Chapter Text
Sochi February 18th to 24th 2014
Shane
Every few minutes Shane had to pause, take a breath, and come to terms with it all over again that he was at the Olympics. He was competing in the Olympics, representing Canada in ice hockey like he had dreamed since he was old enough to skate after a puck. As a little kid it had been more his dream than the NHL even, since national teams are easier to follow at that age. None of his teammates knew that first he had wanted to play for the Ottawa Centaurs and lead them to extremely overdue glory when he was still young enough to think life was a sports movie. His dad was the Centaurs fan, his mom had tolerated it since they were no threat to her beloved Voyageurs. They had wanted to come with him to the Olympics, but Shane had talked them out of it. He would have barely any time to see them and it wasn’t worth the travel complications. In truth, Shane had been a bit spooked by articles that had been passed around about security concerns. He was probably being paranoid.
That paranoia was not helped by Carter Vaughn scaring the shit out of him, yelling his name across a Sochi coffee shop. Vaughn dropped into a seat at Shane’s table, followed by a mildly apologetic looking Scott Hunter. Once his heart rate came back to normal, it was nice to see some familiar faces.
Scott Hunter was the captain of Team USA’s men’s hockey team and captain of the New York Admirals back home, where Carter played too. They were a few years older than Shane, so Scott was a player that he had really looked up to, because of his honest play style and not just because he was ridiculously handsome. Though he did have a romance book cover jaw line, no joke. He was built like a firefighter who was also a model. Vaughn was gorgeous as well with that perfect movie star stubble over dark skin and big brown eyes. They were both franchise players in New York and did a lot of their media and public events, charity stuff, so Shane had more chances to talk to them outside of games then most opposing players.
‘Congrats on your win last night,’ Scott said as they sat, because he always made the effort to be nice to Shane, even if he did still treat him a bit like a rookie four years in.
‘Thanks,’ it was vital that Shane not blush. ‘It was a pretty easy win, Slovenia’s off their game, but I’ll take it. You guys were great against Czechia.’
‘The early games are all pretty easy,’ Vaughn shrugged. ‘It’s getting real soon though now that prelims are nearly done.’
‘Let’s not get cocky,’ Scott cautioned.
‘Yes, Cap,’ Vaughn teased back with a wink at Shane. God. Shane remembered the days when he could convince himself that Rozanov was the only man he was truly attracted to, those had been surprisingly comforting days. ‘I guess it’s true anything can happen. I mean, did you see that mess Russia put on against Latvia?’
‘Be nice,’ Scott cautioned, rolling his eyes. ‘But yeah it was...’
‘A straight up shit show?’ Shane finished to Vaughn’s delighted laughter and Scott’s tiny snort. ‘I think they’re having some issues clicking as a team, plenty of talent but it’s not getting them anywhere.’
‘Plenty of talent except for that goalie, is he on drugs or something? Stay in the goddamn crease man and let the defensive line do their jobs already,’ Vaughn offered. ‘What’s Roz said about it?’
‘Oh,’ Shane froze and then forced himself not to let his voice jump up an octave. ‘I don’t know, we don’t really hang out much.’
Scott came to Shane’s rescue by asking if Shane had plans for the night. He had the rest of the day and most of the next morning off before their next set of games and was hoping to catch some non-hockey events for a change.
‘Yeah?’ Scott’s face lit up when Shane said as much. ‘I was hoping to catch some of the speed skating later and the men’s figure skating short programme is tonight too.’
‘My buddy Joe is competing in that,’ Shane grinned, still proud of him. ‘We used to train together before the draft. I’d love to go support him, if you’d be cool with that.’
‘Cheer for a Canadian...’ Scott pretended to hesitate, then smiled. ‘Sounds good. We should probably head over early though, it’s going to be packed. Vaughny?’
‘Hell yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I’m down. Anyway, those fucking guys are brave as hell to be here, you know?’
Shane frowned, confused, and Scott went a bit wooden when he asked ‘brave?’
‘Yeah like...’ Vaughn lowered his voice and glanced around. ‘Because of the gay thing, right? Some of those guys are risking their lives to be here. That’s brave as hell.’
‘Right,’ Scott nodded and stared down into his coffee.
Shane’s stomach twisted. He had heard some things about Russia’s laws against homosexuality, but he had very pointedly not looked in to it further so he couldn’t obsess too much. He was just here to keep his head down, win a gold medal and go home. Even if he heard from... which he probably wouldn’t. But this wasn’t about him and thinking about Joe, who Shane knew was gay, he couldn’t ignore it. Joe had never been really able to hide his sexuality the way Shane could. He acted gay, even though that was a fucking horrible thing to say, but Shane didn’t really know how else to explain it. Even when Shane was first sharing rink time with him in Ottawa when he had been ten and Joe thirteen. As far as Shane knew, Joe had never even kissed anyone, everyone had known. Was he scared or did he feel like he would be safe inside the Olympic village? Shane would still be scared though, if he was Joe.
That was a stupid thought. Shane was Joe. Or no, he wasn’t but he had sex with men. Mostly just the one man who was also in fucking Russia right now. Though it was different since Rozanov was Russian. Was it better or worse? Was Rozanov this on edge all the time when he was home in the summers? Surely not, you’d go crazy, right?
Shane mumbled something about heading to the bathroom and pulled out his phone. He had sent Rozanov a text when they had first all arrived, just wishing him luck, and hadn’t really thought anything of not getting a reply. They didn’t always text much if they were busy with team commitments and since Rozanov was captain of Team Russia, he probably had twice as much insanity on his schedule as Shane. He drafted a text that read ‘having a good time?’ but then he remembered wincing his way through watching that Latvia game and deleted it. ‘Hey, we’re both at the Olympics! Fun, right? Also, are you in jail?’ was probably a bit too much.
He settled on ‘have you gone to see any other competitions?’ since that was casual, but not about ice hockey or sex for once.
