Archive of Our Own

Ilya is very familiar with waiting rooms. He has spent many hours sat in hard plastic hospital chairs, waiting to hear whether a wrist is broken or just sprained, whether an injury is manageable or out-for-the-season bad. This one is very nice. Surprisingly so. The walls are a softer shade of beige than the usual hospital affair, and the chairs are soft, and squishy, and green. There is a white noise machine that sounds nice, he supposes. There is a little rug in the corner, next to a shelf stuffed with clear plastic totes, and the clear plastic totes are stuffed full of children’s toys. The table next to him is covered in pamphlets that say things like Managing Anxiety and Resources for Depression.

Ilya slouches in his chair. He pulls his hood low, and pushes his sunglasses up on his face. There are only two other people in the room—a sad-looking woman who cannot bear to even look his direction, and a man in ugly flannel and practical boots sat next to her—but their presence has him braced for… something. He isn’t sure what. A camera, a phone, a fist. The man won’t stop looking at him. It makes Ilya afraid.

“Mr. Rozanov?”

Ilya starts, and whips his gaze over to a new person—a woman standing in the hallway that leads deeper into the building. She is very short. Her glasses look like Shane’s.

He stands, shaky. “You can follow me,” she says, and leads him to a room with a little desk, and another squishy armchair facing a big gray couch. The pillows are yellow. The walls are a warm shade of blue.

“Do I sit on couch?” Ilya asks. He’s nervous, and his accent is worse than usual.

“You can sit wherever you like,” the woman says in Russian, “but most people take the couch, yes.”

And so, Ilya sits on the couch. It is a little small for him. The backs of his knees don’t touch the cushion, even though his feet are flat on the floor. The woman settles into the armchair. For a moment, they just look at each other. Ilya is sure she sees plenty; red eyes with purple bruises beneath, nose rubbed raw and red, overgrown stubble itching at his throat.

She smiles at him, something sympathetic in her eye, and says “it’s nice to meet you, Ilya. My name is Galina Molchalina. You can call me Galina, or Dr. Molchalina if that makes you more comfortable.”

“Right. Galina. Nice to meet you also.”

She nods. “Have you been to therapy before?”

“No.”

“That’s fine,” she says. “Therapy is a little different for everyone. For most people, the first two or three sessions are a chance to get to know one another.”

“I didn’t come here for small talk,” Ilya says, mulishly.

Dr. Molchalina smiles, and raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Do you want to talk about why you decided to come?”
“I think you know,” Ilya spits. “Impossible not to. Everybody saw.”

“I want you to tell me in your own words,” Dr. Molchalina says. “I think maybe it could do you some good.”

For a second, Ilya is blindingly, incandescently angry. But the feeling dies after barely a second, and it leaves a vast, empty nothingness where it was. “Okay,” he says, low. “But you can’t tell anyone else.”

“That’s my job, Ilya,” Dr. Molchalina says, not unkindly. “I’m bound by law to keep your secrets. I can’t repeat anything you say here, unless you tell me you’re planning to commit a crime, hurt someone else, or hurt yourself, and that last one has a lot of wiggle room. And based on what you told me, I don’t think you’re planning on committing a crime or hurting someone anytime soon.”

“Well. Maybe. But I won’t tell you those things.”

She laughs, then. “Sure, sure.”

“Okay,” Ilya says again. “Okay.”

_____

In retrospect, it was naïve of Ilya to think that the happiness he found in Shane’s inexplicable mansion-named-the-cottage could last. It was easy for him to promise many things, many hard things, while he and Shane basked in the isolated little bubble Shane had built for himself. Easy to promise Shane Ottawa, even though the team was shit, and promise him the charity, and forever. What was Ilya’s sad little life in Boston, compared to the sweetness he’d found here? What was another cup, another trophy, another award, when he had Shane draped across his chest, or swept up in his arms, or down on his knees, and always whispering of love. It was new for Ilya—none of his past hookups ever told him they loved him, and his father was incapable of it, and his mother was dead, and his brother had never bothered to pretend to love Ilya in exchange for the money Ilya had sent. So it was easy to get lost in. Easy to say yes to whatever Shane wanted.  

But of course, it could not last. And so, Ilya’s new life began to fall apart before it had even began. And the rot had started in the shower, where most of Ilya’s bad ideas were born. Or maybe it began a little before, when Ilya had pressed Shane up against one of the big glass windows in his cottage and fucked him. It was the first time they hadn’t bothered with a condom. Ilya had been delirious with it, and whispered some nonsense in Shane’s ear about someone watching him through the window. Something about paparazzi photographing his pretty tits and his hard cock and his lovely freckled cheek pressed against the glass, and Shane had moaned long and loud, and he came without Ilya needing to touch him at all, and he made a spectacular mess that Ilya cleaned later with a very specific microfiber cloth and name-brand bottle of glass cleaner.

It had been a good fuck. Ilya had made a mental note of it—Shane likes the idea of people seeing—and kept the thought for later.

After the glass was clean, they’d kissed, and kissed, and kissed, until Shane pulled away and mumbled something about needing a shower, Ilya, it’s dripping out of me, I feel so gross. And Ilya had obliged, because he could not deny Shane anything, and he felt a little gross too—covered in sweat and spit, his pubic hair sticky and drying into an uncomfortable mess.

In the shower, Ilya had pissed down the drain while Shane watched and whined about how gross he was, but Ilya saw the look in his eye. His teeth, pressed into his lower lip. The subtle twitch of his cock. And so, Ilya made a mental note of that, too—Shane likes to watch me piss. The thought had made Ilya a little hard, though he’d never much thought about pissing before. And he filed it away for later, so he could bring it up the next time they had sex, and needle Shane into admitting that he’d liked it.

And that was the start of the end, Ilya thinks. He hadn’t known then—how could he? He’d been too busy pressing Shane into the tile and fucking his tongue into Shane’s mouth. The him now, in the aftermath, wishes he’d known, just this once, to let a thing lie. But he hadn’t, because he was horny, and he was in love, and it was the last full day he’d spend with Shane for a very long time. And so, he’d blazed ahead, idiot that he was, careless of what could happen—what would happen—if he did.

_____

The next morning, Ilya had flown back to Boston, to call his agent and pack up his life and move it all to Ottawa. Shane had kissed him in the car before they left the cottage; a tiny little thing, barely there at all. It had meant more to Ilya than fucking his tongue into Shane’s mouth the night before, so Ilya had left his hand on top of Shane’s, which was on top of the gearstick, for the entire drive to the airport.

His agent was furious when Ilya called and told him he wanted a trade to Ottawa. The Raiders’ manager cried when he heard the news. Cliff nearly cried, too, and asked him what the fuck he was doing. Ilya couldn’t answer without giving everything away, so he just shrugged, and went back to cleaning out his stall.

His life was remarkably easy to pack up, in the end. His penthouse apartment had come fully furnished—little inside of it was truly his. He sold most of his cars. He left with a dozen boxes of trophies and clothes, his air fryer, and a haphazard collection of kitchen utensils. The only two people who came to his going-away party were Svetlana and Cliff. They took him out to a club, and they danced until dawn, extra wild to cover their sadness.

His new contract was for eight years. It had an ironclad no-movement clause. All of them knew he’d never come back. And nobody had cried, but it was very close. Ilya hadn’t realized he was giving anything up to be with Shane, was the thing. He hadn’t realized he had anything to lose until he was already losing it. 

In Ottawa, he found himself a house close to the rink. A big house, like Shane’s cottage, with nice wood floors that reminded him of Shane’s walls, and a wooded backyard that felt familiar enough. He had no time to furnish it, so he hired a designer to pick the couches and the beds and the rest of the furniture. They even picked the art on the walls.

The house was too big, maybe. Ilya’s things took up so little space. He felt like he was disappearing into it.

But he did not linger in the feeling long. The pre-season was starting soon. He had his first practice with a new team for the first time in nearly a decade. He was nervous. He was a little excited. He hoped, in his most secret places, that he would be good enough to make Ottawa into a team that won things.

_____

He barely made it three days before he texted Shane. He said so you like to watch me piss and Shane had said fuck you, asshole, which made Ilya smile. Is not a no, Ilya had replied. Maybe I let you do more than watch, next time. And Ilya had amused himself with imagining Shane’s face, red and twisted up and angry, and his cock, half-hard in the joggers he’d stolen from Ilya’s bag, while he watched three little dots appear and disappear on his phone screen.

What does that mean, Shane replied, half an hour later, after Ilya had come all over his own stomach. Whatever you want it to mean, Ilya texted him. And Shane didn’t reply, but that was okay. That was part of why Ilya loved him. There was nothing Ilya liked more in the world than prying out one of Shane’s secrets.

_____

The next time they saw each other was an away game for Ilya, but home for Shane. Ilya lost, 4-2. Humiliating, when he was playing for Boston. The Centaurs had cheered and cheered in the locker room, happy they’d scored at all, and incandescent that they’d scored twice.

