Chapter Text
Winter Olympics 2014 – Sochi, Russia
The Olympic complex buzzed with a kind of tension that Shane had never felt before.
It was quieter than the hockey arenas he knew from the NHL, but somehow the atmosphere still felt loaded. Sochi glittered on the surface – flags everywhere, volunteers smiling a little too widely, security visible on every corner – but something underneath it all felt almost tight and watchful. Maybe that was just his nerves, though.
Shane walked beside Scott Hunter and Carter Vaughn toward the figure skating rink, the cold air of the brutal winter burning sharp in his lungs as his thoughts wandered. He had asked his colleagues during coffee earlier if they wanted to come with him to support his friend Joe in the figure skating team event. He had once trained with him, and this year he was representing Canada as one of the male candidates.
“Would you guys be cool to do that?” Shane had asked. “I’d love to show up for him.”
“Hell yeah, man,” Carter had smiled and shrugged, “I’ll support any dude who’s that brave.”
Shane had glanced at him in confusion, eyebrows slightly furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
The other man had hesitated for a long second, then continued with a lowered voice. “Well, I’m assuming your buddy might be gay?"
"I mean… Fucking brave for a dude to show up to a place like this and be like ‘Hey, here’s me.’ Russia is not safe for folks like that,” he had rambled on, clearly overexplaining himself. “Fucking balls of steel, man.”
Shane had swallowed then, the reaction barely perceptible. He had wanted to snap at him to not assume someone’s sexuality based on their sport, but the second part of the comment had landed hard somewhere deep inside of him. Also, Carter wasn’t mocking. Ultimately, he meant well. He sometimes just had a rather clumsy way of saying things, and Shane knew that.
Still, the words settled uncomfortably in his chest now as they stepped inside the rink, where the ice gleamed bright and untouched. The sound carried differently as the first few athletes stepped onto the ice for their six minutes of warmup – blades whispering on the slippery surface instead of carving, music drifting lightly through the air instead of blaring.
The three of them took their seats midway up the stands, Shane slipping his hands in the pockets of his team-issued fleece jacket, shoulders still sore from practice earlier that morning.
The first skater finished his program to a round of applause. Then another followed – clean footwork, decent jumps, but nothing that stayed with Shane for long afterwards. He didn’t really care about the other performances as much, but he still liked watching other athletes perform under pressure. He understood the kind of weight that was resting on their shoulders. So, he clapped when it was appropriate, murmured commentary back and forth with Scott and Carter, but also absentmindedly checked his phone once when it buzzed with a message from the team group chat.
When his friend stepped onto the ice, Carter and Scott sat up straight next to him, watching intently. Joe’s choreography was beautifully crafted, his movements smooth and perfectly fitting to the music playing in the background. The audience applauded when he finished, Shane and his two friends standing up to clap for him as well.
“Amazing! Wow!” Carter shouted in awe, nudging Shane’s side with his elbow. “Man, your buddy fucking killed it.”
Shane nodded in agreement, as they sat back down. He contemplated if he should leave now already, since the performance he had come here for had finished, or if he should stay to see the last athlete of the day. The announcement, blasting through the speakers in the next moment, made the decision for him.
The announcer’s voice echoed through the arena, crisp and official. “Earlier today, Svetlana Vetrova already set the mark for the Russian team, scoring a strong lead in the female event, placing them in first so far.”
Shane glanced at the leaderboard as numbers and placements flickered across the screen. Today’s men’s competition was part of the team event, each skater’s score stacking onto their country’s total. Every jump, spin and step sequence didn’t just matter for the individual – it could shift medal standings for the whole team, so the stakes were high. He leaned back, idly noting the tension in the crowd, the quiet calculation in every coach’s expression. Then the announcer said the next name, and everything else faded.
“Representing Russia, Ilya Rozanov!”
Shane’s head snapped down to the ice instantly. For a second, he almost thought he misheard it. His brain reached for other, illogical explanations: coincidence, another athlete with the same name, his ears playing tricks on him… But then the camera cut to the rink entrance, and a skater pushed off the boards and glided onto the ice.
