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Ilya Rozanov doesn’t think he’s seen anything more beautiful than the view infront of him. He never really thought he would be having such… revelations during a game, but God was he wrong.
Shane Hollander has always been the most beautiful person in his eyes, and that isn’t a revelation in itself, but now, as Shane turns around to look at him, that sweet smile on his face, he feels like he’s being stabbed in the chest, like he’s experiencing something for the first time, what it really is? he doesn’t have a word for it.
He doesn’t realise it happens with how lost he is. One second, Shane is flashing a smile at him, and the next, he’s lying on the ice, unmoving.
He doesn’t even know how it happened, he hears screams, he hears someone fighting, it sounds like pike, but he doesn’t really know. he doesn’t know anything at that moment.
Shane is lying injured on the ice and it’s because of him.
Because he was smiling at Him.
He should’ve noticed Marlow.
He should’ve warned Shane.
He should’ve… just done something.
He should’ve.
He knows it isn’t his fault, he knows. But he doesn’t know who else to blame but himself. It’s always been like that with Ilya, he had learned to blame himself for everything. It came naturally to him, with his father and brother basically raising him like that his whole life.
So maybe, they’ve been right all along.
He doesn’t realise he’s moving forward until he’s standing next to the medics and Shane.
There’s blood on the ice, almost looking like art, he would’ve thought it was beautiful, Shane looked beautiful, he always does, even if he’s bloody and bruised. But none of this was beautiful.
He looks pale, his face and lips almost blue.
He looks… lifeless.
He gets rid of that thought before it even settles in properly. He watches the medics take care of Shane. He’s seen this happen so many times, he knows how to help players when the medics aren’t fast enough. Yet this time around, he doesn’t know what they’re doing. He feels floaty. Gone.
He hasn’t felt like this since… since he found his…
No.
But then he hears it, the medics talking to maybe the teams, the coaches, fuck, he doesn’t know who.
But he thinks the next words are being spoken directly to him, “We’re sorry.”
It’s merely 2 words, yet his stomach drops, and he feels like he’s being stabbed yet again. And in that moment, he wished he was actually getting stabbed. It would’ve been better than… this. Better than Shane being…
______
He doesn’t remember much about what happened after that. The coaches had told everyone to clear the ice and go back to their locker rooms. It was loud, the audience, the players, but he heard none of it.
His body had moved on autopilot after that, going back to the locker rooms, taking off his gear, and disappearing in the showers. His team gives him weird looks, but he doesn’t bother looking at any of them, He doesn’t bother looking at anyone or anything after he leaves the ice. His eyes stuck to the floor.
He feels like he can’t see the floor either, his eyes feel blurry. He’s not crying, no. He feels… numb.
He stands under the spray of water. The water is cold, and he doesn’t really care about turning it back to warm. He doesn’t think he can, even if he tries. His arms won’t move.
He changes in a daze, picks his things up, and goes where his feet take him. To his car.
His teammates call out to him, their coaches call out to him, but he doesn’t hear any of it, he doesn’t want to.
He’s calling Yuna Hollander before he knows it.
“Can i see him? Let me see him, please.” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth as soon as she picks up.
And she can probably hear the desperation in his breaking voice, with how quickly she agrees.
He gets sent the address and drives there as fast as he can. He doesn’t know if it’s a hospital or a… morgue? He doesn’t know english right now.
His feet carry him to the receptionist, then to where Shane is.
He sees Yuna and David staring down at the lifeless body of their son, his Shane. He moves forward, and he feels like he’s been hit by a brick, stabbed right in his heart, and shot everywhere all at the same time.
He looks so pale, yet so fucking beautiful. He always does, that fucking asshole.
And he’s so so beautiful that he can’t help but cry. Let his tears flow freely. The Hollanders don’t interrupt him, don’t ask why their son’s rival is crying like a baby. The whole room is quiet, except for the sound of Ilya’s soft sobs.
He eventually leans down, engulfs Shane’s cold hand in his own, and rest his head on his chest so he can look up at his face.
He stares, and stares, and stares. He knows he’s wetting the cloth covering Shane’s body, but he doesn’t care. How can he, when the love of his life is lying unmoving and cold infront of him, under his own body.
He remembers lying on Hollander’s chest sometimes, before he had to leave their arrangements. He remembers feeling his heart beating steadily under his cheek, making him feel sated. And he would pretend. pretend that they were more.
Now, as he lies on his chest and doesn’t hear that steady thumping, he thinks it’s the worst moment of this whole incident.
Because it’s Real.
Shane Hollander being dead is Real.
He starts whispering sweet nothings and hidden confessions without realising as he buries his face further into Shane’s chest.
He really wishes some miracle could happen right now, to feel that heartbeat come to life again.
But it doesn’t.