Ilya
The Olympics were bullshit and Ilya had not had nearly enough to drink the night before to feel this hungover. Even hiding out on the beach, ball cap pulled low over his sunglasses, he couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen. Ilya had been on edge since he landed; days of smiling for Russian media and mingling with government officials who made his skin crawl while his father lurked at his shoulder like a shadow of disapproval and judgement. His father’s cold eyes watching as he shook the hands of men and women who supported their country’s leader without question, who expected Ilya to do the same, who would see him stripped of his position if they knew anything real about him.
There had been so much media time that there had been not nearly enough preparation time for the team. It would not have saved them. These sorts of international tournaments were always awkward, with players being tossed together to form a “dream team” of superstars who had no idea how to play with each other, but this team was especially hopeless. Too many egos. Too much pressure, here in their home country, making tempers run high in the dressing room and on the ice. Too many stupid penalties being taken, too few goals being scored. It wasn’t the first time Ilya had dealt with the tension between KHL and NHL players, the idea that those in the North American league had “sold out”, but it was the first time it had been his problem at this scale. Then, of course, there were the team’s “specialist doctors”. Ilya was not going to get caught alone in an exam room with any of them and it was making his play style too cautious.
They were already out of the running for a medal, which was humiliating, and as his father and several others at the awful gala he had been dragged to pointed out to Ilya, politically inconvenient for the host country. Maybe if the host country hadn’t recruited ego-driven ultra-nationalists and drugged-up lunatics, they would have preformed better. That was unfair. There were some great players on the team it just wasn’t working. Svetlana had been his one saving grace, her father had moved back to Moscow after he retired three years ago, and she had come back as his guest for the games. She rescued him from their fathers and the interior minister only to ambush him with a visit from Sasha. The shithead claimed he was only there for the figure skating too.
He had wanted to talk to Sveta alone. His father’s memory was getting worse. He had forgotten that Mama was dead while they prepared for the gala. It had only been for a moment, but still. It was the third or fourth serious slip since Ilya had been back after months of Alexei claiming over the phone that Ilya was overreacting. He needed real treatment. He needed to admit there was something to treat. Physically, Grigori Rozanov still looked like a healthy, powerfully built man for his seventy-two years. If the reading that Ilya had been doing on Alzheimer’s was true, however, that wouldn’t last. He and Alexei both knew that they couldn’t rely on Polina to care for him. She hadn’t even made the trip from Moscow to Sochi with him. Then again, Polina was only thirty-two, maybe she was already trying to find her next husband before the money from this one ran out.
His mother had been thirty-six when she died.
Ilya wanted to go back to Boston and forget any of this.
His phone would not stop buzzing in his coat pocket. Svetlana had sent him a few texts that morning, probably after she spoke to Sasha judging from the chiding tone. It bothered her that the two of them hadn’t managed to stay close after they stopped hooking up. She and Ilya had stopped at various points before, without it effecting their friendship. Ilya didn’t know how to explain to her that it had always been different with Sasha, because the friendship attached to the benefits had been less strong at its core, and that she had never wanted things from him that he couldn’t give, like Sasha had. So he said nothing and Svetlana kept orchestrating awkward encounters for Ilya and Sasha to “talk about it”.
Then there were the texts from Hollander. Just two, simple, boring messages that Ilya would not have found strange except... except that every fucking thing about his situation with Hollander was strange. He was so miserable here, it clung to his skin like grime and left him feeling sticky and disgusting. Sometimes his father looked at him like he was something disgusting. The disgust in his brother’s voice on the phone was clear every time. Ilya put up with it because Alexei had bailed him out of trouble and kept his secrets and could carry out the responsibilities of a son while Ilya escaped to America.
He knew where Svetlana and Sasha would be, even if he had been ignoring their texts. The men’s figure skating short form was Sasha’s favourite and Sveta enjoyed anything on skates. Ilya skulked around the rink, unsure if he was willing to go looking for them in the crowd. Being stared at by strangers did not sound appealing with everything else going on. Even in a black wool coat instead of his team jacket, he was bound to be recognised by someone, an organiser or cameraman at least, and he felt stupid wearing the cap indoors.
‘Hey.’ Ilya knew that it was Hollander before turning around to see him in that ridiculous fluffy, white Team Canada fleece. God but it was cute.
He shook his head, desperate and exhausted. ‘Not here.’ He should explain something, say something more useful but English was a chore to him and he had not been speaking it for days.
‘Oh no, I’m not,’ Hollander looked embarrassed, as if Ilya had accused him of trying to suck him off in public. ‘I just wanted to see how you were doing.’
That was possibly worse. ‘Fine,’ Ilya grit his teeth. He couldn’t handle this. ‘Go back to your seat.’ Before someone sees and talks. Before you see me do something unforgivable, like cry.
‘Are you okay?’ Hollander frowned and god this man could not take a hint. It was unfair, Ilya knew that. He had known that Hollander didn’t take hints well, not off the ice anyway, for years. He also knew that he was being cowardly by trying to hide between Hollander’s obvious confusion to avoiding talking about anything real. ‘You didn’t answer my texts and I thought we– ’
‘We are not anything, Hollander, not here, so I do not have to answer your boring texts,’ Ilya said as plainly as he could risk in such an unsecure location. ‘Please go sit down.’
It was vital that he turned around before he saw the hurt land on Hollander’s face. It was just too much. He couldn’t be here anymore. He wanted to go back to Boston where a version of Ilya Rozanov could exist that Ilya could actually liked. He liked who he was there, how he was with his team. They took him seriously as a player, not just as a brute on the ice but as a strategist too. They let him be funny and reckless without assuming he was stupid. When he went out in Boston, people loved him and for all that Ilya didn’t care much about the crowds, it was definitely preferable to the way he was studied appraisingly here. It was preferable even to how Sveta and Sasha saw him. The Ilya of before, who was reckless and thrill-seeking beyond all else, that was still who they saw when they looked at him. An angry boy of eighteen, not a man of twenty-two, a sulking delinquent looking for new ways to get his father’s attention, not a captain or a leader or a professional.