On the ice, before the game, Ilya made sure no one was near. Then he leaned in close to Shane and whispered “You’d like it if I fucked you in locker room, yes?” And Shane had gone so red that Ilya laughed, and Shane had called him a fucking asshole, and Ilya had never felt more alive. He was bursting with it.

_____

In Ottawa, people kept trying to invite him to things. Mostly clubbing, because they assumed that was what he liked best. And Ilya would’ve liked it, maybe, if they hadn’t clearly expected him to do more than just dance and drink, and there was something bone-tired inside of Ilya, these days. Something that was exhausted with everything from the moment Ilya first crawled out of bed in the mornings.

So, he dodged the rookies’ attempts to take him clubbing, and Dykestra’s regular invitations to various bars. He never had time for the parties Bood hosted either—he was always in Montreal with Shane, or Shane was in Ottawa with him, and Ilya was a selfish man. He hoarded their time together like some great beast from the movies Hazy liked.

It was a different type of lonely than Ilya was used to. He knew how to be alone in a crowded room—that was his life, back in Boston. Even back in Russia, after his mother died. He’d thought he was prepared for it, back in the safety of the cottage, when it was easy to promise Shane all the things he wanted. He’d thought he had a lifetime to practice being alone, and Ottawa was more of the same. Truth be told, he’d thought it would be a relief. That maybe, he could build a place for himself that was a little like Shane’s cottage—a place where Ilya could just be.

It did not work. He was not like Shane, who wilted and curled into himself when surrounded by people he didn’t know. Ilya liked people. He liked holding court at the club, or the bar, or in the fucking locker room. So Ilya tried, but it was impossible to fill a house built for an entire family by himself. He was alone with his thoughts more than he’d been in years. And he hated it. Oh, how he hated it. 

_____

Ilya’s loneliness made him impatient, so he did not wait for the next time he played the Metros, or he and Shane both had home games. Shane was playing in Boston, and Ilya was playing in New York, so Ilya rented a car and drove four and a half hours to see Shane after both their games were over.

They met in Shane’s hotel room, and Ilya fucked Shane while they both watched a video playing on the TV—a youtube compilation of Shane’s best goals. And Ilya had whispered if only they could see you now in Shane’s ear, and Shane had thrown his head back so fast he would’ve broken Ilya’s nose if Ilya wasn’t paying close enough attention. He’d come with Ilya’s hand on his throat and Ilya’s cock deep inside him, and they’d ended up in the shower again. Ilya pissed down the drain, and watched Shane as Shane watched him piss.

Shane edged closer, to where the water was faintly tinted yellow, and dipped his toe into it.

“Ah,” Ilya had said. “You want me to piss on you. You could’ve just asked.”

“Fuck off,” Shane had replied, but he was blushing and biting his lip and half-hard, again, even though they’d both come not ten minutes before. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Ilya’s cock, still pissing. His foot slid a little further into the puddle on the shower floor.

“Is okay, moya lyubov. Next time, I give you what you want.”

“Yeah?” Shane said, but he was distracted. Sad that Ilya’s piss had all gone down the drain, maybe.

“Yes. But first I make you beg for it.”

Shane had rolled his eyes, and then he’d squeezed them shut, because Ilya sank to his knees and sucked Shane’s half-hard cock into his mouth.

Later, they’d lain together in the bed for an hour, before Ilya had to get back on the road. Shane had confessed another long-held secret to him—a fantasy he’d had, years ago, after the ad they’d filmed for CCM. A fantasy that Shane hadn’t told him not here, and had let Ilya do whatever he wanted in the locker room shower. And, well. Ilya never let things lie. It was one of the worst parts of him.

_____

So you want to fuck in locker room, Ilya texted Shane. He was on the road, in Los Angeles, and Shane was in Colorado.

Shut up, Shane replied. It’s just a fantasy.

Just a fantasy? Ilya had said. Or something you want? Is something you can have, if you want. You are captain. You have keys. Warmth crept in, low in his belly. Ilya pressed his palm over his cock and thought about Shane, in the Metros locker room, on his knees, and ground his hips up into his palm.

It’s a bad idea, Shane replied, which was not a no. It was, as far as Shane went, practically a yes. Ilya was giddy with it, with knowing Shane well enough to look past the surface of everything he said.

We go very late, Ilya texted. Nobody will see. Nobody will be there. We have game together soon, yes? We could fuck then.

It’s such a bad idea, Shane had said. And then; fuck. Yeah, okay. I want it.

_____

They had to wait three weeks. It was terrible for Ilya. He lost all three games he played, and every practice had a sad air, like the rest of the team had given up before the season had even begun. It was better for Shane. He won his games, and when he played against Ilya he scored a hat trick so beautiful it nearly made Ilya cry with jealousy. But the time passed soon enough, and he found himself in the passenger seat of Shane’s awful, disgustingly practical car at three in the morning; the two of them giggling like school children on the cusp of breaking a rule.

Shane looked around at the empty parking lot twice before he unlocked the rink’s back door. Ilya shoved him inside, then chased after him through the halls, and pressed him up against the door while Shane struggled with the key to the locker room. He pressed Shane up against the stalls, too, and the bench between them, until they both stumbled into the showers, naked and panting and desperate.

Ilya turned on the shower. He told Shane to get on his knees.

Shane really was fantastic at sucking his dick. And he loved it, Ilya knew, so he let Shane suck him for a while, until the sweet pressure around his cock and the heat of the water beating against his back had him right on the edge of coming.

He fisted his hands in Shane’s hair, then, and pulled his head away. It took more strength than he expected. Shane didn’t want to let him go.

“Ask me for what you want,” he demanded, voice pitched low. Shane whined, and tried to bury his face back in Ilya’s cock, but Ilya held him back and shook him, just a little. “Not that,” Ilya said. “What you really want. Say it.”

And then Shane blushed so pretty, redder than Ilya had ever seen him, and mumbled ”piss on me. Please. You fucking asshole,” and on a normal day, Ilya would’ve made him try again, made him say it polite, with manners, but Ilya was so close, and Shane was so pretty, and he wanted to give Shane everything he ever wanted.

“Touch yourself,” Ilya commanded, and then, once Shane had gotten a hand between his legs, Ilya took himself in hand and pissed all over Shane’s chest.

Shane came before Ilya was even finished. It was beautiful every time Shane came, but this Ilya would remember forever; his voice pitching up, his back arched, his face tipped back like he was basking in the sun. And Ilya was pleasantly surprised by how hot it was to watch his piss sluice down Shane’s chest, his belly, his thighs. He’d assumed it might be a little arousing, but ultimately something that was more for Shane than him. But he liked it. He liked it so much that he came barely a half-second after he was done, and Shane leaned in to catch half of it on his face and the other half in his mouth.

Ilya dropped to his knees, after, to kiss Shane and taste himself in Shane’s mouth. They spent a little while like that; kissing so deep that their mouths made a clicking noise whenever they pulled back for air. And then Ilya pulled Shane to his feet, and rubbed soap all over him, and kissed the back of his neck while Shane rocked on his feet, dazed and sleepy and sated.

Neither of them saw the phone held close to the doorframe. Neither of them even thought to look for it.

_____

And, so. Ilya drove back to Ottawa in the morning, and Shane stayed in his apartment in Montreal. The two of them went to practice. Ilya texted Shane an hour before he knew Shane was due on the ice. I am glad we did this. Now you will always be thinking of me when you shower there.

After he got home from practice, Ilya checked his phone. Fuck you, Shane had replied. I spent the whole practice trying to hide a boner.

Ilya had laughed, and they had skyped, because Ilya was getting on a plane for an away game the next morning, and they were both too tired to drive after the night before. And that was their last real breath together. The last moment Ilya had before the careful life he’d been building was blown the fuck apart.

_____

Ilya hadn’t realized what was happening, at first. He was not paying attention—he was leading practice before a game in Tampa later that night; a game he was sure to lose. Nothing was clicking, with this team. Fucking Dillon still couldn’t pass for shit.

And then, he noticed a strange, whispered phone conversation between Coach Wiebe and someone Ilya assumed was management; a conversation that fell silent the second Wiebe saw Ilya approach. In the locker room, after practice was over, Haas looked at his phone, then he looked at Ilya, and then he wouldn’t look at Ilya at all anymore.

Wiebe caught him as he was leaving, and pulled him into a room he’d never seen before. It was full of folding chairs and plastic tables and rolled-up backdrops with various sponsors and logos plastered across them.

Wiebe opened two chairs, and sat in one. He pointed at the other with a general air of exhaustion. Ilya sat, wary, even though he didn’t know what he was supposed to be afraid of.

“You seen the news, son?” Wiebe said. Ilya couldn’t place the tone.

“No,” Ilya replied. Wiebe lowered his face to his hands, and sighed. It was long and breathless. It was the sigh of a man about to deliver news that somebody was dead.

“Check it,” Wiebe said. And Ilya did. He opened his phone and saw text notifications from Cliff (dude what the fuck) and Svetlana (is this real? are you okay?). And then he saw hundreds of notifications from twitter, from Instagram, from the google alert he’d put on Shane. He opened one at random, saw an article titled Rivalry Turned Steamy: MHL Superstars Caught On Camera, and another called Golden Knights’ Golden Nights, and another called Leaky Blinders. A new notification came in from Svetlana; a link, nothing else.