It was, undoubtedly, Ilya Rozanov who stood there under the lights.
Shane momentarily forgot how to breathe.
Ilya moved to the middle of the surface, skating a slow deliberate arc across the ice as if he wanted to feel every inch of it. He looked taller than Shane remembered, broader through the shoulders, his posture straight and exact.
His costume was beautiful: It was all black and elegant in a way that felt intentional rather than decorative, the fabric flowing with even the tiniest movement of his body. Dark pearls were sewn along the lines of his shoulders and sleeves, subtly catching the light as he got into his starting position. The effect reminded Shane of a black swan – beautiful, precise and dangerous in its grace. There was nothing soft about how Ilya carried himself on the ice. He looked intimidating, standing there under the Olympic lights, as if the rink belonged to him before he even pushed off.
The music began.
Ilya started his performance by smoothly gliding forward, his arms moving in soft yet measured movements. He accelerated shortly after, his crossovers deep and powerful, edges biting clean into the ice. He built speed without effort, each stroke placed with careful intention. Shane felt it in his chest – the same instinctive recognition he felt when he watched a truly elite hockey player take control of a game.
The first jump came early in the choreography, Ilya moving into his first combination with fluid precision.
He set it up with a long outside edge, arms spread out to gain momentum, head steady. He launched himself upward into the air, arms coming in quickly to his body as he rotated so fast it blurred. He performed a flawless quad Flip, immediately followed by an Euler that set him up perfectly for a triple Salchow. He landed clean, knee bending smoothly to absorb the impact, blade gliding backward without a wobble.
The crowd reacted late, as if it took a second to understand what they just saw.
Shane’s pulse quickened as he watched the seamless connection of edges, the effortless flow from one jump to the next. That was a flawless execution if he’d ever seen one.
The next sequence flowed immediately out of the landing. Ilya transitioned into complex footwork, consisting of rockers, counters and turns stacked on top of one another. His upper body stayed balanced while his feet traced impossible patterns across the ice. He used the full rink, cutting diagonally, accelerating down the long axis, then snapping into a tight turn near the boards without losing speed.
Then, Ilya glided straight into a quad Toe Loop, jumping skyward with terrifying speed. The rotation seemed impossible, yet he landed clean, knees soft, arms controlled. Shane had seen elite skaters in his NHL career, but this… this was something else.
Element after element, Ilya performed his jumps with a kind of casual authority that bordered on disrespectful. He rotated them cleanly, snapped his arms in tight, spotted the ice, and came down centred every time. No scraped landings, no frantic checks. Just pure, practiced control.
It looked almost arrogant, but Shane knew it was earned.
“Ilya Rozanov is a legend, man,” Carter murmured next to him, leaning closer, his voice low but impressed. “Calls himself the Quad God… A bit full of himself if you ask me, but goddamn he’s good.”
Shane went still. Quad God. He had seen that nickname spread through broadcasts and float around comment sections, either in reverence by fans or paired with eyerolls and accusations of ego by critics. Shane had read some of them before; he knew how people talked about skaters who knew they were good.
But in comparison to some online rage baiters, he knew the difference between arrogance and certainty.
Ilya Rozanov could not just do difficult jumps, the artistry demanded attention too: Right now, he cut across the ice, arms painting beautiful lines in the air, timing each gesture perfectly to the music’s swells. The curly-haired man skated through a step sequence that demanded precision and stamina, but he made it look fluid and easy. His edges stayed deep even as the tempo increased, turns snapping sharply under his feet. The entire performance screamed of raw emotion and delivery, the man’s body practically turning into the physical manifestation of the accompanying instrumental that spoke of tragically beautiful pain and loss.
Shane watched every second of it on the edge of his seat.
He remembered another rink, another time, a boy with broken English and sharp eyes who would stay late after practice. He remembered stolen moments, laughter swallowed by empty arenas, and the way the young boy, even back then, would always land jumps like gravity was optional.
