Work Text:
2014
It doesn’t mean anything. That’s what Shane tells himself every time he does it, and to be fair, at first, it didn’t. He researches his opponents all the time, watching game tapes over and over again until Hayden jokes he's trying to change the outcome with his mind. He scrolls through pages and pages of stats and scouting reports like he’s going to be tested on them. It's just part of being the best player he can be: no more or less important than running drills or following a fitness regime. Besides, it's not like he'd never Googled Rozanov before. He'd have been stupid not to, not when people were asking Shane about the Russian phenom before they’d ever even met. It had started innocently enough. Shane would study Rozanov’s highlights, admiration, and envy curling together in his chest. He'd imagine what he'd do differently than Rozanov’s opponents, how he'd intercept him here or use a different play there.
Then, he'd started watching the interviews. He'd tried not to, at first. The Russian never gave away much of any real importance to the media, and the clips were mostly just infuriating -- cocky, swaggering shows of posture where Rozanov seemed practically to be daring Shane to take his bait. It works, too, though Shane can never admit it. When Rozanov’s smirks and winks really get under his skin, Shane can’t help taking it out on him after, letting his nails curl into Rozanov’s arms or drag across his nipples, daring to let his teeth graze at the head of his cock. And Rozanov seems to like it, the fucker, his eyes always glinting with triumph, tugging Shane a little closer and fucking him a little harder like he knows he’s won.
Whatever.
The point is, Googling Ilya Rozanov doesn’t mean anything. Which is why Shane is horrified to realize, one day, that it feels different. Everything feels different that night, off-kilter — the hum of the thermostat in the quiet night. The Vegas city lights glinting through the gauzy curtains of his hotel room. The phantom memory of Rozanov’s eyes burning on his, watching him from his chair. The echo of Rozanov’s thighs slapping against his ass as he drilled into him harder and harder, driving Shane wildly over the edge. The flat boredom of his goodnight, Hollander, as Shane had hovered stupidly by his door, waiting for… something.
Shane tosses over in his bed with a huff. Asshole. His cheeks burn in the dark as he replays their conversation — if it could really be called that — the way the cold distance in Rozanov’s eyes unsettled him, not because it scared him, but because it called to him somehow, made him want to claw past it. And that was stupid because… because that wasn’t what this was. A rush of heat comes over Shane as he remembers the way Rozanov had watched him, sipping vodka with one hand, jerking himself off with the other. It’s anger, that’s all.
So Shane does what he does every night that sleep evades him and pulls up Google on his phone. Sometimes he looks up records. Most Stanley Cups in MLH History. Top Goal Scorers of All Time. Sometimes it’s lists. Greatest MLH Players of All Time. Best MLH Games of the Year.
Tonight, however, it’s the other thing. The page he looks at more often than any other. The hyperlink is purple from having been clicked on so many times before, and he practically has the words memorised as his eyes glaze over them, until he pauses.
“Rozanov, known for his speed and aggression on the ice, holds the record for...."
His eyes keep tripping over that line, as if the words will warp in front of him and reveal some heretofore unknown secret to undoing Ilya's game. They don't, of course, just glow back at him from the screen, and, Shane notes irritably, they aren't even accurate, not really. There are a lot of fast, powerful players in the league, good ones. What none of them have is Rozanov's control. He can manoeuvre himself like one of his sports cars, changing direction before you can blink without losing a second of momentum. It’s infuriating and exhilarating when you’re trying to steal the puck from him, to make a pass he can’t intercept, clearly the strongest part of his game. It's so obvious when you're next to him on the ice. Although Shane has to admit, most people don't get to be. Most people can't keep up with him.
The thought comes to him, unwelcome: I know more about Ilya Rozanov than Google can teach me. It’s not like that’s true. His game, sure, Shane knows his game. He knows most guys’ games better than their Wiki articles do, but it doesn’t mean anything.
He scrolls all the way to the bottom of the page, so fast the words blur. He doesn’t need to see them, anyway; he has all the stats and career achievements committed to memory by now. He knows the personal life section off by heart too. Not that there's a lot to it. "Rozanov was born in Moscow and lived there until being drafted in 2012. He has one older brother." Absently, Shane scrolls back to the top of the page, to the opening lines he's read so often he can see them when he closes his eyes.
Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov (Russian: Илья Григорьевич Розанов; born June 15, 1991) is a Russian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Boston Raiders of Major League Hockey (MLH).
The picture is an old one; it's a half-blurry shot of him in Team Russia gear, probably taken a year or so before he got drafted. The lighting is too bright, and Shane is horrified every time he realises he's memorised it, knows exactly where the curls on Ilya's forehead fall, what shapes the shadows behind him form. He scrolls away irritably, clicks on the blue link text for Moscow, mostly so there's something else he can look at. It's a routine Shane has always found comforting. Scrolling random article after random article, following this link and that until he's a world away from where he started. It's soothing, following the twists and turns of these rabbit holes, knowing there are always more answers to questions he hadn't even thought to ask. It's the most effective way he's found to unwind other than, well.
Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents within the city limits.....
Shane falls asleep dreaming of the Spasskaya Tower and grey rivers and the cold gleam of a pair of smirking eyes.
2016
Shane has never really thought about his name much. He's got some Irish on his Dad's side, and his mom was adamant about giving him a name that would make it "easier" for Canadians than hers was ("Yuna's not even hard to say!" he'd protested. "It is if you don’t try," she'd shrugged, "and people never try").
Besides, in all the ways that mattered, he was Hollander: when they called his name in the line-up, when he could feel his jersey like a weight across his back.
When it felt like a brand on his skin, delivered in a guttural Russian purr. Fuck, Hollander.
And then Ilya called him "Shane," and suddenly his name had never felt more important. He can feel it now, the ragged whisper of it, unlike anything he'd ever heard from Ilya before.
Ilya. Oh god, I called him Ilya. That was bad. That was very, very bad. Shane wasn't even sure he could really articulate why, but the way their names hung in that room together left him feeling more raw and exposed than anything else they'd done, which was saying something. And that was bad. That's not what they were; that's not what this was.
Shane had done what he does best, and panicked. He felt stupid, even as he stumbled over his clothes and his shoes and his words. Ilya was just staring at him, brow furrowed in confusion, because why would he understand? He wasn’t the idiot there; Rozanov obviously wasn’t the one who’d come undone at the sound of his own fucking name because it made him feel like they were more than they were. Shane was the one who wanted, in that moment, who wanted and wanted and couldn’t stop wanting. Shane was the one who had fled from Ilya and his plaintive “Hollander?” Rozanov didn’t understand that the ground was caving in under Shane’s feet, that Shane was trying to outrun the sudden, dangerous desire to imagine a world in which they were something else, something more. In which this thing between them was…
It doesn’t matter. This couldn't be anything, and that's why he's here now, on a date, with his beautiful, smart, kind, funny girlfriend, pressing a kiss to her hand when she says his name with a smile, "Shane," like she's teasing him. It's different from how Ilya said it, but just as good. It is.
He'll keep telling himself that until it feels true.
***
Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov (Russian: Илья Григорьевич Розанов; born June 15, 1991).....
Ilya doesn't go by his full name, of course, though clearly it's not a secret. Grigory is also listed as his father's name. His father, then mention of whom always made Ilya seem so far away, brought that shuttered look into his eyes like he'd had in the room in Vegas.
Grigory name meaning he types into the search bar, because that still feels safe. Searching "Ilya name meaning" would be -- well, he's not doing that.
Slavic in origin....associated with Gregory...derived from Gregorio...
His alarm clock blinks 02:48 AM. Rose had texted him goodnight x hours ago. Shane feels wide awake, restless, like his skin doesn’t fit right.
He finds an article about Russian patronymic names, the tradition of carrying your father's name within your own. Maintaining a connection to culture and lineage, enforces a patriarchal family structure.... his own name would be Davidovich, he deduces, if he had one. That's not half bad. It's a nice thought, carrying his dad with him like that. He wouldn't mind...Yunavich? Yunov? either.
Grigorievich. He's never heard Ilya use it, and it's not like he should have heard Ilya say these things, but. He wonders. Does he like carrying his father's name? When was the last time he heard his full name?
Related: diminutive forms: Grisha, Grishka, Gora, Grika....
There's another article then, on a Russian-language blog.
Diminutive forms (Мариша – Marisha, Антоша – Antosha) are usually emotionally colored and used in friendly and intimate communication. These forms commonly end in “sha” or similar sounds. It's generally not appropriate for a foreigner to use these forms when travelling in Russia. If you are close friends, it may be ok.
There's a table of names with their diminutive forms. Aleksandr — Aleksia, Sasha, Shura… Vasiliy— Vaka, Vasiona, Siuta…
Ilya.
Shane lets his thumb hover over the table for a second, obscuring the text. He can scroll past, as if he never intended to read it.
Ilya — Ilyukha, Ilyusha, Ilyunia, Ilyusia, Ilia, Iliakha, Liulia, Liunia, Liusia.
Ilya.
Ilyukha.
Ilyusha.
Liusia.
Rozanov.
Hollander vs. Rozanov.
January 2017
Shane was nervous to see him. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual. He usually spent the days leading up to seeing Ilya again, feeling the heady mix of anxiety and anticipation swirling in his stomach, mounting and swelling right until the first press of Ilya’s lips against his would quiet it, give way to the consuming sense that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was supposed to do.
Still, it felt different this time; he felt different this time. Materially, nothing about his life had really shifted that much since his conversation with Rose. It’s not like, by admitting his preferences to Rose, he was suddenly out, that he was doing much more than training, travelling, and working. But he’d admitted it, now, to Rose and to himself.