It was a twitter post. A video. The caption said #pissgate. The video started playing automatically, and Ilya saw the nondescript white tile of the Metros locker room, and then the camera peered around a corner, and there he was. There Shane was. It played just long enough for Ilya to hear himself—say it—and Shane—piss on me. please—before his phone fell from his nerveless fingers and shattered on the concrete.

“I don’t need to know the details,” Wiebe said, “and I can’t offer much. I’m a new coach. I don’t have much pull. But I’ll do what I can.”

Ilya closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, but it came out wrong. His lips felt numb. “I need to call—”

“Right, right,” Wiebe muttered, stooped to pick up Ilya’s phone, and pressed it into his hands. The screen was shattered. A chunk of glass broken off in the bottom corner. He could see the little wires underneath. “Take your time. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

But Ilya didn’t hear, and he didn’t notice Wiebe putting away the chair, or stepping outside and gently, gently closing the door. He tried to call Shane, then tried again when Shane didn’t pick up. The third time he got Shane’s voicemail, he gave up and called Shane’s mother. While he waited, listening to the phone ring and ring, he hunched over, small as he could, and pressed his mother’s crucifix to his lips.

“Hello?” Yuna said, and Ilya nearly burst into tears.

“Where is Shane?” he asked, frantic. “Has he seen…”

Yuna sighed. “Oh, honey. It’s everywhere. I don’t know how he wouldn’t.”

“He is with you though, yes? He is okay?”

“We’re not sure where he is. We thought he was in Montreal, but when we checked his apartment he wasn’t there. David and I are going to try the cottage next.”

Ilya looked up at the light in the room and tried to blink back tears. It was fluorescent. It burned his eyes. “Can you—” his voice hitched. “Can you call when you find him?”

“Of course, honey,” Yuna said. She sounded so gentle. Ilya did not deserve it.

“And take his phone. He—he shouldn’t be looking right now. It will only hurt.”

“Okay.” A pause. Ilya listened to the rumble of the road, distorted through the phone. “Are you okay?”

Ilya had laughed, then. A sick and humorless thing. “No.”

“We’ll tell him to call you when we find him,” Yuna said. “Before we take his phone.”

The tears leak out, then. Ilya couldn’t help it. He sniffed, and wiped his face on the back of his hand, and his hand on his shirt. “Okay. Thank you.”

“You’ll be coming back, right?”

“Yes,” Ilya promises.” First flight I find.”

_____

Shane called him back an hour later. Ilya hadn’t left the room with the chairs and tables and things. He was too scared. He booked a flight that went from Tampa to Montreal. He booked an Uber to the airport in Tampa. He arranged a rental car that would be ready for him when he landed in Montreal. He hadn’t called his agent yet. He hadn’t responded to Svetlana or Cliff. He didn’t know what to say. He still doesn’t.

“I’m coming back,” Ilya told him, before Shane could even manage a hello. “Flight leaves in two hours.”

“What? No!”

Ilya blinked, and ah, there was the feeling he had been missing. The shame, the fear. The anger. Oh god, the anger. “What do you mean, no?”

“You have to stay! You have to play the fucking game!”

“Are you serious?” Ilya hissed. And in that moment, he hated Shane. He hated Shane more than anyone else. “I am not playing hockey game. You need me.”

“I need you to play the fucking game, Ilya. It’ll look bad if you leave.”

“Is just a fucking game, Shane!” he was yelling, then. Properly yelling. Loud enough that Coach Wiebe peered around the corner with a worried look on his face. “I cannot play when I spend whole time thinking about you at home, crying. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“You’re not listening! They fucking benched me, Ilya!”

“Oh,” Ilya said, dumb.

“Yeah. So you play that fucking game, asshole. ‘Cause—” Shane sniffed, then, and his voice wobbled. ”It might be the last game either of us ever get to play.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, still dumb. Shane hung up without saying goodbye. And that was it. That was all there was to say.

_____

Nobody looked him in the eye in the locker room. Nobody looked at him at all. Bood laid a careful hand on his shoulder. Ilya shrugged it off. Dykestra tried to pass off the aux to him. For once, Ilya did not care. He laced his skates in silence. He went out onto the ice like a dead man walking.

Ilya played the worst game of his life. He tried to make it the best, at first, because Shane had asked in not so many words. But, of course, this was impossible. His heart was not here, on the ice. His heart was back in Ottawa, in his cottage, probably several hundred posts deep into #pissgate and so fucking lost Ilya would never be able to find him again.

And the things people said. God, the things people said. I always knew you were a fucking perv, Rozanov, and who knew Hollander was such a slut, and I hope you both get kicked out of the league for this shit. Ilya hit each one of them. He smashed them into the boards or, if they were too far, dropped his gloves and hit them the old-fashioned way. He got his nose broken on the second fight. His finger dislocated after the third. The ref ejected him in the second period. The Centaurs lost 6-0, and Ilya couldn’t bring himself to give a shit.

In the locker room, everyone looked at him with careful sympathy. It make Ilya want to drop his gloves there, too, and beat every single one of them, just so they’d stop looking at him like that.

_____

He missed his flight, and the Uber, and the second flight he’d booked in desperation when he’d had five minutes on the bench, and the rental car. It cost almost two thousand dollars. Ilya supposed he might have to worry about that sort of thing in the future, if he and Shane lost their contracts. He worried in a distant way. He didn’t feel like he was present in his own body. It was like he was a little pilot, floating up in the sky, watching himself take off his shoes in the security line, and buy a coffee at the terminal, and stare blankly at nothing while he waited for the plane. He didn’t notice the phones that followed his path through the airport like sunflowers tracking the light. He didn’t notice anything.

The drive was uneventful. He sped like a demon the whole way. When he finally pulled into Shane’s long, ridiculous driveway, it was nearly four in the morning, and the world outside was the darkest he’d ever seen. He nearly hit Yuna’s Corolla, sloppily parked in front of the house, right behind Pike’s ugly minivan and some sleek thing he assumed belonged to JJ, or Rose Landry.

Thank god he was not alone, Ilya thought, and kissed his mother’s crucifix. In thanks, maybe, or because he was scared to go inside.

But there was nothing to fear that night. Everyone was already asleep. And so, Ilya crept past Hayden, sprawled on the couch, and Rose Landry curled up on the smaller loveseat. He crept right up to Shane’s room, and let himself in, into Shane’s bed, the smell of the winter outside and the cigarettes he’d smoked in the car still clinging to his skin, and he memorized the soft sound of Shane’s breath; the warmth of his skin and the smell of his hair. Ilya wasn’t sure, at that point. He didn’t know if this would be the last time Shane let Ilya this close to him.

_____

He woke to Shane scrolling on his phone. He looked like he’d cried all his tears hours ago, and still somehow found more to give. He looked like Ilya imagines he’d looked at his mother’s funeral.

“What are you looking at?” Ilya had mumbled, sleepily.

Shane showed him. Zillow listings. Pictures of modest houses covered in snow. Ilya squinted. The locations listed were all in Greenland.

“Since—” Shane sniffed, and apparently he still had more tears to give. Ilya reached up and carefully wiped one away. “Since I can’t play hockey anymore, you know?”

Ilya frowned, confused. “Who told you this?” he asked, and Shane collapsed into himself. This was the first time he’d ever seen Shane cry for real, and it shocked him, somehow. Shane was supposed to be the steadier one; the shore Ilya threw himself upon. He gathered Shane to himself on instinct; put Shane’s head in the crook of his neck, and Shane’s arms over his shoulders, and rocked him like a child. Ilya’s own tears fell into Shane’s hair, blessedly hidden. He held Shane just like that until he fell asleep again, the phone slipping from his lax fingers, and Ilya kicked it off the bed in a fit of childish rage. Shane slept for a long time, after that, but Ilya couldn’t. He just lay there, stroking a careful hand over Shane’s hair, watching himself from a long way away and thinking of nothing, nothing at all.

_____

“So,” Yuna said, fake-happy, while she watched David scramble a dozen eggs. “Have either of you heard anything?”

Ilya grunted into his coffee. “Commissioner says I am benched ‘until this gets fixed.’ I don’t know what that means.”

“Shane got the same email,” Yuna said. “What a dick. At least he put it in writing, you know. In case either of you need to sue.”

Ilya didn’t want to think about the implication there, so he didn’t. “Wiebe says he will pull strings. Could get me back on ice in one week, maybe two.”

Beside him, Shane briefly paused his furious scroll through his phone. “He really said that?”

“Da. In email.”

“So he’s serious,” Rose said from her spot on the loveseat. “He wouldn’t put that in writing unless he meant it.”

Ilya shrugged. “Maybe he means it, maybe not. Does not mean it will happen.”

David did something with a spatula, and the eggs made a hissing noise. “Do you think your team will be…” he trailed off, and made a vague gesture.

“Be what? Nice?” Ilya shrugged again. “No idea. Have not known them long. Could go either way. But it is less bad for me, maybe, than it is for Shane.”

