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“I already chose you, Hollander.”
Ilya stepped back and watched Shane’s eyes widen. After a moment, Shane’s lips parted as if he had something to say, but Ilya didn’t want to hear it.
“Go home,” he said. “Please.” Then he turned and walked quickly upstairs.
The front door slammed behind Shane as he stormed away from the house, the festive bells on the door’s wreath jingling violently as he went. His fists were balled in his pockets, and he could see a cloud of his angry breath in the cold December air as he fiddled with his car keys numbly.
Part of Shane absolutely knew he should have stayed. Should have turned right around, marched back into the house, pounded up the stairs, and found Ilya so the two of them could work this whole thing out here and now. But another part of him was so incredibly hurt and frustrated that he was actually able to bury those better senses and peel off down the driveway, his Jeep’s engine revving.
White-knuckling his steering wheel, Shane heard himself repeating and muttering parts of his conversation with Ilya over and over again under his breath. He turned the radio up to drown himself out.
“I’ve given things up too,” he grumbled aloud. “Maybe not quite as many as him…” he admitted bitterly, “but it’s not like any of this has been easy on me either!”
The wounded look on Ilya’s face flashed through Shane’s mind, and he winced. Seeing that had been like a knife in his heart. He didn’t want to be sad and sympathetic right now, though. Shane just wanted to be allowed to feel angry for once and forced himself to push that memory aside.
Ilya asking Shane if he would choose him over Hockey had been completely uncalled for. And then to throw back in Shane’s face how much he’d given up for their relationship had been maddening. No one had forced him to do those things. Sure, Shane had suggested them, but… Well, that didn’t mean Ilya was made to do them or anything! He’d never given an ultimatum.
And the idea of Shane giving up hockey alone when it had always been the single most important thing in his life was just ludicrous. Ilya might be just as good at it (or nearly, at least), but he had been the one to transfer to the Centaurs and effectively give up his chances of winning more cups. The way he’d acted, the way he’d looked, it was as if he had been blaming Shane, and Shane couldn’t fucking stand it!
He hated this, too! What didn’t Ilya get about that? Didn’t he understand at all how hard it was for Shane to be apart from him so much? To lose out on getting to compete against him at the highest level, the way they used to? It had always been such a driving force between them that he could actually feel its absence whenever they were together now.
Shane hardly remembered most of his drive back to Montreal, but once he saw the signs for his usual off-ramp, he realized he had been ranting to himself and stewing in his own misery for the better part of two hours. A pit formed in his stomach.
This was so pathetic.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he flipped on his turn signal and began to merge into the exit lane.
He was being unfair. He knew that. But why was he still so angry?
Then, all at once, he figured it out.
He wasn’t mad that Ilya was mad. Shane was mad at himself because, deep down, he knew that, even without force or threat, Ilya had done everything he’d done, given up everything he’d given up, because he wanted to be with Shane. And, worst of all, Shane had let him. With no regard for the pain it was causing. Except, no, it was actually worse than that. Shane hadn’t just allowed his–he’d been completely unaware it was even happening at all.
His teeth bit his lip.
He might just be the worst and most selfish person on the planet.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
His eyes darted down, desperately searching his console for his phone. He needed to text Ilya. To apologize and to beg for forgiveness. Miserably, he wondered if Ilya would even answer a text from him after the fight they’d just had. Should he just turn around?
Perhaps not texting was the more generous choice.
He probably needed a break.
Maybe Ilya would have been better off if he and Shane had never even met at all.
Shane’s stomach sank, and hot tears welled in his eyes. By the time Shane managed to look up and focus back on the road, all he could see was a set of bright, blinding white headlights coming straight at him.
A scream caught in his throat, and a dizzying surge of adrenaline took over as Shane yanked his steering wheel and felt his car temporarily go off-road as he cut across the low median between the two parallel freeway ramps.
At that moment, he forced his car into the other lane and, in more ways than he understood, began to accelerate down a completely different path.
His heart pounded in his chest as his soul slowly returned to his body.
“F-Fuck…” He panted.
One second of misplaced attention and he’d nearly died. The mortality of this near-miss was not lost on Shane. He could feel his heavy pulse in every inch of his palms clenched tightly against his steering wheel.
Once down the ramp, he moved his car onto a slower side street and pulled it smoothly into the first open spot he could find. His breath was still trying to catch up with him.
Immediately, he knew, despite everything, he needed to talk to Ilya. The call was being placed before Shane had even begun to think about what he might say.