In the nights since she’d looked at him with her kind, probing eyes and gently asked whether he was into men, he’d done what he did best, and researched. There was an overwhelming amount of information out there, more than Shane felt he’d ever be able to sift through in his life. But it calmed him to try, to jump through Wikipedia from Kinsey Scale to Egan vs Canada to Compulsory Heterosexuality. He didn’t know what it meant for him, being gay — although he could call himself that now, the word feeling truer each time he said it to himself. When he could come out, if he could come out, who he would say it to…it was too much to think about right now; he couldn’t figure it all out yet. But he could read, and scroll, and try to make a little more sense of the world he could now admit he belonged to.
He could take his mind off what would happen when he saw Ilya again. Because — because something had to happen. They were past the point of pretence now, or at least, he was. This wasn’t some convenient arrangement (to be honest, Shane was beginning to wonder how he’d ever convinced himself of the convenience of the whole thing to begin with. Like, come on) or a casual fling. This wasn’t something Shane could just dismiss, let slide by until it petered out.
Whether it was the same for Ilya, well. That was another matter entirely.
Ilya. Rozanov.
Ilyusha.
The diminutive has ping-ponged around his brain since he read it. It’s like Shane opened Pandora’s Box that day, the day he’d stared into the Russian’s face, felt his heart beating against Shane’s own, breathed “Ilya” for the first time. He couldn’t go back to just thinking of him as Rozanov any more than he could go back to pretending that he was straight, that Ilya was just his rival.
He’d catch himself… wondering.
Sometimes, he thinks he knows Ilya better than he knows anyone else. Who else could he understand like that? Who else knew what it felt like to move across the ice and fight for every win with the skill and steel Shane did? Who else knew what it felt like to be tangled up together in the secrecy of the hotel rooms and apartments and bedrooms, in the stolen nights and unceasing push-and-pull that seemed to consume their lives yet still never be enough?
Other times, though, Shane realises he hardly knows anything about Ilya at all, and it gnaws at him. Truthfully, Shane knows that it’s probably better that way. If the conversation he hopes to have with Ilya doesn’t go the way he hopes it will, if this whole thing implodes the way it was surely always meant to… well, picking the shrapnel out of his heart isn’t going to be any easier if he’s all wrapped up in the intimate details of Ilya’s life. But he can’t help himself, can never help himself where Ilya is concerned. He wants more, more than knowing which players Ilya thinks are the “most useless shits” on various team lineups, or how Ilya’s breath catches when Shane looks up at him through his lashes with Ilya’s cock in his mouth.
He wants to know what Ilya does when the season’s over, where he lets his mind wander to when it needs to escape the present. He wants to know what Ilya pictures when he thinks of Russia, whether anyone ever called him Ilyusha, and if he misses hearing it.
Shane wants so much that it scares him.
***
“Come, Hollander, let’s see if you’re slow in water as on ice, yes?” Ilya’s grin is sharklike from the pool, the sun gleaming off his Ray-Bans. His skin is tanned from the Florida sun, his trunks have a ridiculous tiger print, and he looks so fucking good that were it not for the presence of about seven of his fellow players’ hyperactive children, Shane would be tempted to jump him then and there, angst-and-wanting be damned.
“We’re on the same team here, Rozanov,” Shane calls back. “You don’t need to trash-talk me now.”
“But it’s so fun,” Ilya says, which makes the kids shriek with laughter. They’re trying to coax Shane in for some kind of race involving retrieving rings from the bottom of the pool, and also playing mermaids.
“Fine,” Shane says, slipping in, making sure to splash enough that it gets Ilya in the face, “if you wanna go down.”
“Ah, with you, I love going down,” Ilya says when Shane is close enough that the kids can’t hear.
Shane splashes him again, and Ilya springs forward to dunk him.
***
Before All-Star Weekend, Shane had already known he needed to talk to Ilya to figure out what this thing between them really was, and whether it could be anything more.
By the time the game ends, after Ilya’s smacked a celebratory kiss on his cheek, blue eyes dancing and breathless with laughter and exertion, Shane has to collect himself to remember who they are, where they are, why he can’t just grab Ilya and kiss him full on the mouth, make that decision for both of them. He has to force himself to keep a healthy distance between them, to keep his gaze from tracking Ilya across the room.
He’s trying to let the rush of the waves drown out the racing of his thoughts when Ilya finds him on the beach that night.
“I looked up the word,” Ilya tells him, “compatible.”
“What?”
“I thought I knew what it meant. But I wanted to check.”
It takes him a minute to catch up, to remember the conversation they’d had at the hotel bar. “Oh.”
“You and Rose Landry…”
“Yeah.” Ilya had looked it up. Shane can picture it, the impatient arch of Ilya’s brow that must have formed when Shane used a word that didn’t make sense to him. He can picture Ilya turning the conversation over in his mind, looking for answers online as if they could make their whole situation make sense.
He blinks himself back into focus. “Not compatible. Not in that way, anyway.”
Ilya doesn’t speak, and Shane glances at his profile. He’d looked it up. Shane had told him that he’d broken up with Rose, and Ilya hadn’t understood, not fully. So he’d looked it up.
“When do you fly out?”
“Early.” Ilya’s gaze remained directed towards the ocean.
“Me too. Columbus.”
“Toronto.”