For a long time, the kitchen was quiet.

“Shane,” Hayden ventured, “Have you heard anything yet?”

Shane went pale so fast Ilya thought he might be sick. “I uh. I got an email. From coach. I haven’t read it yet.”

Ilya wrapped his arm around Shane’s waist. “We could read together, if you want. Less scary with two people.”

Shane leaned further into him, and Ilya cherished it. The warmth. The pressure. Shane opened his email with trembling fingers, and Ilya barely read past the first line before Shane said “oh” in a small, broken voice, and dropped his phone straight into the bland chicken and rice that sat, untouched, in front of him.

“What?” Yuna asked, frantic. “Shane, what did it say?”

Ilya picked Shane’s phone out of his food, and impatiently brushed away bits of rice from the screen. “He is benched for rest of season,” Ilya read aloud, “and Montreal is, uh, ‘seeking to exit your contract due to’—fuck, what is this word. Vio—violation? Of morality clause.” Ilya’s eyes went wide, then, and he turned to look at Shane, but Shane wasn’t looking at anyone. He wasn’t doing anything at all. He just sat there, like everything good and important inside him was gone.

“Shane?” Yuna said again. She was about to cry. “Shane, honey?”

Shane didn’t look. It was like he didn’t even know she was there, or couldn’t hear what it was she’d said. He looked lost. So deep in his head that he was never, ever coming out again.

Ilya reached out, hesitant, and put his hand on the back of Shane’s neck. “Shane?” he asked, carefully, but there was no response. It was like Shane was dead. “Shane, please,” he said. “Say something.”

But he never did. He just sat there, until Ilya had enough and carried him back to his bed. Even then, he did nothing. He just sat there, as Ilya peeled off his socks and wrestled him into a new t-shirt and pair of sleep pants. He barely blinked when Ilya tucked the blankets back around him, the way his mama used to do for him. A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye when Ilya pressed a kiss to his forehead. And then he just stared at the wall, still as a statue. Ilya left him to it.

_____

Ilya made it maybe five minutes into a conversation on What To Do About The Video before he stood, interrupting Yuna, and screamed at everyone to get out, get the fuck out. He regretted it before they’d even left, but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. These were Shane’s people. He deserved to have them here, instead of Ilya. Ilya, who did this to him.

So. Ilya checked on Shane. He had not moved. Ilya got in his shitty rental car and drove to the nearest gas station, and bought himself a whole carton of cigarettes. Then he got the vodka he knew Shane would still have, from when Ilya was here last, and brought it out to the deck. He sat by the firepit where he’d told Shane about his mother, not five months ago, and smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. When they were gone, he drank the whole bottle of vodka. Neither one helped. He puked into one of Shane’s potted plants, and felt sorry in a distant sort of way. Sorry for yelling. Sorry for being here. Sorry for ruining Shane’s life by being who he was.

He fell asleep out there, in the cold, and woke up completely numb. The heat inside the house hurt. Maybe he wanted to stay out there, and be frozen forever.

He checked on Shane, but Shane hadn’t even twitched. Ilya was so scared that he ran over to check Shane’s pulse, and cried when he felt it beneath his fingers. Shane didn’t react to his tears, either.

On impulse, Ilya tore through the house and tossed out everything he could think of. The knives, the razor, the leftover painkillers from Shane’s fractured collarbone. The fucking paracetamol and advil and ibuprofen. He put it all in a black trash bag he found under the sink, and put the bag in the neighbor’s trash, just in case.

He slept in one of the guest rooms, that night. Cried himself to sleep like he was a fucking baby all over again, and didn’t know what loss was yet.

And so it went, for a week. He woke. He checked on Shane. He forced Shane to drink, to eat. He smoked another pack of cigarettes out by the fire pit and vomited into the ashes. He drank another handle. He stayed outside long enough for the winter air to make him numb, and a little longer after that, so the numb turned to hurt. And then he would go inside, and make Shane eat and drink again. And he cried and cried. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t think anything could fix it—Shane, or the careful thing between them, or the sport they both loved, or their place in it. 

_____

A week later, Wiebe had called to tell him that Ilya could come back if he wanted. Just for practice. No games yet, but Wiebe was working on it. Ilya called Yuna, because he trusted her, and Shane was still unresponsive, and if he didn’t talk to someone he would scream and never stop, or find that little black bag full of pills he’d left by the neighbor’s trash and follow his mother, just like his father had always thought he would.

Yuna told him to go. Ilya wasn’t sure if that meant go to practice or go away and leave my son alone or both. So, Ilya went. He needed to do something other than smoke and drink and stare at Shane, waiting for him to snap out of it.

Bood cornered him in the locker room. “What’s the play, cap?” he asked. Ilya didn’t respond. He couldn’t. There was no plan. There was just him, here, and Shane, there.

“Rozy, man,” Bood tried again, with a hand on Ilya’s arm to hold him in place. “We all just want to help.”

Ilya thought for a minute. “I was thinking of taking pills, but that is too neat. You have gun for me?”

“Jesus Christ. You know what? Take these,” he said, and pressed three scraps of paper into Ilya’s hand.

“What is this?”

“A fucking bulldog lawyer,” Bood said, pointing to a professional-looking business card, “a terrifying PR firm,” he pointed to a more colorful card with a phone number, a twitter, an Instagram, and a facebook listed, “and a really good therapist.” Ilya looked. The last paper was part of a post-it with a phone number written on it. “We put our heads together. Lawyer’s from Wiebe. PR’s from Troy. Therapist’s from Wyatt.”

For a long time, Ilya just stood there. He didn’t say shit.

Bood put his hands on Ilya’s shoulders and shook him, just a little. “Call them. Please.”

“Okay, Bood,” Ilya said. “I will.”

_____

“And I did,” Ilya says to Dr. Molchalina. “I called you first.”

Dr. Molchalina blinks. “Why me?”

“Shane,” Ilya says. “He moves around some, now, and he eats, but he won’t talk. He doesn’t—” Ilya looks up, into the light in Dr. Molchalina’s office. It’s soft and yellow. “He doesn’t look at me, either. Or anyone else. He just looks at fucking houses in Greenland on his tablet.” Ilya lets out an explosive sigh, and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I need him. There are things I could do. Things we could do. But I need him to say okay first. I need to know what he wants. But I don’t know how to ask in a way he will respond to.”

“I understand. Ilya, to be honest, I’m not sure how much I can help Shane. I can help you,” she says, rather earnestly. “I can listen to your struggles and offer advice. There are some skills I can teach you that might be helpful, while you’re going through all this. But Shane isn’t my patient. You are.”

“But if he was, you could help?”

“I don’t know. Based on what you’ve described, it’s a little beyond my area of expertise.”

Ilya cries, just a little, into his hands. “Sorry,” he says. “Long day.”

“It’s okay,” Dr. Molchalina says. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you call one of those other numbers your teammate gave you? The lawyer or the PR firm, it doesn’t matter which. You call, and you listen to what they have to say, but you don’t have to commit to anything. And later this week, you can come back here, and you bring Shane. And we’ll all talk about it.”

Ilya breathes, deep. “Okay.”

“Okay, good. Does Friday work for you?”

Ilya laughs, but it’s a reflexive thing, and there is no warmth in it. “Yes. Everything works. We are both tenuously employed at the moment.”

“Okay. I’ve got open slots at nine and two.”

“Nine is fine,” Ilya says. “Less waiting.”

“Good point. See you Friday, Ilya.”

“See you,” Ilya says, and stands. He pulls his hood back over his head and shoves his sunglasses on his face. The waiting room is empty when he comes back, and he’s so fucking grateful he could cry with it.

_____

Shane is looking at houses in Greenland again. He’s looking in Qaanaaq, this time. There’s not much to see, really. He’s not even on Zillow anymore. The first day, he’d tried looking up Greenland and come up with a bunch of listings in New Hampshire, or Arkansas, which isn’t really what he’s looking for. Shane is looking for a place to fall off the map. To fucking disappear forever, since he can’t ever show his face in public ever again, or play hockey, or—

Shane is looking at houses in Greenland. He’s been looking at houses in Greenland for a while, he thinks. He’s stopped bothering to keep track. But it’s worth it, to take his time on this. The house he buys needs to be perfect, because that’s where he’s staying for the rest of his fucking life. Him and Ilya, maybe, if Ilya wants to come. But Ilya doesn’t need to come, because Ilya has a team that loves him, and a coach that wants him, and he’s always been less easy to embarrass than Shane.

Ilya seems… bad. He cries a lot. He’s been smoking on the deck, where he thinks Shane can’t see, but Shane can smell it just fine. He’s been drinking, too. A lot. Shane counted the bottles in the recycling, once, and it was at least ten. Sometimes Shane thinks he should say something, but he can’t. He just can’t. He doesn’t really feel like talking right now.

He clicks on another house. It doesn’t seem right. Maybe he should look at buying land or something.

_____

Shane is in the kitchen, looking at land in Greenland. It’s way more complicated than he thought, because there is no private property in Greenland. It’s weird. He’s struggling to wrap his head around it.