Possibly as he should have expected, the call just rang, and Ilya didn't answer him.
Of course, he wouldn’t want to talk, Shane thought. He’d just had a near-death experience, but Ilya had just had one of the worst fights of their entire relationship. Shane knew he should have expected this, but it did still manage to sting.
Maybe he had gone to sleep? Ilya had seemed more tired than usual these days. Things must have been wearing on him more than Shane had been acknowledging. He hated himself for not seeing what had been right in front of him all along. Even so, Shane hated to dwell and did everything he could to keep moving forward.
A good night's sleep of his own might at least put him in a better place to have the conversation he knew he and Ilya would need to have anyway. So, he pulled out of his safe parking spot and started down the city streets towards his apartment building.
Once he arrived, however, it was strange. His key fob wasn’t working to open the carport. He tried it once, twice, thrice, and every time, a little bleeping red light as if the computer had never seen his key before and didn’t recognize him at all.
“Great,” he spat, knowing he’d need to call a locksmith in the morning since there were surely none awake and responsive at this time of night. What luck he had.
He tried Ilya again while stalled in the drive and, still, nothing.
Sighing, he circled his block, found another street spot, and made his way back to his building on foot. Except, again, his key failed to open the door. It stuck, caught, and refused to turn in the lock.
“What’cha up to there, bud?” A voice behind him asked a bit drunkenly.
Shane turned and saw a man in a Montreal Voyageur’s jersey stumbling drunkenly behind him.
“Just, um, having a bit of key trouble,” he said as immemorably as he could, trying to keep his face out of sight.
Based on the colors this man was sporting, he’d surely recognize Shane any second, and the last thing Shane wanted in this moment was to be remembered as the Voyageur’s captain who got locked out of his own apartment by a well-imbibed fan who was sure to post about this embarrassing run-in on social media for bragging rights as soon as he stumbled away.
“I bet,” the man laughed, slanted. “That building’s been vacant for years. I doubt there’s a key out there that would work for it.”
Shane faked a smile. He’d lived here for years and owned the entire building. Clearly, this man was even drunker than he appeared.
“You sure you’re not trying to break in?” the man asked, stumbling a bit.
“I’m sure,” Shane answered, just so the man wouldn’t feel the need to alert police and turn this into a bigger embarrassment than it already was on a night like this.
Shrugging, the man walked along, tugging at his hockey jersey awkwardly without an apparent thought in the world about how he’d just spoken with the most famous player to ever come from the team he supposedly supported. Weird, Shane thought, but ultimately, a situation that was probably for the best, too.
Exhausted, Shane made his way back into his car and locked the doors. This sucked, but he might just need to wait things out in her a while, at least until the rest of the city started waking up.
He kept the heat on for a while but gave his car engine breaks in between bursts to preserve his gas and lower any risks of carbon monoxide poisoning. Shane was pretty sure he’d read something about doing that in a safety manual once before. It didn’t keep his ass from nearly freezing in the frigid Canadian winter a few times over the next few hours, though.
Even so, eventually, the sun came into view, and the time displayed on Shane’s phone started to become one where reasonable people were likely to be awake and alert.
He tried his usual locksmith and got a puzzling reply.
“What address?” the man had asked.
Shane repeated it, and the man gave a snarky nonverbal response.
“That building’s been condemned,” he spat at Shane. “No one would buy it, so they’re knocking it down to put in some kind of parking lot.”
Shane was relatively sure that, as this building’s legal owner, he would have been notified if such a thing were happening, and was left a bit stunned at this.
After arguing a bit, however, the man became irritated with Shane and disconnected the call.
His teeth were on edge now. After a night of arguing with his boyfriend, nearly dying in a car accident, and sleeping in his car, Shane Hollander was not in the mood for any more nonsense like this.
He dialed his mother. She would know what to do in a moment like this.
It rang longer than expected and, eventually, went to voicemail.
Shane huffed a breath and tried again. His mother was an early riser and had no reason to be dodging his calls the way Ilya might. Also, she rarely failed to pick up his calls, so this addition to the striking trend developing around him was beginning to set Shane’s nerves on edge.
By the near-end of his second call, the line clicked open, and his mom’s voice answered.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“It’s me,” Shane said exasperatedly. “I’m locked out of my building and don’t know what to do.”
“Who?”
“Me? Shane? Your son?” What was going on lately?
There was a moment of silence.