Ilya doesn’t say anything else for a minute, and Shane wonders if he’s trying to let the conversation die. But then he starts when he feels Ilya’s hand brush suddenly against his, Ilya’s thumb links with his own.
His heart twists in a funny way. A spark of panic flares in his chest, the familiar dread of being caught. Shane closes his eyes for a second, opens them again, and looks at their intertwined thumbs.
“What room are you in?” he whispers.
“Twelve seventeen.”
Ilya’s thumb moves ever so slightly, the tiniest little circle brushing over Shane’s knuckle. Shane feels it burn through his whole body.
“I’d like to talk. Somewhere private.”
He feels another, different surge of panic when Ilya pulls away and stands, but then he hears “see you soon” in a low, Russian voice, and he exhales.
When he makes it to Ilya’s room, his head is swimming with the kind of adrenaline rush he’s only ever felt before skating onto the rink before the Cup final.
“Whoa,” Ilya says when he opens the door, “this looks serious.”
Shane is still about three seconds from throwing up, but he bristles. “Just shut up a second, alright?”
Ilya sits on his dresser, waiting. His expression is blank, and if Shane didn’t know better, he’d say Ilya almost looked bored.
But he does know better, he realizes, and he knows so much better. “It’s… it’s not just me, right?”
“Not just you?”
“I mean…” Shane swallows. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
“Feel what?”
And suddenly, Shane’s mad. He’s mad at Ilya’s feigned nonchalance, because he knows Ilya cares — he knows Ilya, and suddenly, he’s angry enough that talking becomes easier.
“God, fuck you! You know what I mean! The last time we were… together… it was different.”
Ilya shrugs, the dick, looks away like he’s indifferent, as if Shane can’t see the bob of his throat or the tightness of his jaw.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. This is hard enough without you being an asshole!”
“What do you want, Hollander? We get together, and we fuck. Is simple.”
“Simple. Right.”
Ilya shrugged again. “Is simple for me.”
“Bullshit.” For a second, Shane wishes they were on the ice, so he could slam Ilya into the boards, or at least get some hard elbows into his ribs. Because it is bullshit, it is such bullshit for Ilya to stand there and roll his eyes like he doesn’t know what Shane is talking about, like…
Like he didn’t call him Shane, that day, that way.
“I think I’m gay,” he blurts out, because they might as well cut to the chase.
Ilya stares at him for a second, and then he laughs. “Oh yeah? What gives you that idea? The last time my dick was in your mouth, I thought you might be a little gay.”
“Fuck off. You’re not gay.”
“No. Not completely,” Ilya says, the laughter leaving him, and something in Shane loosens as he sees the distance fade from Ilya’s eyes, whether he means it to or not.
“Well. I think I might be. Completely.”
“Okay. So you are gay. So what?”
“Well, it’s sort of a big deal! To me, at least! Sorry if I’m boring you.”
Ilya doesn’t say anything, and for a desperate second, Shane thinks this is it. Ilya is going to remain implacable, even if it’s just an act, and he’s not going to let Shane have this conversation, and Shane’s going to have to leave this room and stumble back to his own, and all the while feel this slip through his fingers faster than he can close them.
Then Ilya comes down from the dresser, retrieves something from the mini fridge, and hands it to Shane. He sits next to Shane on the bed.
“Why are you telling me that you are gay?”
Shane looks down at his hands.
It’s a can of ginger ale.
Because you’re the first person I wanted to say those words aloud to.
Because I want that to mean something to you. Because I want to mean something to you.
Because you are such a monumental asshole, and I don’t even care, as long as you don’t use that to try to keep me away from you.
Because I can’t stay away from you. I never want to stay away from you.
“Who else am I gonna tell?”
He can feel the bed rise and fall under Ilya’s weight when he takes a breath next to him.
“You are not the only gay MLH player. Probably.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“It’s not just being gay.” Shane curls one hand into a fist, feels his nails digging crescents into his palms. “It’s you. You and me. Being gay is one thing. Hooking up with your arch fucking rival is another.”
“That is why it is a secret.”
God, is there anything Rozanov is willing to give to him easily? “I know that, but…last time we were together… it was nice.”
The word seems to hang there in the silence, laid bare as something too small, too insignificant to capture everything that Shane had felt that day in Ilya’s house, in Ilya’s bed, in Ilya’s arms.
“It was,” Ilya agrees quietly.
“It felt like we were more.”
“We can’t be more, Hollander.”
“Would you want to be? If we could?”
“We can’t.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter!” the words explode out of Ilya, hard enough to make Shane flinch. Ilya’s on his feet now, like he wants to spring out of the room.
Shane stares at the back of his head, then at the can of ginger ale in his hand. Condensation is starting to bead against his palms. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t like you,” he says quietly, helplessly.
“You don’t like me,” Ilya insists.
“I do. I maybe like you too much,” he admits.
“Don’t,” Ilya says, the hardness of his voice chipping away into something more desperate. “Don’t fucking do this, Hollander. I’m not…”
“Worth it?”
“Gay. I’m not gay. And I can’t be anything close to it, okay?”