As he fled the arena, leaving Hollander, Svetlana and Sasha behind, unhappy with him in all their different ways, and he wanted to go home. If only he had one of those to go to.
Shane
Rozanov being an asshole was not new. He was abrasive and mocking at the best of times and Shane wasn’t so much the fool that he didn’t recognise that this was far from the best of times. That didn’t mean it didn’t piss him off when Rozanov got like this, mean and angry and cold, as if it was Shane who had first started their “nothing”, as if it was Shane who had pushed boundaries and flirted stupid places and risked them getting caught before. Rozanov had been the reckless one with their secrets over the years far more often than it had been Shane. Most of his anger with the other man faded by the time he made it back level with the ice. It wasn’t Rozanov’s unpleasantness that worried Shane, it was the hollow, dead look behind his eyes. That spark of fire and mischief that had always been there before, on the ice or in bed or talking shit, it had been extinguished somewhere during these games and Shane didn’t like it.
After the results were in and the interviews done, he managed to catch Joe near the kiss-and-cry. His friend was tall and broad by figure skating standards, but his strength moved him with enough grace that he never seemed bulky. Shane had never really been into Joe, not even after he could have admitted his attraction to men to himself, but he had eyes. They’d both had black hair as kids, but the men in Joe’s family all started going silver in their twenties. Shane thought it made him look pretty cool though. He got pulled into a tight hug, the sequins on Joe’s outfit scratching his cheek.
‘I’m so glad you could make it!’ He beamed, pulling back from Shane. ‘I wasn’t sure if the schedules would overlap too much.’
‘It’s been nuts but I got lucky,’ Shane grinned. ‘You killed it out there. I was with two guys from Team USA and they were both really impressed too, so it’s not just loyalty talking.’
‘Oh I saw you with Scott Hunter,’ Joe raised both eyebrows with a little smirk. ‘I’ll be very upset if you don’t find some way of introducing me to him before we all go home.’
‘Oh so that’s your type?’ Shane teased back, which was bold for him. They were alone in the corridor and still both of them had lowered their voices automatically.
‘It’s Scott Hunter,’ Joe scoffed. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s everyone’s type.’
‘Fair,’ Shane agreed and then froze. That was too far maybe.
Joe did look shocked for a second, genuinely, and then his eyes got soft, understanding. Because Joe had always been a good friend, he changed the subject. ‘Don’t introduce us today though, I can see you have your face on.’
‘What face?’
‘Your “I need a break from hockey players” face,’ he said it like that was a well known fact.
Well, it had been, a bit, when they were younger. Shane had always loved hockey, but hockey culture had not always loved him, hockey players had not always loved him. When he was a kid and thinner skinned, sometimes it had been overwhelming, the atmosphere in the locker rooms. Joe had always been good at seeing when Shane had needed help just having fun on the ice again away from the slurs and macho posturing.
‘This is just my face,’ Shane denied anyway, just to be annoying.
‘Unfortunate choice of career then,’ Joe retorted and they both laughed. ‘There’s a bunch of skaters having a sort of party later, you should come. Nearly everyone is still competing so it won’t be wild or anything, but it’ll be a bit of a change from your usual crowd.’
That was a bit of an ominous description. Shane had his mouth open to make some excuse and turn down the invitation, but Rozanov’s voice calling him boring again lingered in his mind, too fresh to ignore. ‘Sure, text me the details when you’re finished up here and I’ll be there.’
Of course, because Shane was disaster person, he changed four times before heading towards the Team France building he’d been given directions to wearing basically the same thing he’d worn every day so far just with a dark parka instead of his team fleece. There was a common area shared between a few of the French athletes rooms that was full of music and drinks and people talking. It was a lot at once. Joe was leaning against a window ledge talking to a handsome tanned man in a silky red shirt, who was leaned on a stunning woman with a mass of brown curls falling around her statuesque shoulders. Neither of them looked like athletes even if they were fit. His friend waved him over and pulled a single can of ginger ale from the cooler at his feet.
‘I’ve been guarding this with my life since I found it,’ Joe grinned triumphantly as he handed it over.
‘Canada thanks you for your sacrifice,’ Shane quipped back, surprised at how easy it was to fall back into familiarity with Joe, given how little they’d seen of each other in recent years.
‘Shane Hollander,’ the woman had a slight Russian accent, but spoke English very fluently. ‘I am a big fan of yours, even if I think you were wasted on the Voyageurs. Your line has been very strong here though, do you think you can steal gold from Hunter?’
‘I don’t want to jinx it,’ he admitted. ‘But I think we can give the Americans a challenge.’
The man looked blankly between them, clearly not speaking English, before turning to Joe and asking in French. ‘Are they talking about hockey already? Sveta is obsessed and I have no escape.’
‘You don’t follow ice hockey?’ Shane asked, also in French, because Joe was too busy laughing at him.
‘My family all do, someone had to try something different,’ there was a distinctly flirty edge to how he spoke, looking Shane up and down, but it was so natural to him that Shane doubted it was really directed at him specifically. He did reached out to take Shane’s hand. ‘Sasha, and Svetlana called you what, Shane?’ He stumbled over Shane’s first name a little as they shook hands. ‘You are a friend of Joe?’
There was some polite small talk for a few moments, but it got a bit completed and repetitive since Svetlana and Sasha both spoke Russian but Sveta spoke no French and Sasha no English. Joe and Shane both spoke English and French but no Russian. They ended up splitting up, so that Svetlana could talk to him about the NHL season and Joe could carry on flirting without distractions. It made Shane nervous on Joe’s behalf, but he was a grown man. He could make his own decisions. Other skaters and a ski jumper or two would drift over and introduce themselves to Shane or Joe, generally being friendly or polite or drunk. Two guys off the Swiss speed skating team tried to muscle Shane out of the conversation to hit on Svetlana, but she gave them a look so withering it was a miracle neither of them fainted. She seemed pretty cool.
