Chapter Text
The gray light of an early November morning in Ottowa didn’t so much wake Ilya as it simply made the darkness in his skull feel heavier.
He lays completely paralyzed on his back, his eyes locked onto a tiny, hairline fracture in the plaster of the ceiling. It ran from the corner of the light fixture down toward the window mold, a jagged little fault line that he had stared at for hours. His chest felt like it was being compressed by a hydraulic press, every single breath requiring a conscious, agonizing effort of the will. He had been awake since three in the morning. Or maybe four. Time didn’t behave normally when the fog settled into his brain like this: it stretched and warped until a single minute felt like an eternity of drowning in cold grease.
Beside him, the mattress shifted. Shane rolled over, his face flushed with sleep, one heavy, warm arm immediately draping itself over Ilya’s ribcage. The casual, unthinking weight of it usually grounded Ilya, but today it felt like an anchor dragging him down into the muck.
Ilya didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He kept his breathing shallow, rhythmic, and fake, terrified that the slightest tremor would alert Shane to the rotting thing occupying his side of the bed.
For six days, the world had been muted. The centaurs had lost three games in a row, two of them on Ilya’s watch, two games where his legs felt like lead and his passing was half a second too slow. The sports analysts were already talking about a slump, wondering if the captain was finally starting to show the wear and tear of a brutal, unforgiving career.
They talked about his knees. They talked about his old shoulder separation. They speculated about locker room chemistry and coaching strategies.
But it wasn’t his knees, and it wasn’t his shoulder.
It was just the darkness. It came every few years, a sudden, violent dropping of the barometric pressure in his mind, leaving him hollowed out, raw, and entirely skinless. It was a physical weight, a thick, black oil that poured into his ears and his throat until he couldn't swallow, couldn't think, couldn't find a single reason to lift his head from the pillow. He hated it. He hated it with a fierce, burning passion that was currently buried beneath layers of gray apathy. He hated the weakness of it.
Shane’s fingers twitched against Ilya’s side, slowly waking up. The movement was lazy, a familiar morning routine of a man who woke up safe, who woke up knowing exactly who he was and where he belonged. Shane’s hand slid up Ilya’s ribs, his palm rough and calloused from years of gripping a composite hockey stick, his thumb brushing against the smooth fabric of Ilya’s t-shirt.
"Mmm. Ilya?" Shane’s voice was a low, gravelly morning rasp, thick with the easy comfort of a man who had never woken up wondering if his own skin belonged to him.
"I am awake, Hollander," Ilya said. His voice sounded thin to his own ears, detached and brittle, like a bad recording played from another room. He forced his throat to relax, trying to inject the familiar, sharp cadence of his usual tone, but the words fell flat, heavy and dead.
Shane pulled himself up on one elbow, the mattress groaning softly. Eyes narrowed instantly as they scanned Ilya’s profile. The ease drained out of Shane’s posture in a fraction of a second, replaced by that careful, hyper-vigilant softness that Ilya hated more than anything else in the world.
It was the look Shane gave him when he thought Ilya was fragile. Ilya Rozanov was not fragile. He was an apex predator. He was the captain of an NHL team. He was a wall of concrete, muscle, and spite that had taken the league by storm and refused to break for anyone. He was the man who had dragged himself out of the dirt of a Moscow suburb through sheer, unadulterated violence and talent. He was not a broken child hiding in a dark room. He was not something to be pitied.
"How are you feeling?" Shane asked softly. He reached out a hand, his fingers cautious as they brushed against Ilya’s cheek, his thumb tracing the dark, heavy purple shadows that sat like bruises under Ilya’s eyes.
Ilya pulled away, just an inch, pretending to turn his head to look at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. The red numbers glared back at him in the gloom. 8:14 AM. "I am fine. We need to move. Your mother expects us later today and we need to get ready.”
Shane’s hand stayed hovering in the air for a second, cold air rushing into the space where his palm had been, before it dropped back to the mattress. He let out a slow, heavy breath through his nose. "Ilya. Look at me."
"No. If I look at you, you will make the sad dog face, and then I will want to punch you in your stupid teeth," Ilya muttered, pulling the duvet tighter around his chin, wrapping himself in the heavy fabric like a shroud. It was a classic deflection, the exact kind of biting, arrogant remark that usually had Shane rolling his eyes, laughing, and throwing a pillow at his head.
But Shane didn't laugh today. He didn't even smile. He just shifted closer, his large, solid body pressing against Ilya’s frozen side, trying to force his warmth through the layers of blankets and defense.