The memory flickered in front of Shane’s eyes and disappeared again, pushed aside by the present. Because this Ilya currently skating on Olympic ice was no longer the one Shane knew back then.
The final jump came at the program’s climax, a triple Axel, ambitious and difficult. And for just a heartbeat, Shane saw Ilya waver ever so slightly on the landing, a tiny ripple in his otherwise flawless balance. It was almost imperceptible, but the judges would definitely notice. Shane’s fingers curled into the fabric of his trousers.
Ilya’s face had stayed composed the entire time, eyes focused, but that little error made his mask slip momentarily, a flicker of dissatisfaction lingering in his expression – proof that he always demanded more of himself than anyone else ever could.
The final spin came at the end. Ilya jumped into it with control, one leg extended in a perfect ninety-degree angle, then pulled in tighter and tighter until he blurred. The pirouette slowed only when he decided it would, grabbing his leg from behind and raising it over his head as he continued spinning. He let it go smoothly, glided to centre ice, and finished in a sharp pose exactly when the music cut out.
Silence held for a heartbeat.
Then the arena erupted.
Applause crashed down from the stands, louder than it had been all evening. Shane stood without realising he did, clapping so hard his palms hurt. Scott said something beside him, but Shane didn’t hear it.
Ilya bowed once, precise and restrained, looking up at the crowd, expression calm and almost detached. He did not smile.
The confidence people called cocky sat on him like armour.
Shane knew better. He knew what it took to skate like that. He knew what it cost to carry that kind of certainty into a place like the Olympics and back it up with proof. Ilya had always demanded perfection from himself, and he had never pretended otherwise.
Shane sank back into his seat as the other man skated off the ice, his pulse staying elevated long after he was no more in sight.
Years had passed. Careers had been built. Names had been made.
And yet, in the space of two minutes and forty seconds, the past had reached out and reminded Shane exactly who he had never quite managed to forget.
________
The next day, the locker room smelled like disinfectant, damp gear, and pent-up adrenaline, energy sizzling with nowhere to go yet.
Shane sat on the bench, elbows resting on his knees as he re-taped his stick with slow, methodical movements. Around him, the Canadian team filled the space with familiar sounds of game day preparation – skates clacking against the floor, the rip of athletic tape, low and nervous chatter punctuated by short laughs. Someone had music playing from a phone speaker, a steady beat meant to sharpen their focus rather than distract.
However, Shane’s mind still kept drifting to a different rink. The sound of blades gliding over the ice instead of the scrape and crash he was normally used to. In front of his inner eye, he saw flashes of black fabric under bright stadium lights and a face so beautifully carved yet serious. The way a single mistake, that had been barely visible, had been enough to unsettle someone who otherwise looked untouchable.
Shane tightened his grip on the tape and finished the last wrap, pulling it free with a sharp tug. He exhaled through his nose and forced himself back into reality.
It was game time.
He stood up from the wooden bench, straightening to his full height, and the room shifted almost instantly. The conversations quieted down and all the heads turned to him, attentive and anticipating.
This wasn’t something he ever had to ask for. Shane wasn’t loud by nature; he had never been the type to shout or deliver speeches dripping with theatrics. But when he spoke, people listened instinctively, because they knew he didn’t waste words.
He let the silence stretch for a moment longer, eyes sweeping across the room. He took each of the players in one by one – rookies buzzing with nervous energy, veterans nodding at him with calm focus, men who trusted him to lead because he had successfully done it before, again and again.
“Remember, we’re not here to feel good,” Shane said finally, his voice earnest but carrying easily. “We’re here to fucking win.” He didn’t raise his volume or add a dramatic pause, but his tone seeped of certainty.
“This game isn’t about headlines or highlights. It’s about doing your job,” he continued. “Every shift, every line change, every damn puck battle – you will give it your all tonight.”
He stepped forward once, boots heavy against the floor, his eyes focused.
“Our opponents are going to come out hard. They’re going to test us early and see who cracks first.” His gaze hardened slightly. “We will not give them that satisfaction.”
A few players nodded, some others straightened their shoulders in response.