‘Cool for a Boston fan, I guess,’ Shane amended playfully after he said as much. He was on his second beer, which should absolutely be his last even if he didn’t have an early skate.
‘Well I have no choice really,’ she shrugged, hair bouncing and the layers of her tight dress shifting around in a way that probably had most guys drooling. The fact that it only made Shane worry she would be cold in a Russian February was a thought that he shoved ruthlessly into a box with all similar thoughts and locked it. ‘My father is Sergei Vetrov, the former Boston goalie. I went to high school in Boston before he retired.’
‘That was only a few years ago,’ Shane blinked. ‘Oh... well, you must know Rozanov then.’ Nerves came back like moths in his chest.
‘There are more than three Russians in Boston,’ she teased.
Shane blushed. ‘Oh yes, I know, it’s just... I know Rozanov was billeted with Vetrov in his rookie year.’
‘Yes, we know each other,’ Svetlana conceded. ‘I was not around much then, I went to university in Moscow and my father retired at the end of Ilya’s rookie season to move back to Russia. I knew Ilya in the summers as a child though, as my father did training camps in Moscow and was old friends with Ilya’s coach.’ She turned to gesture back at Sasha, who had a hand on Joe’s chest and they were talking in low voices, heads bent close together. ‘That’s where...’
Before she could finished that thought, one of the Swiss skaters that Svetlana had rejected earlier said something loud and homophobic in French. From her face, Svetlana did not need to speak the language to recognise the tone of a spat insult.
Things devolved very quickly after that. One moment everything was light and relaxed, the next there was shouting and shoving and someone took a swing at Sasha. Joe jumped in and then another Swiss athlete did too and when Joe hit the ground, Shane didn’t hesitate to get in front of him and lay the guy who had hit him out. By NHL standards, Shane Hollander was not a fighter, but by the standards of pretty much any other sport that wasn’t literally boxing, he had more experience in a brawl. Joe got up and Sasha was by him, Shane had lost sight of Svetlana, but she seemed to have gotten herself clear of the fighting like someone with actual common sense. The shouting, now in languages that Shane did not speak, seemed to be coming from outside and the fighting broke up as people started scattering in different directions before Olympic security or the Russian police got involved. That was the absolute last thing any of them needed. Shane grabbed hold of Sasha and Joe and pushed them towards the emergency exit that someone had illegally propped open with a fire extinguisher for the smokers.
They stumbled out into an alley between buildings in the dark and ice cold. Shane had left his parka behind and neither of the other two had coats either, but there was no way they were going back in there now that security had arrived. Shane pointed towards where the Canadian rooms were and they tried to hurry without drawing attention to themselves. A harsh shout made them freeze, worried it was the police.
Instead one of the assholes from earlier shoved at Shane’s chest. It wouldn’t have normally moved him, but ironically he had been standing on some ice and lost his footing. Before the guy could get his intended kick in, another man bolted down the alley and punched him in the face.
Ilya Rozanov made for an unlikely white knight, Shane thought a bit hysterically. God, he’d only had two beers, there was really no excuse for that kind of thing.
Ilya
Ilya was not sulking. He just didn’t want to go over to the French residences to some stupid skier party just to watch Sasha try to make him jealous. It wouldn’t work, but it was embarrassing for both of them and Ilya frankly was better off staying away from the whole thing regardless of how disappointed Svetlana’s texts were. A couple of years ago, when she was in Moscow most of the time during her undergraduate degree, she could have guilted him into spending the time with her. Since she planned to move back to Boston this year and start her MBA in Boston University, Ilya would get to see far more of her and so was immune to her guilt-trips.
A hockey player really should have known better than to jinx himself like that.
Probably for the best you didn’t come, she sent him half an hour after he was supposed to be there. Shane Hollander is here impressing Sasha with his pretty French.
Ilya had his shoes on before his phone screen had gone dark again.
His gloves were almost forgotten as he grabbed his black coat and ran in the general direction of the French residence. After a minute, Ilya slowed to a brisk walk. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to see him running towards this nonsense. No, the last thing he wanted was Sasha and Hollander in a room together, but that was apparently out of his hands so as a best second-case scenario he would at least not be running to them. The temperature had dropped dramatically after the sun set and Ilya pulled his collar up close to his face, hands shoved into his pockets against the cold.
Before he made it to the party, another text from Svetlana came through that just said trouble. Swearing viciously, Ilya sped up, closer to a jog. Oh who could have predicted putting Sasha at an Olympian party could have led to trouble? Who, except anyone with an egg cup of common sense. Svetlana in particular was smarter than this, at least about anyone but Sasha or Ilya. She always gave both of them too much credit.
He spotted Svetlana by her silhouette on the road between residences and she pointed down another walkway then broke into a run that few could have achieved in her shoes. Ilya gave in to the anxiety in his chest and started running too. He was not wearing knife-like heels and so caught up to her easily as they rounded a corner in time to someone in a Team Switzerland jacket shove Hollander roughly to the ground and lift their boot to kick him before he could right himself off the icy pavement. Ilya didn’t have to think about it, he’d already closed the distance and put his fist in the man’s face before Svetlana had finished saying his name in warning. The asshole travelled a distance before hitting the ground, which was not surprising given the ice and the fact that Ilya was twice his size. The temptation to give into old habits, to follow that punch with another, to keep fighting until someone made him stop, burned under his skin. There were no refs here and Ilya was not a teenager anymore. He had troubles enough without boxing his way into new ones.