"You didn't sleep at all. I heard you tossing around at dawn. I felt you shaking, Ilya. And you haven't eaten a real meal since Thursday. You’re running on espresso and pure stubbornness."
"It is enough to get through a dinner," Ilya said, his jaw tightening until his teeth ached, the bone in his face sharp and rigid. "Your parents made a whole feast. I am not missing it because my brain is being a piece of shit. I am not a diva."
Shane let out a long, slow sigh, the sound of it heavy with an exhaustion of his own. He reached down, his fingers searching beneath the heavy covers until they found Ilya’s hand. Ilya’s hand was ice-cold, his fingers curled into a tight, defensive fist, the nails digging into his own palm. Shane didn't try to force the fist open; he didn't pry at the fingers. He just wrapped his warm, wide palm around the outside of it, squeezing gently, holding the fist against his own chest.
"We don't have to go," Shane said. The words were quiet, spoken with a deliberate, steady lack of judgment that made Ilya’s stomach turn over with a sick, oily wave of pure panic.
"I can call my mom right now and I can tell her and my dad that we need to reschedule. Or I can go alone for an hour to see them and come right back to you. It’s okay."
She will understand, Ilya’s mind repeated, the words twisting, mutating, turning into something venomous as they bounced around the empty chambers of his skull.
No. She would not understand. She would look at Shane with those sympathetic, knowing mother’s eyes and she would think, 'Ah, the Russian is broken again.
The Russian is too difficult, too unstable.
Why can Shane not find a nice, normal boy from his hometown. Someone who doesn't ruin family holidays by hiding in a dark room like a ghost. If he didn't go, he was weak. If he stayed in this bed, he was lazy.
The word lazy tasted like copper in his mouth. It wasn't just a casual insult: it was a physical threat. In the sports schools in Moscow, if you were sick, you were a liability to the collective. If you complained about the pain, if you showed that the cold or the exhaustion was getting to you, you were a parasite draining the energy of the team.
You did not get to have a "bad week." You did not get to lie in a soft, expensive bed while other people worked around you.
The memories threatened to break through, the phantom scent of stale ice, industrial floor cleaner, and the heavy, sour sweat of thirty boys crammed into a locker room where the heat never worked.
He remembered lying on a wooden bench at fourteen, his fever so high the world was spinning in neon streaks, while the head coach stood over him, tapping a heavy wooden stick against the toe of Ilya’s skate.
'Get up, Rozanov. Only the lazy find excuses in a fever. Do you want to go back to the dirt? Do you want to be nothing?'
To refuse an invitation from David and Yuna Hollander, people who held real, undeniable status, with David working at the highest levels of the Treasury Board of Canada and Yuna fiercely managing Shane's multi-million dollar career was an act of supreme, unforgivable disrespect.
They were hockey royalty. They had opened their beautiful, clean house to him despite the decades of bitter, bloody rivalry between their sons.
If he failed to show up, they would see right through him. They would see the feral, ungrateful street kid he had spent his entire adult life trying to hide behind custom-tailored Italian suits, luxury sports cars, and championship rings. They would look at each other after he and Shane left, sharing a quiet, devastating Canadian glance across their pristine kitchen island, and they would realize their golden-boy son was tethered to a broken machine.
They would get angry. They would realize he was just a drain on Shane’s energy, a dark weight dragging down the great Shane Hollander. He could not let them see the dirt on him.
"No," Ilya said, his voice dropping into a hard, non-negotiable register that he used when he was shutting down a referee on the ice. He finally turned his head to look Shane in the eye, his gaze deliberate, fierce, and entirely dead.
"We are going. I am not a child, Shane. I do not stay home from dinner because I am having the feelings. I am a professional."
"It’s not just 'the feelings,' Ilya, you're having a severe depressive episode," Shane said, his voice rising just a fraction in frustration, though he kept his grip tight on Ilya’s frozen fist. "Look at your skin. You’re gray. You look like you’re about to pass out right now. My parents would want you to rest. If roles were reversed, you wouldn't make me go to a big family gathering if I was feeling like this. You’d tell me to stay in bed and you’d bring me soup."
"You are different," Ilya snapped, pulling his hand out of Shane’s grasp with a sudden, violent jerk. He threw the heavy duvet off his body, the movement sharp and frantic. The cold air of the bedroom hit his bare skin like a physical slap, the temperature dropping instantly against his bare chest, but he welcomed the sharp pain of it. It was better than the numbness. It was better than the suffocating warmth of Shane’s pity.