Shane’s jaw locked, his expression sharpening into something colder. It was intimidating, if you didn’t know him, but reassuring, if you did. Shane had set his mind on winning, and he would do anything to get what he wanted – for himself and for his team. They knew that they could rely on him.
“I don’t care if you’re tired. I don’t care if you took a hit last game. You leave it all on the ice, or you don’t leave it at all.”
He paused, then added, quieter but no less firm, “Don’t you dare embarrass me tonight.”
That did it. The room’s energy buzzed with ripples of smirks and sharp exhales, the tension tightening into something focused and dangerous.
“You are not here for just yourself. You play for the guy next to you,” Shane finished. “You play for the crest. And when the buzzer sounds, we make damn sure they remember who they played tonight!”
He stepped back, the speech over as simply as it had begun. The room came alive again, his teammates cheering for their captain, hollering his last name over and over again while pumping their gloved fists in the air. They patted each other on their backs and chests, screaming loud, energised encouragements into each other’s faces to hype themselves up.
Shane sat back down to gather himself for a second, reaching for his helmet with steady hands.
For a blink of a moment, his thoughts wandered once more, uninvited. To a skater who demanded just as much perfection from himself the same way Shane did from his team and his own self. He also had that confidence that wasn’t loud, but absolute.
He shut his eyes briefly, then opened them again. He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts and popped the helmet onto his head, maybe a little too aggressively. He slapped his hands on it twice like he did before every game for good luck.
“Let’s go, boys!”
There would be another time, later, where he could think about the past.
Right now, he had a fucking game to win.
________
Ilya hadn’t planned to come to the hockey rink.
His free afternoon had stretched ahead of him, empty after an early morning practice, and he told himself that it was nothing more than sheer boredom that carried him there. He was restless with too much unused energy and too much time alone with his thoughts. He had excused himself from Svetlana who had shot him a questioning look as he had gotten up after their coffee chat and walked straight to the arena. The Olympic village just had its way of pressing in on him from all sides when he stayed still for too long.
That was all.
And yet, when he found himself standing in line, ticket in hand, he did not bother pretending that he didn’t know who was playing tonight.
Canada versus the United States.
The arena felt entirely different from the figure skating rink. It was much louder, the atmosphere heavier in a way – the air buzzing with anticipation and barely contained aggression. The ice was scarred and rough even before the puck dropped, marked by warmups and hard stops. Ilya took a seat in the middle section of the stands, far away enough to blend in, close enough to see the entire rink clearly.
He had his hood pulled up and cap pulled low, a quiet attempt at anonymity. He didn’t want people to recognise who he was. More accurately, he didn’t want to have to explain later why he had been spotted at a hockey game, watching two teams that had nothing to do with him, and not even supporting Russia. He could always point out that his mother had been half-American, but he had no desire to discuss his dead mother with strangers, least of all with the media. So, he tried to stay as hidden as possible.
When the Canadian team skated out, the crowd roared. Ilya watched with detached interest at first, tracking the lines, the formations, and the rhythm of the game. Hockey had always fascinated him in an abstract way – it was chaotic and violent yet structured beneath the surface if you knew where to look.
Then, suddenly, he saw the jersey with the number 24 and a big “C” stitched to the front of it.
Captain Hollander.
Ilya’s gaze sharpened as Shane Hollander took the ice like he owned it. He moved differently than the others: head up, shoulders squared, reading the play already seconds before it even unfolded. He directed traffic with small gestures, shouted commands that cut clean through the noise. The puck seemed to gravitate toward him, obedient, as if it understood where it was meant to go.
The shy kid Ilya remembered from many years ago was gone.
This Shane was commanding and unyielding. There was a severity to him now, a kind of contained violence that made even seasoned players give him space. He hit hard when he had to, skated faster when it mattered, and never wasted a single second.
Ilya leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees.
So this was who he had become.
Over the past few years, Ilya had always heard the name of the Ottawa captain here and there. Of course, he had never searched it up actively – he would never – but he knew the man out there on the ice had won Rookie of the Year early in his career and had since been named MVP more than once. He also knew that he was rumoured to not be the most sociable, yet he had the highest hockey IQ in the league and helped his team win the Stanley cup multiple times.