A man Ilya did not know with a younger face than his grey hair suggested was helping Hollander to his feet when Ilya turned back to them, Sasha had a hand on the man’s back and Svetlana hovered beside them shivering. Her coat had been left behind.
‘We must go,’ she told them all in English, even though Sasha would not understand. ‘Security is coming and none of us need the attention.’
The grey haired man said something in French that prompted Sasha to shoot Ilya a wary look and then start to move. Hollander nodded. ‘Yes, my room’s closest I think. Let’s get inside until they break that party up and then it’ll be easier for you two to get out of the village.’ The English was for his and Sveta’s benefit obviously, since the other man translated for Sasha again. Ilya wanted to argue, on principle as much as anything, but kept his mouth shut as they hurried after Hollander and into one of the buildings decked out in white and red maple leaf flags. He called out for ‘JJ?!’ as they entered and visible relaxed when there was no answer. It wasn’t as if there was only one party happening this late into the games. Security was likely spread thin with less than a week left before the closing ceremonies. What a relief that the NHL required its players back too quickly for Ilya to have been included in any of that.
‘What happened?’ He asked as soon as the doors where called and then he repeated himself more pointedly in Russian, looking at Sasha.
‘Fuck you,’ Sasha spat back, as if Ilya assuming he was at the heart of whatever had gone wrong was some wild and unfair thought. ‘Some piece of shit attack us and that’s my fault?’
‘Well...’ it came out even more sarcastic than intended.
‘Ilya.’ Svetlana snapped, sharp and annoyed with him like she rarely was, even when he deserved it. ‘This was not Sasha’s fault.’ She switched to English again. ‘Hollander, who started the fight?’
‘Those creepy Swiss speed skaters?’ Hollander sounded nervous, like he was being tested. ‘I guess because...’ then he clammed up again, glancing at Sasha and saying something in French. This conversation was getting exhausting.
Whatever it was that Hollander said made Sasha confused, then surprised, and then his whole face twisted up in dark, miserable amusement. He turned his very best sneer on Ilya. ‘Why is this Canadian hockey player so sure that you won’t hurt me for being a queer?’ Ilya knew better than to let his gaze flick to Hollander and he did it anyway, guilty or maybe jealous. Why did Hollander know that about Sasha? ‘Oh my god! You’re fucking him.’
That nearly floored Svetlana, her jaw dropping in such genuine surprise she looked years younger. ‘You’re fucking Shane Hollander! Are you completely insane?’
‘Shut up!’ Ilya snapped. It was a struggle to form English sentences again for Hollander. ‘This is Sasha,’ he explained as Hollander frowned at him, bemused. ‘My old coach’s son.’
Understanding bloomed across Hollander’s face, quickly followed by something a bit darker as he look Sasha up and down, assessing and maybe, if he wasn’t being too optimistic, jealous. ‘And Svetlana, my best friend.’
‘Oh cute,’ Sasha simpered. ‘You told him about me.’
‘But not about me,’ Svetlana tried to sound grumpy but it was clear she was still too shocked to pull it off.
‘I’m confused,’ the grey haired man turned to Hollander. ‘Shane... what...?’
‘Oh god,’ Hollander groaned. ‘Joe, this is Ilya Rozanov, he plays for Boston and we’re... friends... Rozanov, this is my friend from Ottawa, Joe. He’s a figure skater, we used to train together.’
‘Friends...’ Svetlana repeated, in a tone. ‘Oh my god!’ Her eyes went wide. ‘Jane!’
Hollander made a little panicked sound and Ilya stepped between him and the rest of the group, a stupid, caveman instinct that made no sense. No one in that room was going to hurt Shane. Ilya needed to get a grip. ‘Sveta, stop.’
‘And I thought you’d gotten so boring,’ Sasha simpered at him with false sweetness. ‘Turns out you just found a sexier danger to give you your fix.’ He said something in French to Joe that made him blush and move closer and then to Hollander he just said ‘bon chance avec Ilyukha.’ He had been in a league full of French-Canadians too long not to understand “good luck” and had known Sasha too long not to know he said it to be nasty.
Joe looked to Shane, asked him something in French but Shane replied in English. ‘Rozanov is safe and if Svetlana is his friend then so is she. Go have fun, you were brilliant earlier and those assholes don’t get to ruin your night.’
With a relieve smile, Joe hugged Hollander, waved politely to Ilya and Svetlana, then trotted after Sasha out the door. Svetlana rolled her eyes, folded her arms and gave Ilya a look that demanded answers.
‘I told you Hollander was talented,’ she said as if she were describing the weather. ‘I didn’t realise that you’d taken my appreciation so to heart.’
Ilya didn’t speak English with Svetlana as often as he should to practise, so he was not used to the clipped Boston edge to her words in that language. She was the only person he could speak to in Russian other than the old lady who ran the bakery a mile from his apartment. Besides Alexei or his father, of course. Those two rarely had comforting words in any language. Hollander had turned red as a tomato from the conversation and Ilya had no idea what to do next.
‘Sveta,’ he sighed. ‘I need to talk to Hollander. I will see you tomorrow, yes?’
‘Ah,’ she looked a bit apologetic. ‘Our fathers are together at the hotel. You know how my father feels about Sasha, they think I am with you. Papa has always liked you better.’
‘He knows I’m not proposing, yes?’ It was an old joke, one they’d made a hundred times at their fathers’ expenses, but it came out mean and harsh.
Svetlana narrowed her eyes. ‘Just because you’re annoyed at Sasha does not mean you get to speak to me like that, Ilya Grigorivich.’
‘You are right,’ Ilya raised his hands, then turned back to Hollander who had been watching the exchange intently. Ilya did not often speak English with Svetlana but clearly she had had enough of switching back and forth for the night and it would have been rude since the others had left and only Hollander would have been excluded. That didn’t mean that he didn’t wish that Hollander hadn’t been there to hear any of that. ‘I’m sorry, Svetik. Just a minute, please?’