"You belong there. It is your house. Your family. If you stay home, it is a choice because you are lazy or tired. If I stay home, it is because the broken Russian cannot handle a simple dinner with four people. I will not be the pathetic one."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet hitting the cold hardwood floorboards. His knees actually wobbled, a sickening, loose tremor running through his thighs that made him curse under his breath in raw, venomous Russian. He stood up quickly, ignoring the sudden rush of blackness that threatened to swallow his vision entirely, his head spinning as his blood pressure cratered. He marched toward the bathroom, his steps heavy and forced, before Shane could reach out to stop him.
"Ilya, wait—"
Ilya shut the heavy bathroom door behind him, the click of the brass lock sounding like a gunshot in the quiet house. He leaned his entire weight against the white porcelain sink, his head hanging low between his shoulders, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps that burned his throat.
He looked up into the mirror, and the reflection staring back at him disgusted him to the very core of his being. His skin was pasty, almost translucent under the harsh, white halogen lights. The dark circles under his eyes didn't look like exhaustion: they looked like he had taken a pair of hard pucks to the orbital bones. He looked old. He looked defeated. The sharp, arrogant edge of his jawline was hidden beneath a rough, neglected stubble.
"Get it together," he whispered to the glass, his voice a harsh, gutter rasp that barely sounded human. "You are Ilya Rozanov. You played a third period in the playoffs with a broken rib and a punctured lung. You do not get broken by a dinner party."
He turned on the shower, twisting the chrome handle all the way to the right until the pipes rattled and the water came out scalding hot, steam quickly filling the small tiles and obscuring his reflection in a thick, white fog.
He stripped out of his boxers and stepped beneath the pounding spray, letting the near-boiling water punish his skin until his chest and shoulders turned a bright, angry, throbbing red. He needed the pain to wake him up. He needed it to burn away the cobwebs in his brain, to forge a mask thick enough to survive the next hours without cracking.
———————————————————————
The drive to Yuna and David’s house was an exercise in pure psychological warfare, a long, stretching highway of gray asphalt under a heavy sky.
Shane sat in the driver’s seat of the massive black SUV, his large hands gripped at ten and two on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, his jaw set in a rigid, prominent line that Ilya knew all too well.
Shane was angry now. He was angry because he was terrified, and because he didn't know how to fix a problem that couldn't be checked into the boards or solved with a hard wrist shot from the blue line. He kept his eyes locked on the highway ahead, the windshield wipers occasionally swishing away the fine, misty drizzle that had begun to fall.
To combat the suffocating, heavy silence in the car, Ilya had forced himself into a state of hyper-verbal mania. It was an old trick he had mastered early in his career during the endless, grueling media junkets when he was running on three hours of sleep, a hangover, and a bruised rib. If you talk fast enough, if you keep the insults sharp and the observations witty, nobody looks closely enough to see that the house is on fire behind your eyes. They just see the arrogant, entertaining Russian.
Whenever shane said anything during the carride Ilya shot back immediately, his words tumbling out one after the other without a pause for breath. He was gripping the armrest of the passenger door so tightly with his left hand that his knuckles had turned an unnatural, bloodless white, the leather creasing under the pressure of his fingers. His chest felt like it was filling with dry sand, every breath heavier and more shallow than the last. "And your mother. What is she cooking today? If it is that dry turkey again, I am going to order a pizza directly to the house. I am a professional athlete, Shane: I require real nutrition, not sawdust and dry meat."
"She’s making roast beef because she knows you like it," Shane said. His voice was entirely flat, completely devoid of the usual playful irritation or competitive banter that Ilya’s baiting normally provoked. Shane didn't take the bait. He didn't fire back with a comment about Ilya's own team or his recent shooting percentage. Instead, Shane took a brief turn to glance across the center console, his eyes dropping straight to Ilya’s white-knuckled, vibrating grip on the door handle. "Stop it, Ilya."
"Stop what? I am making conversation. You are being a boring driver, a boring boyfriend. If I want a silent car, I ride with the rookies who are too afraid to speak to the captain."
"Stop acting," Shane said, his tone dropping into that quiet, dangerous frequency he used on the ice when an opposing player was crossing a line with a teammate. He pulled the SUV into the right lane, slowing down as the green highway signs began to indicate the suburban outskirts of Ottawa.
"You’re vibrating, Ilya. You’re talking a mile a minute, your hand looks like it’s about to break the door handle off, and you haven't blinked in three miles. You don't have to put on a performance for me. It's just me."
"I am not performing!" Ilya barked, his voice cracking slightly on the last syllable, a flash of genuine, ugly anger breaking through the manic facade like a splinter through skin. He hated how well Shane knew him. He hated that he couldn't even hide inside his own skull anymore without Shane pulling back the curtain to look at the rot.