Shane laughs, because fuck it if he isn’t angry again. Not because of what Ilya’s saying, but because he’s lying, Shane knows he’s lying, and Shane is laying himself fucking bare, and Ilya won’t just fucking let up and talk to him.
“Well, you’re doing a shitty job of that!”
“Not…in public.” Ilya grits out. “I can’t… I would not be able to go home. I could not go home to Russia.”
The wind leaves Shane at once. Because he knows that. Of course, he knows that.
He’s known for years, seen the words in black-and-white beneath descriptions of the Movzka River and the demographics of Moscow. Russian sexologists are legally required to conduct "conversion therapies".... Russia was rated the second least LGBTQ-friendly nation in Europe…..
The righteous indignation Shane had been feeling gives way to guilt because, fuck. All this time spent stewing over what they were and what Shane thought they could be and what it all meant, and Shane had neglected to consider that to Ilya, there was so much more at risk than his career.
“My father is a cop,” Ilya says.
“Jesus,” Shane whispers.
“My brother is a cop.”
“What about your mother?”
“Dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Despite the heaviness of the moment, Shane still feels greedy in the way his mind processes the information, rearranges the pieces of the puzzle that is Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov in his mind.
Grigorievich. The patronymic name. The tradition of carrying your father's name within your own.
The father who was a cop, who would endanger his son if he knew who Ilya really was. That was who Ilya had carried around with him, since the day Shane had first approached him outside that rink in Saskatchewan, since long before that.
“I was young,” Ilya said, waving a hand like he can dismiss the weight of it all, past Shane’s notice once more. Shane doesn’t say anything, just waits until Ilya turns to look at him. Ilya’s shoulders drop.
“My father was not an easy man to live with. Very strict. Set in his old ways. Alexei is like this also.” Ilya sits back down next to him. Shane moves a hand to the small of Ilya’s back, feels him press back into Shane’s touch. “But now my father… he is sick. Alzheimer’s.”
Ilya keeps talking then, the words coming steadier and steadier as Shane rubs circles into his back. He tells Shane about the burden of his father’s expectations, and confesses how much easier it is to talk to him when he doesn’t remember who Ilya is. He talks about his mother, kind and gentle and worn down by her husband’s harshness. Through ragged breaths, he talks about finding her, dead, after swallowing an entire bottle of pills.
“She was not weak,” Ilya says, his voice sounding choked. “Don’t want you to think she was weak. She just — was not easy on her.”
“I don’t think she was weak,” Shane says. He leans forward and presses his lips to Ilya’s shoulder. Not even a kiss, really, just letting his mouth rest there for a minute. “I think you’re strong.”
You’re so strong, Ilya. I’m sorry you’ve had to be.
***
They end up lying back on the bed, not fucking, not doing anything, just wrapped around each other, lying there. Ilya has his arms banded around Shane’s middle, his head resting on Shane’s chest. Shane listens to the sound of Ilya’s breathing and winds his bits of Ilya’s hair absently around his fingers.
“Was your hair always this curly?” he murmurs.
Ilya hums, tracing a pattern on Shane’s side that makes him shiver. “Since I was little. But was more yellow.”
“Mine’s always been super straight—”
“Ah, not like the rest—”
“Shut up.”
Ilya pinches him, and Shane swats lazily at his hand. “It used to get so long so fast, though. My mom always made me wear a bowl cut, and the bangs would always end up in my eyes. I had to clip it back with barrettes.”
“You would have looked so pretty,” Ilya snorts, “always so pretty, Hollander.” He rolls them over so that he’s on top of him, his hips pinning Shane to the mattress. He doesn’t make any moves to escalate things, though. He seems content just to lie there like a weighted blanket, brushing his lips against Shane’s temples.
Shane fights the urge to close his eyes and give in to the wave of sleepy contentedness. He toys with the gold crucifix pendant Ilya always wears.
“Are you religious?” he asks. “Or do you just wear this?”
“It was my mother’s.”
Shane wants to stop, to lean up and look at Ilya so he can properly take in the admission. It feels… important. It’s rare, that Ilya just offers up these bits of information to him, and Shane wants to savor it, to pay attention. But he doesn’t want to shatter the moment either, to startle Ilya out of talking. So he lies there, and just keeps fingering the chain where it rests on Ilya’s neck.
“What was her name?” he asks.
“Irina. Her name was Irina.”
Irinka. Irisha. Ina. Shane remembers the diminutives. Mama, Ilya would probably have called her. She wouldn’t have called him Ilya. She would have called him Ilyukha or Ilyusha or some other name that Ilya probably hasn’t heard in years.
When the sound of his breathing evens out, Shane realizes Ilya has fallen asleep. His expression is so relaxed like this, he looks younger than Shane has ever seen him.
The air feels thick, suddenly, with all the things he could say right now, all the things he can’t say when Ilya’s awake. It feels dangerous, to give voice to them. Shane feels certain that there are some things he might not be able to stop saying, once he starts.
But he can let himself have this. He can let himself drop a kiss into Ilya’s hair and whisper, “Ilyusha,” tasting the word quietly, feeling something in his heart glow as he finally says it out loud. “Ilyusha.”