‘I am making coffee.’ She announced, pointing towards the kitchenette, and then stalked off in that direction with no attempt at tact. Ilya did love her with his entire shrivelled up heart.
‘Thanks for the help earlier,’ Hollander said awkwardly. ‘The ice got me better than that guy, but still...’
‘Shane Hollander defeated by ice,’ Ilya smirked. ‘Poetic.’
‘Oh he’s a poet now,’ Hollander snarked back, stepping towards Ilya with that warm and flirty familiarity they fell into so easily when they were alone. Then he froze, stepped away and his face went carefully blank. Maybe he remembered that they were not really alone or maybe he remembered how Ilya had spoken to him that afternoon.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ilya gritted out. He hated apologising. ‘I was... harsh, earlier. I just meant...’
‘No,’ Hollander shook his head. ‘I should have considered that being here, all this, would be hard for you. I was being stupid.’
‘Hollander, don’t be boring,’ Ilya scoffed. He had no interested in Hollander’s media persona. ‘You were saying hello not sucking my dick in the arena, I over-reacted. Just let me say sorry without being so Canadian.’
‘Yeah but I already knew you were an asshole.’ The cheeky smile was back. ‘So that was Sasha, the coach’s son.’
Ilya did not grimace, but only out of respect of long friendship in between the fucking. ‘Yes, I’m sorry if he stole your date.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Hollander grinned wider than ever. ‘But Joe is just a friend. I never even told him for sure that I...’ the smile slipped as Hollander looked away, down at his own hands.
That he... what? That is was gay? Or bisexual like Ilya h? That he was... seeing someone? They weren’t that, they had never been, could never be that. How did Shane see himself, see them? Why did it matter so much to Ilya even though he knew it could be nothing? Why was his heart rabbiting in his chest when he knew the only responsible thing would be to stop hooking up with Hollander completely.
A clatter in the doorway broke the moment, to Hollander’s obvious relief. Svetlana re-entered noisily, balancing three mugs and a bottle of Baileys. ‘I got bored,’ she said, carrying her finds to a small table by the sofa. ‘No more sad boy hours, Ilyukha. I want to be friends with Shane Hollander.’
Shane
The night was weird. Shane wasn’t even entirely sure what the weirdest part was; getting into a fight with homophobic guys who wear leotards for a living was pretty novel, hearing Ilya Rozanov actually apologise without the world ending deserved to be noted, and Shane had actually agreed to let someone who might have been a Russian supermodel put Irish cream in his coffee during a tournament.
Svetlana was a lot like Rozanov, but a bit more open, a few rough edges filed off, and with more fluent English. There was even a Boston twang to some of her phrases. She was so genuinely excited to talk hockey with Shane that it took him a few minutes to be sure she wasn’t making fun of him. She pulled Rozanov into the conversations and to Shane shock he joined in with clever little observations that almost made Shane want to take notes. He hardly ever talked hockey with Rozanov beyond chirping each other before or after games, or dealing with league nonsense. Then it wasn’t like they talked much at all. She was brash like Rozanov and sharp-tongued too. She tore into player’s she saw as overrated with a viciousness that Yuna Hollander might have found to be a bit much. His mom would probably love her actually, if she wasn’t a Boston fan. The obvious weight of history she held with Rozanov was off putting though.
It had been strange enough before Sasha and Joe left when they were all trying to have some insane trilingual conversation. Shane didn’t know exactly what had been said in the moment where the trio of old “friends” had switched to Russian, but it hadn’t all sounded pleasant. Shane had been so torn when Rozanov had wanted to know how the fight started and so he’d tried to reassure Sasha that Rozanov was safe rather than just outing him and Joe. Apparently Shane’s knowledge that Rozanov was safe was enough of a clue for him to figure out they’d at least hooked up judging by the way he had rounded on him in angry Russian. They weren’t boyfriends, Sasha had clearly been there to meet someone and had been happy enough leaving with Joe. But Sasha had this current of jealousy or bitterness in his voice that Rozanov hadn’t really had. Maybe Rozanov had been the one to end things between them when he left Russia, just like Shane had thought he was going to end them between him and Shane ever since he had returned.
It was a stupid thing to be upset by, Shane had told himself to end things with Rozanov a dozen times since even before the first time. It was madness. It was dangerous and it could cost them everything. He never followed through though, did he?
‘...following Sasha into any more clubs.’ Svetlana had been telling some story about Rozanov, trying to embarrass him. It seemed futile, the man had no shame. Sometimes that made Shane more envious than any of Rozanov’s other accomplishments. He would love to have that confidence.
‘Or getting any more tattoos,’ Rozanov retorted.
‘Was that Sasha’s idea? Your stupid bear?’ Shane poked Rozanov in the chest wear his sweater covered the snarling bear tattoo.
Rozanov gasped in theatrical offence and slapped his hand over the spot. ‘Shush, he will hear you. And no, was not Sasha’s idea,’ then he levelled a hard look on a giggling Svetlana. ‘I lost bet to Sveta, few months before draft.’
‘I still can’t believe you really did it,’ Svetlana refilled hers and Rozanov’s mugs with mostly Baileys cream with hardly any coffee left, but Shane waved her off. He had to play and one had been adventurous enough. He’d only accepted because... well because he hadn’t wanted Svetlana to look cooler than him. Which was ridiculous since she objectively was cooler than him and Rozanov still wanted to fuck him anyway so...
‘I should have won hand-standing competition!’ Rozanov argued past Shane’s minor jealous internal crisis. ‘I have more arm strength!’
‘And I told you that handstands are a core strength exercise not upper body!’ She flicked his nose. ‘You would be a more agile skater if you were more flexible. I bet Hollander does not skip core training.’ Svetlana pointed accusingly at Shane despite the praise in her words.