"I am fine. Why must you always insist that there is a problem with me? You think because you are the golden boy with the perfect family and the perfect childhood that everyone else is a tragic story? I am normal. I am having a normal day. Shut up and drive."
Shane didn't argue. Instead, he simply pulled the car over to the side of a quiet, tree-lined residential street, a few blocks away from where his parents' neighborhood began. He put the vehicle in park, turned off the ignition, and shifted completely in his seat so he was facing Ilya. The sudden silence in the car was deafening, the low click-click of the engine cooling down the only sound against the glass.
"Look at me," Shane commanded.
Ilya stubbornly stared straight ahead through the rain-streaked windshield, watching a dry, brown oak leaf drift slowly from a branch onto the wet asphalt. "We are going to be late. Your mother hates when people are late."
"I don't give a single shit about being late," Shane said. He reached across the space between the seats, his large, warm hand coming up to cup the back of Ilya’s neck. His fingers dug gently into the tight, knotted muscles at the base of Ilya’s skull, finding the tension there and holding it. He squeezed, a firm, grounding pressure that forced Ilya’s shoulders to drop a fraction of an inch against his will. "Ilya. Please. Look at me."
Slowly, with the agonizing weight of a man turning his head toward an executioner, Ilya turned his eyes to look at him.
Shane’s face wasn't angry. It was just twisted with an immense, aching sorrow that made Ilya want to scream, want to claw his way through the window to escape. Shane looked at him like Ilya was something precious and broken that was slipping through his fingers, and that was the one thing Ilya's pride could not endure.
"I love you," Shane whispered, his thumb moving slowly against the hairline at the side of Ilya’s neck, his voice thick. "You don't have to prove anything to my parents. You don't have to prove anything to me. You are enough, Ilya. Even when you’re like this. Especially when you’re like this, because I know how hard you're fighting just to stay upright in front of them. Let me carry some of it. Let’s just turn the car around. I'll make the call."
For one terrifying second, the wall cracked. Ilya felt a hot, violent surge of tears threaten to burst from behind his eyelids. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell Shane to drive them back to the apartment, to lock the triple deadbolts, to pull the blackout curtains, and to let him crawl into the dark where nobody could see the pathetic, useless thing he really was.
But the old ghosts were louder. The voice of his first coach in Moscow, a man who had used a heavy wooden hockey stick as an instrument of discipline and education, echoed in his ears: 'You are a parasite. You are weak. You have no value to this world if you cannot perform on the ice.' The cold, indifferent silence of his childhood followed right behind it, a constant reminder that love and safety were things earned through trophies, steel-toed obedience, and perfect performance never given freely to a boy who stumbled.
If he turned around now, he would be confirming every terrible thing he secretly believed about himself: that he was a broken, useless piece of baggage that Shane Hollander was saddled with out of some twisted sense of pity.
Ilya pulled himself out of Shane’s touch, his expression freezing over into a cold, impenetrable mask of Russian granite. He reached down, checked his silk tie in the black reflection of his phone screen, and smoothed down the front of his designer wool coat.
"Start the car, Hollander," Ilya said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion now, clipped and cold. "Your mother is waiting for us. We are not turning around."
Shane stared at him for a long, heavy moment, searching Ilya’s dead eyes for any sign of the man he loved. Finding nothing but the gray wall, Shane let out a breath that sounded like a defeat. He turned the key in the ignition, and the SUV rolled forward toward the Hollander family home.
————————————————————————
The Hollander house was an absolute assault on Ilya’s sensory system.
The moment the massive front door swung open, he was hit by a physical wall of heat, light, and overwhelming noise. The air smelled intensely of rosemary, roasting beef, garlic, and the heavy, sweet, buttery scent of baking bread. It was a house that practically oozed structural security, a place where generations of happy, untroubled children had grown up without ever wondering if there would be food on the table, or if a sudden noise in the hallway meant they needed to drop and cover their heads.
"Shane! Ilya!"
Yuna Hollander appeared in the wide hallway, wiping her hands on a crisp linen apron. Her face lit up with that bright, unconditional maternal joy that Ilya still found deeply, fundamentally disorienting. To Yuna, Ilya wasn't just the feared, vicious captain of a rival hockey team: he was the man who made her son happy. And as Shane's manager, she spent enough time coordinating their chaotic public lives to know exactly what the standard baselines looked like.
She threw her arms around Shane first, lifting herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and then she turned directly to Ilya.