February 2017
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and is the most common form of dementia, accounting for around 60–70% of cases.[15][16] The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events.
There’s a diagram on the page, showing how a normal brain looks different from an Alzheimer’s brain, with all its lobes appearing shrivelled and warped. Shane tries to imagine what it must look like in real life, in Ilya’s father’s head. It’s hard to picture it, hard to picture something so strange and scientific and sinister. It’s hard to picture Ilya’s father, too, to imagine what kind of man could have Ilya in his life and choose to be cruel to him.
Shane switches to the other tab he’s had open for the last week.
Losing a parent by suicide can lead to feelings of anger, guilt, and regret. Common grief reactions can include:
- shock
- numbness
- denial
- anxiety
- confusion
- anger and frustration
- guilt
- physical pain such as headaches or muscle tension
- increased risk of infection
- periods of intense sadness and depression
- trouble sleeping
- decreased appetite
- inability to concentrate
The grieving process can take weeks, months, or even years. There’s no time limit on grief.
He thinks of his own mother. Yuna, overbearing and affectionate and as tactful as a bulldozer, a steady, solid constant around whom Shane has always been able to orient his life. He tries to imagine if she… well, he can’t. He doesn’t want to. He thinks of his father, kind and warm and always gentle, as proud of Shane for filling out the Sunday Crossword correctly as for winning Rookie of the Year.
He thinks of him. A little boy who lost his mother in the cruellest way imaginable. A man whose home is his greatest source of dread, an anvil round his neck that he doesn’t quite want to lose.
Once again, the mental collage of moments and questions that Shane’s been collecting for years to form his image of Ilya Rozanov shifts and rearranges itself again. The picture of Ilya in his mind sharpens, the pain in his chest deepens, and once again, Shane thinks he falls a little deeper into this cavernous thing he can’t name yet.
March 2017
Shane has heard Ilya speak Russian, of course. Everyone has. There are press clips of him interviewing with the Russian media. Sometimes, he trash-talks the other Slavic players with barbs in their own language. And of course, there are the times when Ilya’s been fucking him, or while Shane’s got Ilya’s cock down his throat, and Ilya starts to unravel with a slurry of Russian curses and exclamations that Shane can’t understand, but that he can feel like brands over his skin. He’s overheard him, sometimes, snatches of conversation on the phone or muttering to himself.
This is different, though. Shane closes his eyes and lets the cadence of Ilya’s voice — crackling with the distance as he talks to him from Moscow — wash over him. He can’t translate any of it, of course, but he feels like he understands it just the same. There’s a colour to Ilya’s voice he’s never heard before, the animation and freedom that must come only in speaking your native language.
Shane may not be able to decipher the exact transliteration, but the rough strokes of the language, poetic and textured as Ilya speaks it, paint a picture for him. It’s a portrait of grief, of anger and hurt. Of sadness and loss, and then of other things. Shane feels like he can imagine different Ilyas as he speaks — the Ilya before he was drafted, before his father’s Alzheimer’s set in, the Ilya before his mother died. The Ilya that fixed him with a piercing stare and cool indifference the first time they met, the Ilya that called him Shane in a shuddering, gasping breath as he held him.
I love you, he thinks. I love you, and the second he thinks it, he knows he’s felt it for so much longer than this.
He can’t understand what Ilya says in Russian, but he wants to, wants all of him. He wants Ilya to know he understands him. Wants to call him sweetheart and love and Ilyusha so that Ilya can hear it, entirely, how far Shane is gone on him.
“I am done,” Ilya tells him, the switch back to English startling him. His voice sounds hoarse, and Shane aches to hold him.
“Feel better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Maybe you could teach me Russian someday.”
Ilya chuckles softly through the phone. “You will speak better than me in two weeks.”
“I wish. It looks complicated for an English speaker to learn. I’d have to figure out Cyrillic.”
“You know big words already, see?”
“Names, I’d have to learn all the different kinds of names too.”
“Da, it is not like in English.”
“Would it even work for me? Hollandervich doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
“No, but I think Hollander likes to roll on my tongue very much, so ‘s okay.”
Shane snorts. “Walked right into that one.”
Ilya huffs a laugh down the line. Shane can picture him sitting with his legs spread wide, a hand tucked into his pocket.
“You’d be Ilyich, right? Or your kid would be, if you had one?”
There’s no answer from the other end, and Shane panics. He’s done it now, because why would he say that? He sounds insane for saying that, for knowing that. Why did he mention Ilya’s kid?!
“Is right.” Ilya says after a long pause, and Shane tries not to slump over in relief. “Would be his middle name. Or Ilyinichna if she was a girl.”
“Ilyinichna. It’s pretty. I like it.”
“Oh? You don’t think it’s… what do you say… a mouthful?”
Shane grins. “A mouthful of Ilya isn’t so bad. I would know.”
“Was that a joke, Hollander?! Wow.” Another soft laugh.
“Only for special occasions.”
“I’ll try to enjoy it while it lasts.”