Shane felt himself blush and hated himself for it. ‘Uh... I did try to talk Rozanov into trying yoga once, but there’s only so many times I’m willing to listen to him say downward dog and wink.’
It was quite a bold joke for Shane to make in the circumstances. He couldn’t help the buzz of panic that ran through him but Rozanov’s booming laugh made him feel like it might have been worth it.
Svetlana glanced at the clock and stretched her arms languidly over her head. ‘It is late enough that I can make it to my hotel room without interrogation from Papa or the Colonel.’
‘The Colonel?’ Shane got worried again. Was there a military or police escort that she needed to be concerned about?
‘My father,’ Rozanov explained. He had never spoken of his family with any warmth, on the rare occasions that Shane had pushed, but that time it was icier than the weather outside.
Contrary to popular opinion, Shane was not entirely incapable of reading people’s signals, it just wasn’t his area of expertise. Rozanov’s relationship with his dad and his family in general was strained. Every year going back to Russia seemed to fill Rozanov with dread. Shane could not complain, he had been fucked well with all the pent up frustration the other man would not speak about two June award ceremonies in a row. If Shane hadn’t been so nervous, he probably would have experienced that particular energy with Rozanov after his first awards night too. Hindsight was of limited use that way.
The two Russian old friends got ready to leave. Shane found a spare jacket for Svetlana to wear on the walk back to her hotel and Rozanov sacrificed his Team Russia toque and squashed it down over her curls despite vocal protests. It had only gotten colder out there since they had fled the party without her coat.
Tactfully, Svetlana stepped outside to wait for Rozanov, giving them another moment alone.
‘Good luck tomorrow, Shane Hollander,’ Rozanov said it quiet and a little sad.
It was the sadness, maybe, that stole Shane’s self-control away long enough that he leaned forward and kissed Rozanov sweetly on the lips. ‘Good night, Rozanov.’
Those same lips twitched into an almost smile that Rozanov, wide-eyed and shocked, had to force away again. ‘Good night.’
Ilya
An over-crowded, sweaty airport had never been a more welcome sight. Enclosed spaces in the winter got especially humid because most people were overdressed to be indoors or in a mob. None of that mattered at all because he was going back to Boston. He would only have one night to rest before needing to be back at practise, but Ilya didn’t care about that either, just so long as it got him out of there. It wasn’t like he had to deal with the scrum for long. Once he was through security there was a bar in the first class lounge where it didn’t seem like anyone even wanted to make eye-contact with each other, never mind crowd in, so Ilya knew where he would be camped out for the next hour.
‘Is this seat taken?’
Ilya’s eyebrows tilted with surprise before he turned around, not because he didn’t already know it was Hollander, but because before last week Hollander hadn’t tried to be sociable with him in public. Not since their rookie year, at least. Not sure what to make of this, Ilya tugged the barstool next to him out a bit with his foot and gestured to it grandly. He supposed the lounge was fairly private.
‘Glad to be headed home?’ Hollander asked after the barman took his order.
‘Last time you asked me that, I was going the other direction,’ Ilya deflected. It was an obvious deflection at that, as transparent as conversations with Hollander always left him.
‘I didn’t know you as well then,’ and he said it shyly, with some pink behind his freckles, which was cheating. It was wildly unfair when Hollander was cute. It was almost as devastating as when he was a little arrogant. Somehow, Hollander claiming to understand him better was both. It left Ilya defenceless.
‘You know me better now?’ He teased, smirking. ‘Yes, I am glad. My team in Boston is less annoying than the one here. Are you glad, Hollander?’
‘It’d be nice to have a day to see my parents before going straight back to training, but I guess we can’t expect everyone in the league to wait for us to take a nap.’ When he smiled, his nose wrinkled and Ilya wanted to jump in front of a train.
‘Hmm, maybe,’ he looked down at his beer. ‘I think I will be less tired after the Bears start winning than I am now.’
It was an invitation for Hollander to huff and puff about Ilya talking big or being cocky. The next line was practically written for Hollander after all these years. You won’t be winning in Montréal or you would say that, Rozanov or something. Instead, all he did with tilt his head thoughtfully, like a dog or a bird and say ‘I get that.’
What was Ilya supposed to say to that? No you fucking don’t! Because, okay, Hollander didn’t understand what it was like to live with Ilya’s overbearing father and untrustworthy brother and the pressure of a nation he loved and hated only to always fall short for all three. He did not understand that any better today than he had on that roof-top three years ago. But who else understood the scrutiny of being young and talented and a symbol better than Shane fucking Hollander? Was Ilya truly so arrogant that he would pretend not to know that? Shane Hollander who looked so lost in the world, except on the ice, never on the ice.
‘Can I ask you something, sort of...? You don’t have to answer,’ Hollander twisted a beer matt in his hands, shredding little pieces from it into an ash tray. When Ilya nodded, because what the fuck else was he supposed to do, he continued. ‘What were you and Sasha fighting about? Obviously the English and French I understood, but I haven’t learned much Russian.’
‘Much?’ Ilya scoffed. ‘So you learned some? Probably perfect, no accent, if you had lessons for a week.’
‘No way,’ Hollander laughed. ‘I was trying just to get some basic phrases before flying here, you know to be polite...’
‘Good Canadian boy,’ Ilya snickered, even as Hollander kicked him in the shin.
‘And to read emergency signs or menus or whatever,’ he pressed on, glaring without heat. ‘But it’s so different from learning another Latin language. People who think French and English have nothing in common have never tried learning a whole new alphabet.’
Something about that caught Ilya but he wasn’t sure how to ask without coming off like an asshole. Well, more of an asshole than usual. ‘So you don’t... speak Japanese?’ As soon as the words were out he regretted them. Ilya was only 80% sure Hollander’s mother actually was Japanese. He had read it somewhere, years ago, but maybe he was wrong. Fuck it would be just his luck if he turned out to be Korean.