Ilya stiffened automatically as her arms wrapped around his waist. Every survival instinct in his body screamed at him to pull back, to brace his ribs, to maintain the physical distance required to see an incoming blow. His childhood had taught him that proximity to an adult was a hazard calculation: you never allowed someone inside your defensive perimeter without keeping your hands ready to block. But he violently forced his muscles to stay relaxed, leaning down slightly to allow the embrace, his arms coming up to pat her back with a careful, measured politeness that made his chest ache.
"Look at you, you’re freezing," Yuna said, pulling back to look up at him, her hands resting warmly on his forearms. Her brow furrowed slightly as she took in his pale complexion, her sharp business instincts immediately picking up on the subtle, unnatural tint of gray in his skin.
"Are you getting enough sleep, Ilya? Shane, are you keeping him up with your terrible snoring?"
"I am sleeping perfectly, Yuna.” Ilya lied smoothly, his voice taking on the polished, charming accent he reserved for major corporate sponsors. He forced a wide, handsome smile to his lips, the muscles in his jaw straining against the effort until it felt like his skin might split.
"Shane is snoring like an old, dying dog, yes, but I am used to it. I have survived far worse roommates in the minor leagues."
"Oh, I know he is," Yuna laughed, though her eyes lingered on his face a second too long, a quiet, professional concern hovering just beneath her expression.
"Come in, come in. David is in the kitchen with the wine. Let’s get you both something warm to drink."
David Hollander met them at the entrance to the living room, a tall, exceptionally broad-shouldered man whose easy demeanor carried a quiet, undeniable presence. He shook Shane’s hand, pulling him into a brief, one-armed hug, and then extended his massive hand to Ilya.
"Good to see you, Ilya," David said, his grip firm, dry, and rock-steady. "Rough week on the ice, but you guys will bounce back.”
"Thank you, sir," Ilya said, keeping his shoulders squared and his chin parallel to the floorboards. He felt like he was a dangerous, feral animal that had been allowed into a museum showroom. "The power play is currently lacking some structural discipline, but we will fix it in practice tomorrow morning. It is a temporary issue."
"Spoken like a true captain," David smiled, gesturing toward the long, plush leather sofa. "Sit down, please. Relax. You look like you’re still out on the ice, Ilya. You’re allowed to take the skates off here."
That was the exact problem. Ilya didn't know how to take the skates off. If he took them off, he would fall over. If he dropped the armor, there would be nothing left but the black mud.
The next hour passed in a surreal, agonizing blur of hyper-vigilance. Ilya sat on the edge of the sofa, his posture rigidly straight, his ankles crossed perfectly. He didn't lean back against the deep, comfortable cushions; he kept his spine perfectly aligned, his hands resting flat on his knees like a soldier awaiting a disciplinary inspection. He watched David’s hands.
Every time David moved to check his tablet or reached for his wine glass, Ilya’s eyes tracked the movement with a microscopic intensity. His brain was running a constant, exhausting background program, calculating the distance between David’s seat and his own, evaluating potential exit routes, and translating every shift in tone for a sign of hidden anger.
Shane sat right next to him, close enough that their thighs brushed against each other. Every few minutes, Shane would shift, his hand casually dropping onto the leather between them, his pinky hooking into Ilya's in a desperate, silent attempt to ground him. But Ilya couldn't receive it. Every touch felt like an accusation of his own failure, a heavy reminder that he was currently a liability requiring constant maintenance.
The conversation drifted around him like a radio station losing its signal through a storm. David spoke about the heavy workload currently hitting the Treasury Board, federal budgets, and infrastructure finances, while Shane talked about the league standings and upcoming road trips.
Ilya forced himself to perform. He monitored his output with a cold, clinical precision. When David made a joke about a political bureaucrat, Ilya waited exactly half a second and then let out a low, polite chuckle. When Yuna asked a question, he formulated his response in perfect, grammatically correct English, ensuring his voice didn't carry that flat, dead drone that always crept in when the depression was at its absolute worst.
Smile here. Nod there. Keep your hands perfectly still. Do not fidget. Do not let them see that you cannot feel your fingers.
The sheer volume of energy required to stay upright was staggering. The heat from the roaring stone fireplace was starting to feel oppressive, suffocating him, the air thick with the smell of the roasting beef that now made his empty stomach twist with a sickening, oily wave of pure nausea. He hadn't eaten anything but a piece of dry toast in thirty-six hours, and his blood sugar was cratering, leaving his vision slightly fuzzy and dark around the edges. He was terrified that if he stumbled, if he showed even a moment of exhaustion, David and Yuna would think he was lazy. They would look at him and see a shiftless, ungrateful Russian who couldn't even bother to engage with his partner’s family after a few bad hockey games.