Midway through the first period, the puck slid toward Shane’s stick alongside the boards. He caught it cleanly, almost effortlessly, spun away from his opponents in one quick, calculated motion and lifted his head – just as Ilya’s eyes landed on him.
For a fraction of a second, their gazes met through the thick glass.
Shane’s eyes widened ever so slightly, barely noticeable. Barely at all. But Ilya saw it anyway.
That distraction was enough for the puck to slip away from the man. It wasn’t dramatic – not a full loss of control or a mistake anyone would replay later. It was merely a momentary disruption, the puck hopping awkwardly off Shane’s blade as an opposing player closed in.
The whole crowd gasped and held their breath, but Shane reacted instantly.
He snapped right back into motion, body angling sharp and precise, using his shoulder to shield the puck as he smoothly reclaimed it. Two strides later, he burned past the defender, accelerating down the ice like the short lapse had never happened.
Ilya’s fingers grabbed on tightly onto his sleeves.
Of course, perfect golden boy Shane Hollander could turn every situation around in his favour.
Shane cut across the slot, drew two other athletes toward him, only to release the puck at the very last second. The shot rang out, clean and brutal, and slammed right into the net of the goal.
The arena practically exploded into cheers and applause.
Shane barely celebrated. He just raised a single fist, shouting a short ‘Let’s go’ to his fellow teammates, already turning back toward centre ice. His focus locked back in again like nothing had ever touched him.
Ilya leaned back in his seat and let the roar of the crowd wash over him. His gaze stayed fixed on the ice as a familiar weight settled in his chest, heavy and unwavering. His father’s voice surfaced uninvited – cold, sharp and uncompromising – reminding him that skating was never meant to be beautiful, only victorious. Make Russia proud, or don’t bother coming home, he had once said. So, it was clear to say that failure had never been an option, and neither had weakness. There had never been room for second place, for mistakes, for doubt. Love had always come conditional, wrapped in medals and clean programs.
He had learned early not to react when his father’s hand came down hard across his face after a bad performance, had learned to keep his expression neutral, his body still, no matter how much it stung. He had also learned how to carry all the pressure without flinching, how to turn unrealistic expectations into fuel – but some days, like this one, it felt heavier than the gold everyone expected him to win. His jaw locked at the thought, teeth pressing together until it almost hurt.
His mother had never been like his father. She had been an ice skater too, for the United States where she was raised most her life. She had been graceful and impossibly beautiful on the ice yet relentlessly hard on herself. She was the one who had inspired Ilya to skate at all, who had taught him that technique meant nothing if it wasn’t underlined with feeling. Everything Ilya knew about artistry – about letting emotion bleed into every movement – he had learned from her. He never questioned why pain and longing and loss came easiest to him in his performances; he could only wish that one day he could transport emotion as well as she could.
He knew that his technique was flawless, that his jump scores were unmatched, that those were the things praised by the public and most important to his father. But what Ilya wanted – the only thing he had always wanted to achieve with figure skating – was to make the audience feel something the way his mother always had. She had died when he was only twelve, but sometimes it felt like he had been skating towards her with every performance ever since.
He felt a sharp sting in his chest, ugly and unwelcome, as the memories flooded in, but he shook it off and forced his mind back to the present. He had mastered the art of compartmentalising long ago, keeping emotion neatly tucked away where it couldn’t interfere with performance.
Ilya wasn’t twelve years old anymore, nor was he still eighteen. And Shane Hollander was no longer a seventeen-year-old boy who lingered after practice.
He was a captain and a leader. A force of nature.
Good for him.
Ilya stayed until the end of the period, then stood up and left before the crowd could thin out, before he gave himself time to think too much about why his pulse hadn’t slowed down ever since the moment their eyes had met.
He told himself it meant nothing.
The ice had a way of never forgetting. Of bringing back ghosts.
That didn’t mean he had to listen to them.