Ilya is in the kitchen, too. He’s messing around with the microwave. It beeps, and Ilya sets a plate of chicken and rice on top of his tablet. “You eat, and then you can look at fucking houses in fucking Greenland,” Ilya says. “Please.” And then, Ilya is putting a fork and a butter knife into his hands. Shane wonders where all his knives went. But the butter knife cuts fine, and Shane’s body feels hungry, even if Shane himself doesn’t. 

“Thank you,” Ilya says when Shane takes a bite. He sounds a little broken, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. Shane shoves another forkful of rice into his mouth.

Shane watches from the corner of his eye as Ilya pours himself a glass of vodka. A lot of vodka. It looks like a glass of water. He drinks it all in one go, and pulls a half-full box of pizza out of the fridge. And they sit there, side by side, on the barstools in front of Shane’s kitchen island. They eat in silence. And for a minute or two, Shane can pretend that everything is normal. That Ilya is just here for two weeks in the summer, and they’re going to have so much fun and so much sex, and—

Ilya’s phone rings. “Fucking what,” he mumbles to himself before answering, then answers, and says “Yuna? Is okay? Did something happen?”

“No, no,” Mom says. “I’m just calling to check on Shane. Has he…”

“No. He hasn’t said anything.”

“Oh. Okay.” Shane distantly registers that Mom sounds like she’s about to start crying. “And you? You’re… okay?”

Ilya sighs. “Don’t worry about me. Please. I am not person who is fucking comatose.”

There is a pause. A long one. ”Sorry.” Ilya says. “That was rude.”

“It’s okay. You’re under a lot of pressure right now.”

Ilya starts biting at the crucifix around his neck. “I’m still sorry, Yuna.”

“I um, I’ve been filing takedown notices. I think it’s stemming the tide a little.”

“Thank you. Is very thoughtful.”

Another long pause. “Well,” Mom says. “I should probably go.”

Ilya drums his fingers on the countertop. “Thank you for calling. Goodbye.”

“Bye, Ilya,” she says, and it comes out all wobbly. “Goodbye, Shane.”

Ilya waits, like he wants Shane to say something, but there’s nothing to say, really. And he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He keeps staring at Shane. The weight of his eyes is so, so heavy. It makes Shane’s insides twist.

Mom hangs up first. The dial tone is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. It sounds like relief.

Ilya is still looking at him. His hand hovers, like he wants to touch Shane, but isn’t sure he has permission. “Please will you just say something,” he says. “Anything. Tell me fuck off, call me asshole. Please, Shane. I am begging, and you know—” his voice cracks, then breaks. “You know I do not beg. Please.”

Shane takes another bite of his chicken. He’s got nothing left to say.

_____

Sometimes, Shane looks at the things people are saying online. About the video. He has a hard time keeping the knowledge in his head, so he has to go back and remind himself sometimes. The word disgusting comes up a lot. And slut, and pervert, and faggot. A lot of people say that Shane probably had it coming, having sex in a place that public. A lot of people are saying he’s probably going to get kicked out of the league, and he’ll probably deserve it.

Shane doesn’t really know how he feels about any of it. That’s probably why he’s looking at houses in fucking Greenland, he thinks. So he doesn’t have to know how to feel about it, because none of it matters. If they kick him out of the league, or strip him of his fucking titles, or he gets more famous for being a piss slut than for playing great fucking hockey, who cares? Shane will be in Greenland, in his house, that he is looking to buy. He won’t have to deal with any of it.

_____

Shane is back to looking at houses in Greenland. The land stuff was too complicated. He couldn’t understand it. He probably could, if he was less… just less. But it’s fine. The houses are good. The houses are easier.

Hayden is sitting next to him on the couch. He’s looking at Shane like there’s something wrong with him, and Shane is politely ignoring it.

“Are you going to like, do anything?” Hayden asks. He’s got a beer in his hand. He looks at Shane again, and chugs it.

Ilya is looking at Shane again. He’s staring a lot, these days. It’s getting kind of creepy. “I have number for a lawyer that is… fuck, what did Bood say. Dog? Bull dog?”

“No, man, I mean about him.”

Ilya shrugs. “I try everything I know. Nothing works. I called therapist. She says come in for appointment.”

“Oh, yeah? When is that?”

“Tuesday. At three. I hope she will know what to do, because I can’t—” Ilya inhales, sharp, and Shane hears a wretched, wet noise. Shane steals a glance at Hayden’s face, and he looks—he looks surprised. Awkward. Maybe a little guilty.

“Fuck, man. Is there anything I can do?”

Ilya sniffs. “Yes. You can go get food. I am out of pizza.”

“Yeah, sure, of course,” Hayden stammers, and rockets to his feet, like he’s glad for any excuse to leave Ilya when he’s crying. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Vodka. I am so desperate, I will happily drink disgusting American shit.”

Hayden hesitates. “You uh. You sure that’s a good idea?”

Ilya glares.

“Okay. Right. Vodka, pizza. Maybe a ginger ale for Shane.”

“Thank you, Pike.”

Shane clicks on a listing for a house in Ittoqqortoormiit. It’s small. Pathetically small. But maybe he could make it work.

_____

Ilya is crying. Shane isn’t really sure why. He came back inside with half the bottle of vodka left, which Shane hadn’t really seen him do before, and then he plopped down on the loveseat, his long legs sprawled over the arm because he was too tall to fit.

“I’m sorry, moya lyubov,” Ilya murmurs, and takes a swig directly from the bottle. Gross. “I did this to you. Is all my fault. I push and push and push, until you say yes, and now here we are.”

Shane peers at Ilya, carefully, from the corner of his eye. Ilya looks so sad. He looks like he’d fall over, if he wasn’t already lying down. And Shane wants to go over there and make it better for him. Slide a hand into his hair and hold him close, or lay over top of him and press the thoughts right out of his head, or fuck, just hold his hand. But every time Shane thinks about it, some instinct deep inside him screams, the way that he sometimes hears rabbits scream right before a lucky hawk sinks its claws in deep. And this house in Greenland. It’s so important. It's more important than Shane could possibly express.

Ilya is looking at Shane all funny, like Shane isn’t sitting right here listening to him. “You are best thing in my life,” he slurs, mournfully, “and I fucking broke you, I think. Is hard to tell.”

A long silence. And then: “Sorry. I am very drunk. And I am very bad at this sort of thing. I think—” Ilya takes another swig directly from the bottle. Shane hopes he never plans on sharing it. “I think I am going away for a bit. Probably not forever. Your friend Rose, she said she would come give me break.” Ilya laughs, but it’s a dark thing. “Like I am good little worker on factory line, instead of fuckup trying to fix a very big mistake. And failing,” Ilya takes a yet another swig of his vodka. “Failing very badly. Is why I am going to see therapist tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe she knows better than me. Maybe she can fix what I cannot.”

The listing Shane is looking at is very interesting. Four bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Nice, beautiful lot. Lots of ice. Lots of snow. Maybe Ilya would like it. Moscow is supposed to be cold, right? That’s what everybody always says. Russia is super fucking cold. Maybe, if he buys it, he could show Ilya. Maybe he could ask Ilya if he wants to run away with him to Greenland and never look back.

“I miss you,” Ilya says, small, broken. I’m right here, Shane thinks. I’m right here. I’ve been here the whole time.

_____

Rose knocks at eight in the morning. It’s early, for Ilya. Shane watches him run towards the front door looking like he just rolled out of bed, still in the same clothes he’d been wearing for a couple of days.

“Hey,” Rose says, soft, when Ilya opens the door.

“Hello,” Ilya replies. “I am running late. I will be back… I don’t know when. An hour, maybe more.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rose says, and puts a hand on Ilya’s chest. She pats, once, twice, and turns to look into the rest of the house. She smiles, when she sees Shane looking at the two of them.

“Hey, Shane,” Rose calls, softly, like Shane is something fragile. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. She just walks around the couch and peers over Shane’s shoulder. She laughs, a little, when she sees what’s on the screen.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” she says, still laughing. “I get it, is all.”

She plops down on the couch, right next to Shane, so they’re touching knee to elbow. Behind them, Ilya shoves a pair of sunglasses on his face, tugs his hood over his head, and slams the door shut behind him. Shane feels worried, maybe. He didn’t even bring a coat.

“It was Alaska, for me. But I’m American, so I was biased.”

Shane quirks a brow, privately, to himself. He doesn’t look at her at all. But Rose still catches it, all the same.

“Don’t give me that, Shane Hollander. I know what this” she gestures vaguely around the room “is like. My nudes leaked in that fucking celebrity nude dump, remember?”

Shane hadn’t remembered. Shane had forgotten, somewhere between his own problems, which had seemed insurmountable at the time.

“There were tons of other people in it, but for some reason, my name was the only one people cared about. For months, it was all the press could talk about. ‘Rose Landry’s Dirty Laundry’ and shit like that. It was awful. Everybody was saying that I deserved having millions of people see me naked, just because a picture of me naked existed. And everybody looked, Shane. Everybody looked. I remember I couldn’t leave the house for months, because every time I did, I was paranoid that everybody I walked past on the street had seen them. I kind of wanted to die. I spent a lot of time thinking about moving to Alaska and completely disappearing.”