So he cries and mutters everything that comes to his mind.
”Ya tebya lyublyu. moya lyubov”
He knows Shane’s parents won’t understand russian, yet he still whispers like someone will hear him, will rip him away from his Shane. He wants to stay there forever, maybe go with him, but he knows he can’t, so he stays there a little longer until he can’t take it anymore.
He knows he looks pathetic, with his reddened face wet with tears, he knows he looks messy. But he can’t care about that right now as he turns around to look at Shane’s parents. “Thank you. So much” He says weakly, his voice barely coming out. They nod at him and David comes forward to pat him on the shoulder, and Ilya can’t help but lightly hug him, he doesn’t care that he’s never properly met David, that David doesn’t even know why he’s like this at his rival’s death. He just hopes they understand, hopes his silence somehow conveyed everything they needed to know.
He lets him go after a few seconds, nods at Yuna, and then leaves.
____
He’s in his room now. On his bed. Showered again, Clean, —safe.
It’s then that it all comes crashing down, again.
He’s gone.
Shane Hollander is gone.
Shane Hollander was smiling at him, and then he was gone.
He doesn’t register the warm tears leaving his eyes until they’re dripping down onto his lap. Gosh, why is there so much of it? He thinks he could create a pool of tears in his lap right now. First at the hospital, and now here.
Ilya had very few things he cherished in life. very few people he cherished. His mom, Svetlana, and then… Shane.
He feels like his tears are coming down harder than before, but he isn’t really sure. Fuck, He doesn’t know anything at all.
He had lost Irina, his beautiful Mama. He remembers Shane looking just as pale, just as lifeless as she had looked when he found her…
He remembers thinking then, how he never wants to see something, or someone look like that again.
And maybe the universe had heard him then, and promised to make him see that again. Like once wasn’t enough, taking his Mama from him, when he didn’t even properly know what being… dead was.
He never admitted it to anyone, probably not even to himself. But he loved Shane as much as he loved his Mama.
And now both of them were Dead. Gone.
He cries. He cries and cries, until he can’t anymore.
He’s so tired, He wants to curl up and sleep, preferably in someone’s lap, someone’s warm embrace.
Preferably in his Mama’s lap. preferably in his Shane’s embrace.
He closes his eyes, and he can almost feel the ghost of Shane’s fingers running through his hair. He pretends he’s there until he can’t.
Maybe it should’ve been him. He still has the chance, maybe that way, he can be with Shane again. He never believed in the afterlife, but now, he wants to, he really, strongly hopes it exists, so he can go and be free with people he loved the most.
It would be the most peaceful he would feel, a forever life with Irina and Shane. He can see both of them together, smiling, looking Oh So Beautiful, and the picture burns itself behind his closed lids.
Ilya goes in and out of consciousness, but he isn’t really asleep. Even when he’s unconscious, he sees Shane’s lifeless body, and his own body jerks him awake, fresh tears wetting his face.
And he feels determined, he has to Go too, he has to.
He’s never been one for sentiments, but he can’t live without Shane, his arch rival, his first in so many things, his first and only love, his… Everything.
Everything he had.
He regrets never telling Shane that he loved him, that he was the prettiest boy he had ever seen at the age of 18, with the most gorgeous eyes, nose, lips, smile, literally everything.
He can’t bear the fact that Shane Hollander left without knowing how intensely Ilya Rozanov loved him.
He would think of it sometimes, after Shane would leave his room after their nightly set-ups. How it would be to have a life with his Shane after they both retired, wake up next to eachother, be free together without a care in the world and maybe… get married. Have kids. Have Shane become his Husband.
Because Shane had always been his.
His Shane.
Ilya’s Shane.
And fuck does he want to rip his hair out, scratch his face, drown himself into a tub of ice cold water just so he can escape this… this reality.
And he wished it wasn’t his reality, he wished he didn’t curse everyone he loved so deeply. Because it had to be him. It had to be him who was bringing bad luck to everyone. He should do it. So he won’t curse anyone else anymore, and then, Then. He would be with Shane. With Mama.
If someone were to jump into his head right now, they would probably get annoyed by how much he keeps thinking about both of them, but it’s like his body is punishing him. He thinks he feels dead too. He probably is, but he knows he isn’t, because he doesn’t see them.
______
He knows he did something, he doesn’t feel like going into details, but he did it, and soon, he’ll see him again.
Shane Hollander, smiling back at him the same way he did for the last time ever, when he was alive.
Soon, he will be with his boy, so beautiful and so alive again.
The last thought he has before he goes unconscious for the last time that night is..
Soon, Ilya Rozanov will be with Irina Rozanov and Shane Hollander, and he will have nothing to worry about ever again.
In 2003, He had lost his Mama.
In 2017, He lost his Shane.
And in 2017, He loses himself.