"Dinner’s ready!" Yuna’s voice called out from the dining room, a cheerful pronouncement that sounded to Ilya like the bell for the final round of a fight he was already losing on points.
Shane stood up, extending a hand to help Ilya up from the sofa. Ilya completely ignored the hand, pushing himself up with his own strength, though for a terrifying half-second, his knees turned soft like water under him, and he had to catch his balance by heavily gripping the back of the couch.
Shane caught the movement instantly. He moved his large body in front of Ilya, effectively blocking him from his parents' view as they walked toward the dining table.
"Ilya," Shane whispered, his voice frantic, his hand catching Ilya’s elbow beneath the sleeve of his coat. "Your forehead is covered in sweat. You're white as a sheet, baby. Please, let's just go home. I'll tell them you threw up."
Ilya reached out, his fingers digging into Shane’s wrist with a terrifying, desperate, iron strength that nearly bruised the skin. He leaned in close, his eyes blazing with a wild, cornered intensity that looked almost manic. "If you say one word to them, Hollander, I swear to God I will leave this house and I will walk down the highway. I am doing this. Do you understand me? I am fine."
Shane looked at him, his own dark eyes shining with a mixture of anger and profound, aching helplessness. He swallowed hard, his jaw working as he looked at the sheer, unyielding, suicidal wall of Ilya’s pride. "Fine," Shane whispered, his voice cracking with defeat. "Fine."
The dining room table was a beautiful, intimidating expanse of dark mahogany wood, set with heavy silver cutlery, crisp white linen napkins, and fine crystal glasses that caught the brilliant light from the chandelier above.
David sat at the head of the table, with Yuna at the opposite end. Shane and Ilya sat side by side on the long side. In front of each setting was a tall, delicate crystal water glass, already filled to the brim with ice water, the condensation rolling slowly down the sides in long, clear tears that pooled on the wood.
"Ilya, dear, please pass your plate, let David get you some of the roast," Yuna said, her face glowing with hospitality. "You need some good, hearty food in you after a drive."
"Thank you, Yuna." Ilya said, his voice completely steady as he reached for his plate. He handed it down the table, watching with a detached horror as David carved thick, beautiful slices of beef, placing them alongside roasted potatoes and rich, dark gravy.
The plate was handed back to him, and as it hit the table in front of him, the smell struck his nose. It was good food, beautifully prepared, but to Ilya’s hyper-stimulated, exhausted nervous system, it smelled like absolute rot. His stomach violently revolted, a sudden surge of acid and bile rising in his throat.
He needed water. He needed to wash away the copper taste of panic before he vomited right on the Hollanders' pristine white tablecloth. He had to clear his throat. He had to maintain the mask.
Ilya reached out his right hand toward the tall, delicate crystal water glass.
His hand was shaking. He hadn't noticed the tremor until his fingers were inches away from the glass, but now his hand was vibrating like a tuning fork. He tried to force his fingers to steady, to clamp down on the glass with the same iron grip he used to hold a hockey stick. He commanded his muscles to tighten, to be strong, to behave normally for just three seconds.
His fingers closed around the cold, wet crystal.
The glass was heavy, and the condensation made it incredibly slick. As Ilya lifted it an inch off the table, a sudden, violent spasm tore through the muscles of his forearm, a pure, unadulterated neurological short-circuit of a body that had been pushed far past its breaking point.
The glass slipped.
It didn't just fall, it seemed to escape his fingers entirely. It dropped back toward the table, struck the hard edge of his dinner plate with a sharp, heavy clack, and then tipped over, plunging off the edge of the table and striking the hardwood floor below.
The sound of the shattering crystal was a physical explosion in the quiet room.
SMASH.
The world didn't just tilt, it completely shattered.
In an instant, the warm, cedar-scented dining room in Ottawa vanished. The air became freezing cold, smelling of sour cabbage, stale cigarettes, and cheap vodka. The bright, glittering chandelier above became a single, bare, flickering bulb swinging from a cracked concrete ceiling in a dismal apartment on the industrial outskirts of Moscow.
Ilya’s breath was cut off instantly, his throat locking up. His heart didn't just beat; it slammed against his ribs like a trapped animal trying to break its way out of a wooden crate.
You broke the glass. You broke it. You stupid, clumsy, useless animal.