They’re both quiet for a while. Shane because he can’t think of what to say. Rose, because she’s thinking. Remembering.

“You know what got me out of it?” She asks. Shane shakes his head. “Nothing. I just woke up one day and realized that I was fucking miserable, and I was making everyone around me fucking miserable, and nobody was gonna swoop in and fix it for me. So I called a lawyer, and a really good PR firm, and I went the fuck to work. And now, nobody even remembers that my nudes got leaked. Nobody cares.”

Shane’s eyes well up, at that.

“So pussy up, buttercup,” Rose says, and socks him on the shoulder. “This is not the end. It probably isn’t even rock bottom. You’re Shane fucking Hollander. The Metros are going to cry big fat tears when you come back next season and fucking destroy them. You just gotta call a lawyer, and a bitching PR firm, and let the experts handle it.”

Shane goes back to looking at houses in Greenland, because that’s all he can think to do. But he isn’t looking at the houses, not really. He’s just staring at the screen, which is getting blurrier by the second. Rose lays her head on his shoulder, and he lets himself lean against her, his cheek squashed against her hair. He cries, then, but if Rose notices, she’s kind enough to ignore it.

_____

The thing is, Shane doesn’t want to go to Greenland. He wants to play hockey with Hayden on one side and JJ on the other. He wants to get more points than Ilya this year. He wants to win the fucking cup. He wants Ilya in his bed, and his car, and his house, and anywhere else Ilya will go with him. He wants to kill whoever took that fucking video. He wants his fucking life back.

And later that night, Shane creeps into Ilya’s room, and he watches Ilya sleep. It doesn’t look very restful. He’s frowning. His eyes are bruised. His fingers twitch, over and over, like he’s reaching for something. And Shane is so, so mad. He’s so angry he could die of it. They didn’t deserve this. They fucking didn’t. Who cares if they had sex in a locker room? It’s a fucking locker room. It’s supposed to be private! And who cares if most people think piss is gross. People are gross. Sweat is gross. Feet are gross. And nobody cares if Shane puts his gross, nasty feet on Ilya’s warm calves when they sleep, or if Shane sweats through his shirt at every fucking hockey game he’s ever played. And they’re going to try and kick him out of the MHL because he did something a little gross? Fuck them. He’s Shane fucking Hollander. He’s the best goddamn player since Wayne fucking Gretsky. He’s going to make Montreal regret even having a fucking hockey team.

“Ilya,” Shane says. Ilya groans, and buries his head further into his pillow. “Ilya, wake up.”

“Fucking what,” Ilya snaps, then sits bolt upright with some awful, hopeful look on his face.

“Where’s that number Bood gave you. For the PR firm.”

Ilya rubs at his eyes, like he’s not quite sure whether he’s still dreaming.

“The number, Ilya. For the PR firm.”

Ilya blinks once, twice. Shane waits. He can be patient. He totally can. “Oh. In my wallet, I think. Here.”

“Thanks,” Shane says, and kisses Ilya right on the lips. He lingers a little longer than intended. He didn’t mean to get that much tongue involved right out of the gate.

“Shane, what is this?”

“I’m tagging back in,” Shane says. “I’ve got this. Go back to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay?” And Ilya looks like he wants to say more, but he’s already getting dragged back under. Thank god. He looks so tired. Shane loves him more than anything else on the entire goddamn planet.

_____

Ilya has a series of unsettling dreams. He dreams that he has fallen asleep on the couch, and desperately needs to wake up. He dreams that he lies there for a long time, chanting to himself. Prosnut’sya, prosnut’sya. Wake up, for fuck’s sake, wake up. He dreams that he does wake up, and wanders around Shane’s cottage in a daze. He knows he needs to do something, but he cannot remember what. He dreams that he wanders outside, to the yard, and sees his mother’s limp, pale arm flopped over the side of the hammock, and he says to himself pozhaluysta, mama, you’re not real.

He dreams that he wakes up on the couch, and he knows he needs to do something, but he cannot remember what. He dreams that he is looking for Shane, but cannot find him anywhere. He searches the whole house, the dock, the woods outside, but Shane is just gone. Like he was never there at all.

He dreams that he wakes up on the couch, and he wants to die. He dreams about pills, and guns, and knives and drownings and spectacular car crashes. In this part of the dream, he runs through each one like he’s shopping for a new jacket. Too neat, too messy, too painful, too clean. In the dream, he spends a long time trying to choose between letting himself fall to the bottom of the lake or driving his favorite car off a very tall cliff.

So. Ilya is happy when he wakes up in a bed, in one of the guest rooms, and knows deep in his bones that he is awake for real. He opens his eyes very slowly. The first thing he sees is Shane, sat next to him, his back against the headboard and his tablet in his lap. Ilya closes his eyes again. He wishes he was still dreaming.

And then, a rustle. A warm hand on his face.

“Hey,” Shane says, soft, and carefully rubs his thumb over Ilya’s bottom lip.

Ilya’s face crumples, and he bursts into tears. It’s different than the many other times he’s cried this week. It is an ugly thing, a horrible thing. His nose hurts, from the grotesque shape his face has twisted into. The noises are loud and obnoxious. He cannot fucking breathe.

“God, I’m so sorry,” Shane says, and his hand moves to Ilya’s shoulder, pulling at him. “Come here, Ilya. Christ.”

Ilya goes. He sprawls on top of Shane; his face hidden against Shane’s breastbone, his arms tucked behind Shane’s back. Shane gets his hands in Ilya’s hair, then; stroking and tugging in equal measure. He rubs his snot on Shane’s chest, and for what Ilya assumes is the first time in his life, Shane does not complain even a little bit.

“You scared me,” Ilya says, once he can breathe again.

Shane cups the back of his neck, and strokes his other hand down Ilya’s spine. “I know.”

“Don’t do that again,” Ilya whispers against Shane’s chest.

“Okay,” Shane agrees, easy as anything. His thumb rubs little circles into the small of Ilya’s back. Ilya closes his eyes. He feels drunk. He feels like he could fall right back to sleep. The silence between them stretches, but it’s comfortable. Easy in a way things have not been for a very long time.

“I talked to the PR firm this morning,” Shane says, soft.

Ilya doesn’t bother opening his eyes, or moving. He wants to stay here forever. “Mm. What do they say?”

“We’ve still got time to put a spin on the story. She—her name was Farah—she said we’d have to put out a statement. Something about all this being an egregious and damaging violation of privacy.”

He furrows his brow. “What is ‘egregious?’”

“It’s like, extra bad.” Shane rubs at Ilya’s shoulder blade, the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheek. “The idea is to pull the focus off us and put it on the creep that took the video, because it’s pretty fucking creepy to film someone in the shower and sell it to a tabloid. Farah said it might be illegal. She said we should talk to a lawyer.”

Ilya grunts. That bone-tired thing inside him rises up, like molasses, like taffy. He feels so heavy.

“I talked to lawyer. Not about this, though. About fucking morality clause.”

Beneath him, Shane goes tense. “Yeah? What did they say?”

“It is ‘legal gray area.’ In Canada, you cannot fire a person for being gay. Is illegal. But video was not just us being gay together, it was… fuck, what did she say… controversial sexual content. So it is complicated. They say not ideal, but too close to firing you for being gay. Biggest problem is where the video was taken. Technically the locker room is public place, but shower is place where you are supposed to be naked, and there was a reasonable expectation that nobody would see or hear., or, I don’t know, fucking film us while we are in there. Is obvious we thought we were alone. So, probably no public indecency charge, which means we will not be going to jail. Maybe. Almost definitely. But, it could be enough for morality clause to kick in. So.” Ilya shrugs. “Maybe you will still be a Metro, maybe not.”

“Well, fuck them anyways.”

“Shane, you wanted to retire there.”

“After all this bullshit? Ilya, I would rather play for Tampa.”

Ilya laughs, helplessly. “But Tampa is terrible.”

“You switched to Ottawa, and they’re awful,” Shane points out. “I don’t care about being on a good team anymore, Ilya. I just want to play hockey.”

Ilya tightens his grip on Shane, and hides his face against Shane’s pretty skin. “I asked about MHL, too. If we could get kicked out of whole league because of morality clause. Is the same. Might happen, might not. Depends on judge. Depends on many things.”

Shane strokes his hair. He runs a careful finger over the new bend in Ilya’s nose.

“We should probably start thinking about what we want to say.”

There is so much more for them to talk about, Ilya knows. So much planning. So many careful little things. But he knows this feeling well—the heaviness in his bones, the grit in his eye. He feels it after every single hockey game he’s ever played. “Can we just… rest. For a bit.” Ilya murmurs.

“Yeah,” Shane says, still so fucking soft. “Yeah, of course.”

“I am very tired,” Ilya says, pathetic.