“I wish you were here now,” Shane blurts out, aware somehow that it is dangerous to say, and yet far beyond the point of caring.
A moment of quiet, and then: “me too.”
April 2017
The collarbone is the first bone to begin the process of ossification (laying down of minerals onto a preformed matrix) during development of the embryo, during the fifth and sixth weeks of gestation. However, it is one of the last bones to finish ossification at about 21–25 years of age.
So basically, the second Shane’s clavicle finished cooking or whatever, he broke it. Figures. He frowns at his phone, like the Wiki page was responsible for slamming him into the boards. He thumbs his way to another article.
Clavicle fracture recovery times may depend on factors like your age and the kind of fracture that you have. On average, healing may take eight to 12 weeks for adults.
It is, of course, exactly what his doctors already told him, and Shane sighs, putting the phone down. Now that he knows his injuries aren’t career-threatening, the initial terror he’d felt on waking in the hospital room has subsided and given way to what may best be described as disgruntlement. Montreal’s playoff run is effectively over, which stings — this was meant to be their year, he was so sure it was their year. He won’t be able to get back on the ice for ages either.
But he will get back on the ice. That’s what matters.
The door swings open then, and his eyes widen. “Ilya!”
“Hi,” Ilya says, and he looks…
Honestly, he looks worse than Shane feels. His hair is mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. There are shadows under his eyes, as if he hasn’t been sleeping, although he looked fine when Shane saw him this morning.
“I just needed— are you okay?”
Shane realizes he’s been staring without saying anything. “I’m okay. Concussion, fractured collarbone, and out for the playoffs but…”
“Could have been worse.”
“Right.”
The door swings open again, and his mom bursts in. “I brought soup,” she’s saying, blusteriering into the room like a hurricane, “and the nurse will be by in ten minutes to check on your morphine—”
She freezes when she sees their visitor.
“Mom,” Shane jumps in before either of them can speak. “You know Ilya Rozanov.” His heart is pounding, and it’s not the fear it might once have been. “He came by to check on me.”
“Oh.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Well. Here he is. After your teammate pummelled him.”
“Mom!”
“She’s right,” Ilya grumbles. “Marlow is idiot.”
Yuna looks at Ilya with some surprise.
“He is…. Very angry with himself. I am angry with him also.”
“I see,” she says. Her gaze flicks to Shane and back. “I suppose that makes three of us.”
“He didn’t actually do anything wrong,” Shane pointed out, “not on purpose.”
“He could have killed you!” she cries, “barrelling into you like that!”
“Is true,” Ilya adds, “and he is bigger than you, so it was even more dangerous.”
“We’re the same size!” Shane cries out.
Yuna and Ilya exchange a look.
Shane huffs, though a warm feeling unfurls in his chest.
His mother sighs and brushes his hair gently back from his face. “I’ll give you guys a second. And remember, Shay-Shay, no falling asleep.”
Ilya rounds on him the second she’s gone. “Shay-shay?”
Shane flushes. “It’s just something she used to call me when I was little.”
Ilya smiles, but it’s softer than it is teasing. “You’re her baby, still.”
He rolls his eyes, then winces, because that kind of hurt.
Ilya’s expression drops.
“Rozanov,” Shane says, “I’m fine.”
“You scared me.”
Automatically, Shane reaches for him with his good hand. Ilya takes it, stares at where Shane runs a thumb across his knuckles
“I’m okay.”
Ilya squeezes his fingers.
“Come to the cottage.”
“What?”
“This summer,” Shane feels surer and surer of the words as they pour out of him. “Come to my cottage.”
“Shane, I can’t— I don’t—”
“We can have a week. We can have more than a week, Ilya. We can have… more. Haven’t you ever wanted more?”
“Of course,” Ilya says, his voice barely more than a whisper. “But is not so simple.”
“It can be,” Shane presses, “for a while. For as long as you can stay. Just the two of us, we can be… we can just. Be.”
Ilya’s staring at the place where their hands join. Finally, he says: “maybe.”
“Yeah?!”
“Maybe. I will… I have to think.”
A nurse bustles in then, and they have just enough time to let go of each other before she sees.
“Visiting hours are up, Mr. Rozanov,” she says.
“Think about it,” Shane murmurs.
Ilya nods once. “Get better,” he says, “Shay-shay.”
June 2017
Scott Grant Hunter (born July 7, 1988) is an American professional ice hockey centre and captain of the New York Admirals of Major League Hockey (MLH).
Personal Life
Hunter is gay. He came out after winning the 2017 MLH Finals, kissing his partner, Christopher ‘Kip’ Grady, during the celebrations. He is the first openly gay player in League History.
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5 Gay Athletes Who Are Out and Proud
Following the stunning display that NY Admirals Captain Scott Hunter that rocked the hockey world after today’s MLH Cup final, here’s our round-up of 5 other trailblazing sportsmen and their stories.
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Messages > Lily > I’m coming to the cottage. [Received 5 hrs ago]
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He is the first openly gay player in League History. > Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual… in modern English, gay has come to be used as an adjective, and as a noun, referring to the community practices, and cultures associated with homosexuality.