The memory came screaming out of the dark, violent, instantaneous, and completely concrete. He was nine years old. His hands were raw, bleeding, and split from the freezing air of the outdoor rink where he had been skating for five hours straight. His small body was aching from the head coach’s and father’s heavy-handed discipline earlier that afternoon. He had been trying to wash his own bowl in the cramped kitchen. His fingers had been too cold to feel the porcelain. It had slipped. It had shattered across the floor.
And then the footsteps had come. The heavy, dragging, irregular footsteps of his father coming down the narrow hallway, smelling of cheap alcohol and old tobacco. The terrifying realization that there was no corner of the room small enough to hide in. The sudden, violent grip of a hand in his hair, ripping his head back until his scalp bled, before his face was slammed directly down toward the floorboards, right into the middle of the mess he had made. 'Look at what you did, you lazy piece of shit,' his father’s voice roared in his memory, a wet, hot breath against his ear. 'You cannot even hold a dish. You are nothing. You are a drain on this house. Clean it up with your hands. Clean it up before I break your fingers.'
He remembered the feeling of the sharp ceramic cutting into his small palms, the warm blood mixing with the dirty dishwater, while his father stood over him, kicking his ribs every time Ilya slowed down. Punishment always came when you were weak. It always came when you made a mess.
"I am sorry," Ilya gasped, but the words didn't come out in English. The language had been completely wiped from his brain by a surge of pure, primitive survival adrenaline.
They came out in Russian, a frantic, high-pitched, desperate whimpering that didn't sound like his voice at all. "Мне жаль. Я не хотел. Я сейчас уберу. Я сейчас всё уберу." (I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I will clean it now. I will clean everything now.)
He didn't think. He didn't look at Shane. He didn't see David or Yuna’s shocked, horrified faces. He was entirely consumed by a primitive, survival-driven terror that stripped away years of life, success, and adult autonomy, leaving nothing but a terrified, abused little boy on the kitchen floor in Moscow.
Ilya dropped out of his chair before anyone could even stretch out a hand toward him. His knees hit the hardwood floor with a dull, heavy thud, landing right in the middle of the spreading puddle of ice water and jagged crystal shards. He didn't feel the impact.
He didn't feel the freezing water soaking through the fabric of his trousers. His mind was entirely occupied by a single, desperate, panicked command:
Get rid of the evidence before the footsteps start.
Clean it before he hits you.
He began grabbing the shattered pieces of crystal with his bare hands.
"Ilya, stop! Don't touch it!" Shane’s voice sounded like it was coming from miles away, completely muffled as if he were yelling through a thick pane of glass from the bottom of a frozen lake.
Ilya didn't listen. He couldn't listen. He scooped a large, jagged shard into his palm, his fingers clamping down on the razor-sharp edge with a frantic, manic speed. He felt a dull, distant pressure, followed by a sudden warmth as bright red blood began to ooze from the pad of his thumb, dripping down to mix with the water on the floor. He didn't care. The pain was nothing; the pain was a distraction from the real danger. If the floor wasn't clean when his father reached the room, the consequences would be infinitely worse than a few cuts on his hands.
"Я всё исправлю," Ilya sobbed, his chest heaving as he tried to pull air into lungs that felt like they had been filled with liquid concrete. His vision was tunneling into a dark, vibrating black hole.
He was frantically scraping his bloody palms against the wood, trying to gather the tiny, glittering splinters of glass, his breath coming in short, terrifying, ragged shrieks of pure panic. "Пожалуйста. Не надо. Я всё уберу." (I will fix everything. Please. Don't. I will clean it all.)
Across the table, David Hollander stood up, his frame shifting quickly as he tried to comprehend what was happening. Seeing the young man on the floor, David instinctively took a long, heavy step forward to help him, his body moving around the corner of the table.
"Ilya, son, hold on—" David said, his deep voice carrying a natural, booming authority as he reached down toward Ilya’s shoulder.
Ilya looked up out of the corner of his eye and saw a massive, broad-shouldered older man closing the distance, a large hand raised in the air above him.
A violent, electric shock of pure terror tore through Ilya’s spine. He flinched away so violently his entire body left the floor for a split second, his shoulder slamming hard against the leg of the dining room chair behind him. He threw his arms up in front of his face, tucking his chin deep into his chest, his elbows locked together to protect his temples and his throat.
He went into a tight, defensive, fetal crouch right there in the puddle of water, his chest heaving, a low, broken whimpering sound tearing from his throat.