Shane does something very complicated, just so he can kiss the top of Ilya’s head. “I know, baby.” He murmurs. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what? Ilya thinks, but he’s already halfway gone, and far too tired to ask.

_____

Ilya wakes to afternoon sun streaming through the window and Shane’s half-hard cock pressed to his stomach. He savors it. He thinks of all the things he could do—squirm down the bed and take it into his mouth, reach between them with a careful hand, roll his hips just-so until Shane comes all over the shirt Ilya wore to bed. In the end, he does none of it. Things between them feel too tender, too fragile. Ilya is too afraid of breaking something important.

They walk to the kitchen, hand in hand. Ilya sits at the island while Shane digs through the fridge. They split the last of Ilya’s pizza, cold, and drink the last of the ginger ale Hayden bought. The silence is comfortable and well-worn. Ilya thinks he could cry again. 

Shane takes a long swig of his ginger ale and belches; quiet, the kind where he doesn’t even open his mouth. “Okay,” Shane announces to the empty kitchen. “We need a game plan.”

“Yes. So what is plan, team captain?”

Shane makes a face. “Why am I the captain? You’re team captain too, last I checked.”

“I don’t know where to start,” Ilya admits. “So it has to be you. And I am not good at long-term plans.”

Shane sighs. “Right. Okay. So. I guess we could start with hypotheticals? What’s the absolute worst-case scenario here?” 

That, Ilya knows better than he knows himself. “We are both expelled from MHL. My visa expires. I am deported to Russia, and get put in fucking gulag. I will probably lose half my fingers and most of my toes. Probably the rest of my teeth. Maybe Putin will let me out after fifty years. More likely, I will die there, and we will never see each other again.”

Shane knocks their knees together. “You think Putin is still gonna be president in fifty years?”

“Shane.”

Shane takes a bite of pizza, and his next words come out muffled. Ilya can see the food in his mouth. “Okay. So.” Shane gestures with his pizza in hand, for emphasis. “We don’t let you get deported.”

“Genius plan, asshole,” Ilya drawls. “You keep spare Canadian citizenship next to your fucking jet skis?”

“No, I mean—“ Shane ducks his head. He blushes. So sweet, this man. “You were going to marry Svetlana for citizenship.”

“Yes, and you told me not to!”

Shane puts his pizza down and buries his face in his hands. “Ilya, oh my god. I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”

“You—“ Ilya, for the first time in his life, cannot think of a single thing to say. He stares at the blood-red back of Shane’s neck like it is the only thing in the room he is allowed to look at.

“I thought about it, when you were talking about marrying Svetlana,” Shane mumbles into his hands. “I didn’t suggest it because we agreed to keep this” Shane gestures between the two of them “a secret, and I didn’t want to scare you off by talking about marriage before we’d even established that we were dating.”  

There is a buzzing in Ilya’s ear. “You wanted to marry me then?”

Shane finally takes his hands from his face, and holds onto Ilya’s hands instead. “Jesus, Ilya. I knew I wanted to marry you when I asked you to come to my fucking cottage. I just didn’t think I could.”

“You want to marry me.”

The blush, again. So fucking sweet. “I mean, I was gonna wait a while. Until we were ready to retire? And I had this whole plan. There were going to be so many candles—“

“—you were going to start forest fire?” Ilya teases. He can’t stop smiling.

“Shut up!” Shane tries to pull his hands away, but Ilya grabs his wrists before he can. “I was gonna light a bunch of candles on the dock and get down on one knee and say this beautiful fucking speech about how much I love you. And the ring was going to be perfect, and it would fit perfectly because I measured your finger while you were sleeping, and—“

“How long were you going to make me wait for this?”

Shane bites his lip and looks off to the side. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Don’t make me wait, Shane.”

“You—“

“In case I was not clear,” Ilya says, wobbly. “My answer is yes. I will marry you, even though you are terrible neat freak, and eat terrible food, and cheat at video games, and are demanding little shit.” Ilya thinks for a second. “And have a weak backhand.”

Shane laughs, a wet, joyous thing. “You and my fucking backhand. I’ll show you a fucking weak backhand.”

“This is innuendo, yes?” Ilya gets to his feet, and pulls Shane along with him. “Come, show me weak fucking backhand. I bet,” Ilya whispers, leaning in close, “mine is bigger.”

Shane laughs again, and then, all of a sudden, his face goes lovestruck and serious. “Tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow.”

“You are sure?” Ilya shoves his thigh between Shane’s legs. “I thought you wanted to wait.”

“Uh-uh, nope. I’m terrible at waiting. Zero patience.” Shane grinds down against Ilya’s thigh and moans. “God, please take me back to bed.”

And Ilya does. He hauls Shane up, his hands clutching Shane’s thighs, and carries him to his bed. To the bed that was theirs, for two precious weeks last summer. He tears Shane’s pants off with a ferocity that surprises himself, and sucks Shane’s dick until he cries, and comes, and then Ilya sucks him some more, and for the first time since Wiebe pulled him into that fucking storage room in Tampa, Ilya thinks that maybe, perhaps, this is something that both of them will live through.

_____

After, the sun has set. Ilya left Shane upstairs, exhausted and wrung out—the third orgasm was wishful thinking; the fourth a minor miracle. He’d stayed in bed for a while, listening to Shane sleep, but he was too restless. And, so. Ilya crept outside, to the fire pit, and lit a cigarette.

He thinks of tomorrow. His beautiful courthouse wedding. Neither of them have a suit ready, and Shane’s clothes are all too small,  so Ilya will be getting married in his nicest pair of sweatpants. And Shane’s parents will be there, of course, and Hayden is driving up from Montreal with his family. Even Rose—busy Rose, with her endless movie shoots and premiers and press events, has found enough time to come.

He thinks of his mother on her wedding day. He’s seen the photos. She was so young; bright-eyed and pink-cheeked and drowning in lace. He thinks of his father stood next to her in his dour officer’s uniform, his hair already gray. Ilya thinks of how his side of the aisle will only have people who were Shane’s before they were his. 

He takes a drag off his cigarette. He pulls out his phone. He stares down at his contact list. At the two little names clustered close to the top. Svetlana, and Cliff. Between them, there are maybe a hundred unread messages, and fifty missed calls. He still hasn’t responded. He still doesn’t know what to say.

On impulse, he calls Svetlana. He doesn’t expect her to pick up—it’s late. So late that even the loons are sleeping.

But, of course, Svetlana picks up on the first ring.

“Oh my god, Ilya. Are you okay?” Ilya can hardly hear her over the background music. It’s familiar—the same song that played all the time at their favorite club in Boston.

God, Ilya is tired of crying. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed her, and the sound of her voice, and the way she spoke his mother tongue. He forgot that she always sounded like home. “Yes,” he says, strangled. “I’m okay.”

“You didn’t call. I was so fucking worried, asshole. I thought police were going to find your body in a fucking ditch.”

“I’m okay, Sveta,” Ilya repeats. Swallows. Takes a drag from his cigarette. It’s not a very good cigarette, he realizes. American shit. It tastes like licking asphalt. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”

For a long time, the only thing Ilya hears are the cicadas, and the frogs, and the soft sound of Svetlana through the phone—fading music, the heavy slam of a door, a shouted piss off, asshole, I’m on the phone, the sound of the street; cars and people and the winter wind racing between the buildings.

“For citizenship?”

Ilya takes another drag, then makes a face and stamps his cigarette out. “Yes and no.”

“Elaborate.”

“Yes, it’s for citizenship. It’s also for love.”

She screams in his ear so fucking loud. My god. He forgot what it was like when she was drunk and excited.

 “Oh my fucking god, Ilyusha. Where and when.”

“It’s such short notice. You don’t have to come.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m coming. I told you when we were children. If you don’t marry me, I am going to wear white to your wedding. And I stand by it. I’m going to be the best, most beautiful wedding guest you have ever seen. Fuck, I need to bring a wedding gift. What do you want? A toaster oven? A blender?”

He imagines her there, at the courthouse in Ottawa wearing her sluttiest white dress and her tallest heels, a handle of vodka in one hand and a brand new blender in the other, and he laughs, despite himself. “It’s a courthouse wedding. Just bring yourself.” He thinks for a second. “And vodka. Please dear god bring me vodka. I only have terrible American shit here. I am dying.”

“The best fucking guest, Ilya. You wait and see.”

“Sveta,” he says, his voice thick. “Don’t be fucking stupid. You are my best man.”

“What about your friend Cliff?”

“ I haven’t called him yet. He probably has a game. But if he can come, he will be my maid of honor.”

“You’re terrible. I hate you.”

“You love me.”

A pause. “You know I do, right?”

Ilya doesn’t say anything.

“Ilya. Of course I love you. I love you so much. In fact, I’m a little offended you didn’t ask me for a green card marriage.”

He laughs, and rubs his wet, swollen, stupid eyes on his sleeve. “Don’t say that to Shane. He gets jealous.”

“Ah. You know, I had wondered who Jane was. In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious. Your jokes are terrible, and your crush was so obvious a spaceman could’ve seen it.”