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Messages > Lily > I’m coming to the cottage. [Received 5 hrs ago]
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Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov (Russian: Илья Григорьевич Розанов; born June 15, 1991) is a Russian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Boston Raiders of Major League Hockey (MLH).
July 2017
In the end, Ilya beats him to it. Of fucking course he does. Of course, after Shane’s spent years unpacking his own feelings, months coaxing Ilya to even come here and try, weeks letting the words simmer with him… of course, Ilya’s the one who says “I love you” first.
Holy shit. Ilya loves me. Holy shit.
“I love you too,” he whispers back, and only when he sees Ilya’s shoulders sag in relief does he realise he left him hanging in silence for too long. “Shit,” he reaches for him, carding his hands into Ilya’s hair, “I love you too. I love you so much, it’s been killing me.”
Ilya laughs wetly, pushing his face into Shane’s neck. “Me too,” he says into the skin there, or . “But now…is not so bad, I think.”
Shane wraps his arms around him, closes his eyes. No. No, it’s not so bad. None of the agony, the doubt, the questioning, none of it matters now, because the answer is simple.
He is in love with Ilya Rozanov.
Ilya is in love with him.
Ilya.
“Shane,” Ilya breathes, as if he’d heard him. “Shane,” he drags their mouths together, and it’s hard to kiss like this when they’re both smiling and maybe crying, but it’s perfect. “Fuck, Shane.”
Shane burrows against Ilya’s broad shoulder. “Ilya…” He wants to go deeper, get closer, so close that no one can get him out. “Ilyusha.”
He freezes in Shane’s arms. He pulls back — not away, thank God, far enough to look at him. “What?”
Shane is sure the tips of his ears are turning red. “Sorry.”
“Shane. What did you call me?”
“I— I read about it, once. About how in Russian… the names. You have diminutives? Like, short forms. Um..” He feels inexpressibly shy all of a sudden, which is ridiculous, given everything he’s said to and done with Ilya before. “I read that Ilyusha was a version of Ilya. But I don’t know if the source was completely accurate. I did see somewhere that sometimes different diminutives have different contexts, so—”
Ilya pounces on him. If Shane weren’t a professional athlete, the force with which Ilya surges for him might have laid him out flat. Instead, they stagger back onto the bed, Ilya’s mouth insistent against Shane’s own, working him open. The kisses are devouring, and Shane feels like he’s melting out of his own body. He reaches down to tug insistently at Ilya’s shirt until it comes off, then to scrabble at and shed his own. The first brush of their warm chests together makes him gasp. Shane pushes them both upwards and swings around so that he’s straddling Ilya.
“Where did you read this?” Ilya asks him, lacing Shane’s fingers with his own.
“Online,” Shane says, “it was this Russian language blog.”
“Why were you looking at Russian language blog?”
Shane shifts his hips a little, bites down a groan when he feels Ilya stiffening under him. “I was just curious. I wanted to… know you better, I guess.”
Ilya stared at Shane with an expression that made Shane’s heart pulse in his throat.
“I don’t know if I got it right, though,” he says. “I know there are different forms. Ilyuchka was one I think. And I couldn’t really find anything about if you use different forms in different contexts.”
“Ilyusha is right,” Ilya says, “is perfect. You are perfect.” He drags Shane down to kiss him again, slow and languorous and consuming. It hits Shane then that he gets to have this. Ilya, unguarded, underneath him, his.
Ilya, whose hands drag at Shane’s trousers now, whose name Shane gasps and stutters, again and again and again.
***
A shaft of moonlight slices through the window and keeps Shane awake, even though he’s tired. It’s a happy, contented tiredness. His parents came over for dinner, which they’ve been doing every day since accidentally discovering their son’s “lover” (he really should kill Ilya for that). They’d all sat out by the lake, listening to the call of loons and the chirp of crickets, while David and Yuna peppered Ilya with about a hundred questions a minute: about Russia, about the Bears’ defense, about his favorite foods and colors and music, about where he would stay when he moved to Ottawa. They were making up for lost time, Shane knew, hungry for details about the man so intertwined with the last decade of their son’s life. Ilya had seemed a little bewildered at first by the force of their interest. But he had settled into it well, matching each of their questions with ones of his own. Shane had grinned at them over the top of his can of ginger ale, and Ilya had squeezed his knee, and his parents had smiled at them. It was a good day.
He’s careful as he reaches over to grab his phone. He doesn’t want to wake Ilya, who’s snoring softly beside him.
Loons (North American English) or divers (British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus Gavia, family Gaviidae and order Gaviiformes…..
“What’re you doing?” Ilya rumbles, blinking open one sleepy eye.
“Sorry,” Shane whispers, setting the phone face down to obscure the light of the screen. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
Ilya doesn’t respond, just tugs Shane closer to him and bands an arm around his waist, drawing him closer.
Shane can feel Ilya’s soft breath on his neck. He can feel Ilya’s heartbeat against his back.
He falls asleep smiling.