Hollander rolled his eyes. ‘No. Mom didn’t really think it was a priority when I was little, I was late to talk already so she was worried about a third language.’
‘Shy even then,’ Ilya teased again and fuck he needed to stop flirting with Hollander. He needed to stop talking with Hollander and enjoying his company outside of sex.
‘Maybe,’ Hollander seemed embarrassed to have admitted even this tiny flaw to Ilya. Pink cheeked and eyes fixed on his sparkling water bottle. ‘But no, I speak a little Japanese that I’ve picked up from Mom or my uncle or cousin over the years, but there are three alphabets Rozanov, which is two too many. My handwriting is bad enough with Latin characters, no one wants to see what it does to kanji.’
That made Ilya laugh. ‘Is opposite for me. I write Latin letters so slowly while I translate in my head that I write as neat as school child. In Cyrillic, Sveta says my notes look like I have suffered terrible accident to my hands.’
Then Shane was laughing too and fuck, fuck, fuck. Ilya did not want him to be Shane, didn’t want to know about his childhood or his family or what things he was less than perfect at, except for the thousands ways that he did want that, wanted it desperately and had for longer than he was willing to admit. He needed distance or to push Hollander away, maybe just literally push him off his stool like they were kids in a playground and Ilya was tugging on his hair for attention. God, he was pathetic.
His phone ringing saved Ilya from any drastic actions one way or the other. It was strange that Svetlana was calling when he had said goodbye to her the day before and she knew when he flight was. With a frown he answered. ‘What’s wrong, Svetik?’
‘Sasha,’ she answered, voice tense, and somehow Ilya had known that would be the answer. ‘He was pissed off about the other night, he took Hollander’s friend to some underground club away from the Olympic village and they got caught.’
‘Fuck!’ Ilya snarled, getting up from the bar and ignoring the shocked looks he drew. Hollander stood too, hovering with anxious eyes and knotted fingers, but not following him as Ilya paced to an empty space by the window. ‘Are they charging him?’
‘A fine only and his father got him out on bail this morning. He’ll be on a train back to Paris in a few days and Joe got dumped back at the village with a warning to go home in a hurry. I don’t think they beat him, not wanting to piss off the Canadians or make the international news, but Sasha’s a bit roughed up.’ Svetlana sounded exhausted. ‘He called me instead of his father, of course, so I had to explain that Sasha was just trying to be rebellious. I’m sure no one believed me. My father certainly didn’t, but yours thankfully wasn’t there. I’m driving him back to Moscow to get his things as soon as he and his father are done screaming at each other in my hotel room.’
‘Sveta... be careful. You are not untouchable,’ Ilya said it softly. ‘Sasha doesn’t think, but he would not want you hurt either.’
‘I’ll be fine, Ilyukha.’ She sounded soft too. They weren’t often soft, not even with each other. Maybe most of all not with each other since they could trust each other not to judge their rough edges. This seemed to be a moment for it though. ‘I didn’t want you to find out from some gossip site or worst, Lyosha.’ The way even her voice grimaced on his brother’s name made Ilya smile again. ‘I’ll see you in Boston before play-offs, I want your help looking at apartments. Give Hollander my number.’
Then, of course, she hung up over his spluttered objections. It was a transparent attempt to lighten the mood between them, to put them back where they usually were these days when his family or Sasha or Russia didn’t add distance. Because Ilya wanted out, desperately, for all that he couldn’t let go of the place and the people that hurt him. He was unwanted in Moscow and foreign in Boston. Svetlana had less to fear from her home or her family, she came and went between Boston and Moscow as easily as a frog moved between the bank and the pond. The thought of Sasha, arrogant, reckless, spiteful, brave Sasha, dragged away like other boys they’d known. Turning up days later beaten bloody and shaken, ashen, refusing to talk or just not turning back up at all. Ilya’s eyes prickled. He was not going to cry over that idiot. Not for all the cocaine in Moscow would he fucking cry over him where anyone could see. Where Shane could see.
However, because God hated Ilya and always had, that was the moment that Shane Hollander decided to come check on him. ‘Are you...?’
‘Not here.’ Ilya gritted through clenched teeth, forcing himself not to snap it like he had before. ‘I... I go over to corridor by bathrooms.’ Then he very pointedly did not run away. He walked. A casual walk even. He focused intently on every single step to be sure it was casual.
In the empty corridor off the bar, Ilya leaned his head back against the wall and forced slow, even breaths until Hollander joined him.
‘You know...’ Hollander started. ‘This is probably more suspicious than just talking at the bar.’
Ilya strangled a laugh and then dropped into a crouch. ‘Yes, but I do not have poker face right now. Sasha and your friend were arrested last night in gay club. Joe is alright, probably on way to airport already. Sasha is hurt but not so badly. Svetlana is getting him to Moscow and then he will go back to France where he causes less trouble, I guess.’ Then the laugh crawled back up his throat anyway. ‘This answers your question now. This is why I fight with Sasha. Because he does things like this and does not think.’
‘Oh my god,’ Hollander pulled out his phone and clearly wrote a rapid text, probably to his friend. Maybe Ilya should have reached out to Sasha, but he wasn’t sure he had anything to say that the other man wanted to hear. ‘But they’re okay?’
‘Okay,’ he echoed. ‘Yes. Your friend is probably scared, but they would not be too rough with a westerner.’
Hollander nodded a bit frantically at that, stared at his phone then shook himself and put it away. Then his frightened eyes fixed on Ilya instead and that was much worse. ‘Are you okay?’
‘They did not catch me.’ Ilya retorted even though that was a stupid thing to say and he knew full well that wasn’t what Hollander was asking. ‘It is like you say, Hollander. I am glad to be going home.’
‘Yeah.’ Shane reached out and helped Ilya to his feet, with only a quick glance around for prying eyes. ‘And now I really am too. Let’s get another drink, okay?’