“Svetlana.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

He hears the click of Sveta’s heels, the slam of a car door. “What the fuck are you thanking me for? I’m hanging up. I have to look through my closet and book a flight to fucking Ottawa.”

The jangle of Svetlana’s keys, then. The hard thump of her front door. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow? At the airport?”

“You will. Go the fuck to sleep. It’s so late, what the fuck are you doing up this late when you’re getting fucking married in the morning? If it’s cold feet, don’t worry, I’ll steal you back to Boston with me.”

“It’s not cold feet,” he says, honestly. “I just missed you, is all.”

“I will tell your husband you said that,” she says, and hangs up.

_____

He picks Svetlana up from the airport in Shane’s terrible, awful, practical car. She’s wearing some backless thing with a plunge so deep Ilya can see her navel. It’s white, because she promised, and he’d never admit it, but secretly, he must admit she is, indeed, much prettier than Shane. She is carrying a very large purse and a blender, still in the box. Her eyes are bloodshot, and she looks hungover. Ilya loves her more than he has words for.

“For your husband,” she grumbles, and shoves the blender into Ilya’s arms. “And I brought you clothes. I am not letting you get married in unwashed sweatpants.”

And, so. Ilya gets married in a pair of black jeans he left at Svetlana’s apartment three years ago, a plain black shirt that has seen better days, and his Adidas slides. Beside him, Shane wears a pair of slacks about six years out of fashion and a terribly thin linen button down, and his slides, too, because he didn’t want Ilya to feel embarrassed. On paper, it is a terrible wedding. It is a lot of waiting in line. The officiant looks bored out of her mind. They spend most of it filing paperwork. They don’t even have rings.

But Shane’s mama is there, wiping away her tears, and his papa is there crying right beside her, and Pike manages to keep his mouth shut for most of the day, and Rose kisses his cheeks like a proper Frenchwoman, and Svetlana lets out a terrifying whoop and pulls out a whole bottle of Ilya’s favorite vodka once the waiting and the signing of the paperwork is over. And just like that, he’s married. He pulls Shane into a dramatic kiss on the steps—dips him low and kisses him there as long as he can. Shane laughs, and squirms so fucking much that Ilya nearly drops him, and Ilya doesn’t care who fucking sees.

And for the first time in his life, Ilya can see the vague outline of the rest of his days stretching out before him: a vast, unbroken plain where the two of them tangle up together; he sees himself and Shane dancing around each other in the kitchen, sat with their feet pressed together on the couch, sated and lazy in a series of beds. And maybe Ilya was right all along. Maybe he doesn’t need anything else, when the rest of his days look as good as this.

_____

“So,” Shane says, breathless after Ilya had bent him in half and licked his asshole until he screamed and came hands-free. “What’s the best-case scenario here?”

Ilya stares up at the ceiling and pants. “My god,” he complains. “You’re relentless. Like a little dog with big fucking bone.”

“Come on,” Shane whines. “Answer the fucking question!”

“Okay, okay.” Ilya rolls on his side, and stares at the slope of Shane’s nose, the curve of his cheek. “Best-case scenario: everybody forgets what they saw, and we go back to what life was like two fucking weeks ago.”

Shane giggles, fucking giggles, and taps Ilya’s forehead with his finger. “You’re thinking too small.”

Ilya reaches out, and squishes Shane’s nose with his fingers. Shane swats at him, and Ilya catches his hand, so he can tangle their fingers together.

“Okay, fine, Mr. Big Thinker. You say the best-case scenario.”

“Well,” Shane says, and turns to look at Ilya. “we get like, a huge public apology from the tabloid that bought the fucking video. The editor-in-chief does one of those fake youtuber apology videos and cries on camera. The Metros grovel on their hands and knees begging me to come back, and I tell them to fuck off. I sign with a different team. Maybe, you know. I could sign with Ottawa, so we could play together. And I’d win the fucking cup three more times. Maybe four.”

“With me?”

“Well, I guess, since you’ll also be there.” Ilya pinches his side, and Shane flicks his nipple hard enough that Ilya yelps. “And you and I get at least ten more years of great fucking hockey, but we get to love each other out in the open for all of it. And, you know.” Shane looks down then, and plays with Ilya’s fingers. “Maybe, after we retire, we could adopt a kid or two. Maybe we could play in the beer league when we’re feeling nostalgic. And in the winter, when the lake freezes over, I can teach the kids how to skate and you can teach them how to do a great fucking slapshot, and we can take them ice fishing and shit, and we keep annoying the hell out of each other until the day we die.”

“Hollander,” Ilya whispers. “That is fairy tale.”

Shane shrugs. “Yeah. But I think you and I can manage most of it if we put our heads together.”

Ilya shuffles closer, so he can press his nose to Shane’s temple. “So,” he says. “You admit it, then. My slapshot is much better than yours.”

“Fuck off, it is not.”

Ilya kisses Shane’s eyebrow. “Is good idea, your best-case scenario. I think we should do that.”

“Yeah?”

Ilya leans in and licks a long stripe up Shane’s face. “Yes.”

“You’re so fucking gross,” Shane says, some dumb, fond look on his face. He slaps Ilya’s ass. The spark of pain goes right to his dick. “Come on, get up. We both need a shower, and you really need to brush your fucking teeth.”

And, so. Ilya brushes his teeth. He joins Shane in the shower. And from the moment he steps inside, it’s clear that Shane had some sort of plan. He’s already on his knees, when Ilya peels back the curtain, and makes grabby hands towards Ilya’s hips, because he’s fucking ridiculous, he is—

And Ilya goes, because he will always, always give Shane exactly what he wants. He watches, enraptured, as Shane pressed kisses to the crease of his thigh, the tip of his cock, the trail of hair below his navel. “Ilya Rozanov,” Shane murmurs. It’s nearly lost beneath the sound of the water. “My beautiful, talented husband, who is, of course, the second best hockey player in the league—”

“Best, I think you mean best—”

“Shut up, Ilya.” Shane bites the top of his thigh and sucks, hard. Fuck, Ilya hopes it will bruise, and he hopes the bruise lingers. “Will you.” A kiss to his balls. “Pretty please.” Shane’s tongue, licking up his cock. “Piss on my face.”

Ilya takes a half-step back, and bumps into the shower wall. “Shane…”

“It was so hot,” Shane whispers. He looks wretched, kneeling there all alone. “It was the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. And I don’t want to let some asshole with a camera ruin it. Please don’t let them ruin it.”

And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? That night, in the locker room, was a first for both of them. A beautiful thing that Ilya had loved, and wanted to do again before they were even done doing it. To have it tied to all that pain, and shame, and fear and anger and hate, well. It was a terrible thing. A terrible waste. It was, as Shane had said, an egregious violation.

And, most important of all, Shane wanted it, and Ilya could never deny him anything.

“Close your eyes,” Ilya says, low, and takes himself in hand.

Shane gasps, and his hand flies to his cock, and Ilya lets him wait just a little. Just long enough for him to worry he wouldn’t get what he wanted after all.

But, of course, Shane didn’t have to wait very long. Ilya pisses over his face, and Shane moans so loud that Ilya briefly, nonsensically, worries the neighbors will hear. And then, he arches his back, and his face tips up, and Ilya realizes, with a hysterical laugh, that this was the exact same position he’d taken the first time they’d done this. It was even more beautiful than the time before; watching his piss travel down the line of Shane’s nose, drip off his jaw, pour down his pretty little tits in little rivers that met and separated and met, again, as they came closer to his dick.

Shane came so quick Ilya barely got to savor the sight. He came with an open mouth and a bitten-off cry. Some piss got in his mouth, on his tongue, but he didn’t complain. He just waited, patiently, for Ilya to stop pissing, then hauled him in by the hips and sucked his cock to the root and swallowed, over and over, and, well. It didn’t take long for Ilya to come, with Shane doing that.

And Ilya falls to his knees again, same as before, and presses a deep, toe-curling kiss to Shane’s wonderful mouth. “How did it taste?” He asks, teasing, and brushes his thumb over Shane’s bottom lip.

“Fucking awful,” Shane bitches.

Ilya stands, and pulls Shane up with him, and maneuvers him under the shower spray. “Poor baby,” he says. “Was—was it still okay?”

“Ilya, baby,” Shane says. He kisses Ilya, then, fierce and quick. “It was incredible. It was fucking perfect.”

_____

Shane stares at the faces gathered on his tablet screen, and immediately wants to leave. It’s a lot of new people, organized into neat little boxes. A few of the names he recognizes. Farah, their new PR manager. Her assistant Mackenzie. His mom, who is also his agent, and Ilya’s agent—a gruff-looking man whose name Shane can never remember. Rounding out the rest of the faces are more PR consultants, a half-dozen lawyers with different specializations, and, inexplicably, the Centaurs’ social media manager.

It's a great group. Probably the best crisis management team he and Ilya could’ve possibly put together.

Beside him, Ilya squeezes his hand once, twice, and thumbs over the spot where Shane’s ring will sit, once they get around to buying one. He looks over at Ilya, and he nods, just once, all serious and stoic. Right. They’ve had their time on the bench. Time to go to fucking work.