatened and then talked-down, and Shane discovered that he didn't particularly hate the term 'boyfriend' when Ilya was the one it applied to.
"So, Ilya — you would play for Ottawa?" His dad didn't have to sound so dubious about the idea — even though it wasn't even close to happening yet, Shane felt an edge of irritation at even the implied criticism of his boyfriend's future team.
"They can be better than they are," Ilya said stubbornly. "But I would play on any team, if it meant I could be closer to Shane."
His mom raised an eyebrow, swirling her wine thoughtfully — they had switched to alcohol about halfway through their pot of tea. "And you have no loyalty to Boston?"
"Kaa-san!"
"Loyalty is important!"
"He's being loyal to me!" Shane turned to Ilya, and found that he had four cookies stacked in front of him and two stuffed into the pocket of his cheek. "Those are for guests, Ilya."
"Guests aren't eating them." He swallowed his mouthful with a pointed ease that made Shane blush and then consider homicide. "I see where you get your hockey from."
His mom regarded Ilya with a calculating look could swing either way. "So, what are your plans, after you retire?"
"Kaa-san, come on—"
"Hush, Seiren, I'm learning about your boyfriend. Go ahead, Ilya."
Ilya shrugged. "Well, it depends on whether Shane has divorced his lavender wife yet."
Mom turned on Shane with a hair-raising stare. "What's this? You have a wife?"
Dad looked almost hurt. "And you didn't invite us to the wedding?"
"He's taking it out of context," Shane explained, glaring at the tattle-tale in question. Ilya grinned back without a shred of remorse, enjoying bites of his cookie in between sips of tea. "It's just something we talked about: if it would help protect us, I could marry a woman for show."
"And is that fair to the woman you would marry? To Ilya?"
He began to squirm. "I mean, we'd tell her the truth—"
"No." She was shaking her head with a frown. "It would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention, people wouldn't believe it."
"People believed Shane and Rose were dating," Ilya pointed out. "There's precedent, it wouldn't unbelievable if he were to take up with a woman, just— you know, odd."
Mom threw up her hands in exasperation. "Ilya, whose side are you on?" She shook her head, looking upset. "I don't like this, this isn't you."
"It's just temporary—"
"That's what I told your father when we came to Sapporo, and then it took us twenty years to find our way back to Canada," his mom said fiercely. "I don't want either of you to marry women you'll only divorce. It would break my heart."
"Mom, it was just a thought—"
"But maybe there are other options," his dad said gently, taking his mom's hand to offer a comforting squeeze. "There's no need to rush into things right now, if you two are happy with how things are. So: are you happy?"
"I love him, of course I'm happy." Ilya's head whipped around to face him with a smile, like he still couldn't believe it, and Shane wished they could be alone — not because he didn't want to say it in front of his parents, but so that he could more easily focus on the way Ilya softly said, I love you, too.
Mom was getting that faraway look in her eye that meant she was drafting a detailed five-year-plan that would begin as soon as possible, and end with a royal wedding. His dad slapped his thighs and stood up with a cough, taking Mom's hand. "Alright, we're going press pause, here; Yuna and I will go to the store and pick up some stuff for dinner, I'm thinking chicken. Think you two can throw together a salad?"
.
Once his parents were seen out the door and they were assured about an hour of privacy, Shane made his way into the kitchen and leaned against the counter to watch Ilya slice bell peppers. "Sorry, about them. They can be kind of intense."
"Don't be." Ilya looked at him with a surprisingly open smile, eyes crinkling softly. "I love you. I love you so much that it kills me, sometimes."
"Only sometimes?"
"Not anymore," Ilya amended. "Not since I know you love me too."
He couldn't help the soft noise he made, nor the urge to tangle his hands in Ilya's hair and pull him closer to kiss him. "I really do."
"Mm." He pulled away with a wet noise, gently prodding Shane's chest. "And you should listen to your mother: don't marry anyone but me."
Shane laughed, pushing the cutting board away and boosting himself onto the counter to replace it. "Fine, but I'm proposing."
Ilya bit down on the curve between shoulder and neck, enough to indent the skin — Shane hoped it would bruise. "We'll see."