In his head, his mind was screaming, a chaotic, blinding white-out of absolute panic. Don't hit me. Don't hit me. Please, not the face, I have a game tomorrow, the coach will see, everyone will see the marks. I am sorry I am lazy. I am sorry I broke it. I am sorry I am a piece of shit. Please don't kick my ribs again, I can't breathe, I can't get up if you break my leg. I will clean it, I am cleaning it, look at my hands, I am picking up the pieces, please just don't touch me.
He was completely trapped inside the prison of his own history, the success of the NHL captain entirely erased, leaving nothing but the raw, unadulterated reality of a child who believed he was about to be beaten into the floorboards for making a mistake.
"Ilya, look at me! Drop the glass!"
Suddenly, a pair of large, heavy hands clamped firmly around his wrists.
Ilya shrieked, a high, uncharacteristic sound of pure agony, and tried to wrench himself backward with the strength of a cornered animal. He kicked his legs out, his shoes skidding in the puddle of water, but the hands on his wrists stayed secure.
They didn't strike him. They didn't twist his skin. They were warm, broad, and calloused, holding his hands open, forcing his fingers to uncurl so he couldn't cut himself any deeper on the shards he was clutching.
"Ilya, it’s me. It’s Shane. You’re in Ottawa. You’re safe," Shane was kneeling right in the middle of the mess, his knees soaking in the water, his face inches from Ilya’s. Shane’s dark eyes were wide, completely bloodshot, fixed on Ilya’s face with a terror that perfectly mirrored his own.
Shane’s jaw was trembling violently. "Drop it, please. Just let go of the glass, Ilya. Look at my face. It’s just Shane."
Slowly, the thick fog in Ilya’s eyes cleared just enough for him to see the dark hair, the familiar slope of Shane’s nose, the beautiful freckles on his face. This wasn't Moscow. The heavy, terrifying shadow of his father wasn't standing over him.
Ilya’s fingers twitched, and the large piece of crystal he had been clutching dropped from his hand, clattering against the floorboards. His palms were a complete mess, crisscrossed with deep, bleeding slices that were staining the white linen cuffs of his dress shirt a brilliant, ugly crimson.
"Shane," Ilya whispered, his voice cracking into a thin, breathless whimper. The Russian was slipping away now, leaving him entirely hollow, without any words left at all. His whole body began to shake, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that started in his knees and tore through his spine until his teeth were chattering together with a faint, clicking sound. "Shane, I—I cannot—"
"I know. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Ilya," Shane said, his voice thick with unshed tears. He didn't care about the glass on the floor; he didn't care about the blood staining his own clothes. He shifted his weight, pulling Ilya’s rigid, trembling body forward against his chest, wrapping his massive arms around Ilya’s shoulders and burying his face in Ilya’s neck. "You're okay. Breathe, Ilya. Just breathe with me."
Across the table, David and Yuna Hollander stood completely frozen, paralyzed by the sheer, sudden, unadulterated violence of the psychological breakdown.
David looked completely out of his depth. His hands were hovering in the air, his face entirely pale as he looked from the bright red blood on the floor to the absolute ruin of the young man clinging to his son. He had seen Ilya Rozanov on the ice for years, ruthless, arrogant, seemingly made of iron and spite.
He had never seen this. He had never realized that beneath the multi-million dollar contracts and the diamond championship rings lay a child who was still running for his life.
Yuna was the first to move. As Shane’s manager, she was used to dealing with sudden, high-stakes crises, but as a mother, the sight of Ilya on his knees, weeping in a language she didn't understand, broke something fundamental in her. She dropped her linen napkin onto the table, her eyes filling with a fierce, protective sorrow.
"Shane," Yuna said, her voice remarkably quiet, steady, and entirely devoid of any judgment or anger.
"Take him upstairs to the guest room. Now. Don't worry about the floor. Just get him out of the room."
"I can't get him up, Mom, he's shaking too hard," Shane choked out, his hands moving frantically over Ilya’s back, trying to find some way to anchor him.
"Ilya, can you stand? Let’s get out of here. Let’s go upstairs."
Ilya couldn't answer. His nervous system had completely collapsed under the weight of the panic attack. His legs were entirely useless, heavy as lead logs, and the blackness was closing in on his vision again, the dining room spinning like a carousel out of control.
Without another word, Shane hooked one heavy arm under Ilya’s knees and the other around his back, hoisting him off the floor in one fluid, powerful movement.
Ilya didn't protest. He didn't have the strength to maintain the mask anymore. He simply buried his face deep into the crook of Shane’s neck, his bloody hands curling into the fabric of Shane’s blue sweater, his hot tears soaking into the wool as Shane carried him out of the dining room and up the stairs, away from the light.