“That’s not funny,” she said, her voice sounding strange. “Who is this, really?”
“Shane,” he repeated. “Your son!”
There was a click on the other end, and the call ended.
Shane’s own mother had just hung up on him, he realized.
He called back immediately and, this time, she answered on the first ring.
“You need to stop calling and leave us alone,” she said fiercely. “Harassment is a crime. I could go to the police.”
Police?
“Mom, that’s not funny. I really need your help.”
Again, there was an uncomfortable pause, and Shane almost could have sworn he heard a guttural choking sound on the other line.
“No, this isn’t funny,” she agreed, a tremble in her voice. “My husband and I couldn’t have any kids. We lost all of them before they were born. I don’t have a son. This is a cruel kind of prank, whoever you are.”
His next words stuck in Shane’s throat. What was she talking about?
“Mom, I don’t–”
“Stop it!” She demanded.
“This is Shane,” he reiterated as clearly as he could.
How were they miscommunicating about this right now? He looked down at his phone to be sure he’d dialed the right number, but this only confirmed that he definitely had when he did, even though he’d already known this by the sound of her voice. A boy could never forget the sound of his mother’s voice.
“H-How do you even know that name?” His mother’s voice asked painfully.
“Because it’s mine!”
“I-It can’t be,” she told him intolerably. “That was the name we were going to give our baby… before he died.”
Shane paused.
What?
“Please, just leave us alone,” she begged. “Whoever put you up to this, it isn’t funny. We lost our son, and you are definitely not him.”
But, he was?
“I-”
The call disconnected again. This time, Shane was too stunned to try to redial.
What the fuck was going on?
First, his keys didn't work. Then, a supposed fan of his own team somehow didn’t recognize him in his own city. And, finally, his own mother was apparently shocked and appalled by his mere existence.
He hopelessly tried Ilya’s phone again but still could not get through.
Something Shane never did was look himself up online, but things were progressing quickly to a point of delusion for him, where he felt like he needed to, or he might explode.
Shane Hollander, he typed.
Some results about obituaries for men in their eighties and one about a science teacher at a middle school popped up, but none for Shane Hollander, the hockey player.
He didn’t usually like to toot his own horn that much, but in Montreal at least, Shane Hollander was a big fucking name. People knew him here. He had a Wikipedia page.
Except, apparently, he didn't anymore.
His brow furrowed. He felt like he was dreaming. Although this seemed to be much more of a nightmare than a dream.
Despairing, he tried Ilya one more time.
No answer again.
His grip around his phone turned to stone, and every muscle in his body tensed. What was going on?
A knock on his car’s window shook him out of his stupor, and Shane saw a uniformed traffic officer standing there with a stern look on his face.
“You can’t park here,” the man told him strictly. “Move your car, or you’ll get a ticket.”
It was pathetic, but Shane rolled his window down and said, “Sorry, this might sound strange, but do you recognize me by any chance?”
The officer raised an eyebrow. “Can’t say I do. Should I?”
“Do you watch hockey at all?”
“I’m Canadian,” the man said as if that explained everything, which it kind of did.
“I’m Shane Hollander,” Shane said, waiting for a reaction that never came. He felt like such a jackass at this moment. Was he just not as famous as he’d thought, or was something actually wrong here? “I’m the captain for the Montreal Voyageurs.”
The cop made a face.
“Jean-Jaques Boiziau is the captain of the Voyageurs,” the man told Shane. “I wasn’t born yesterday, kid.”
“J.J.?” Shane sputtered. “No, that’s not right.”
“I know they’re not exactly a winning team these days, but I think I know who my hometown team captain is,” the man said, minutely offended.
“They’re not winning?” This might have been the most horrifying fact of Shane’s morning.
“Not in decades,” the cop sighed. “Where have you been?” Then, he squinted and leaned in. “Say, you’re not like, on something, are you?”
Shane’s face reddened indignantly at the accusation.
“No, I am not,” he said before adding, “I-I, I guess I’m just… having a weird day.”
The man pursed his lips like this was an understatement before he told Shane to be sure he moved his car before he came back around on his next lap of the block, or else. Obediently, Shane did, but he scarcely knew where to go if his home wasn’t his and his own mother didn’t seem to know him.
A horrible part of him wondered if this was how Ilya had felt after his mother died and his father began to develop Alzheimer’s.
At exactly this moment, a thought occurred to Shane. Even in a world where his own mother didn’t recognize him, surely, Ilya Rozanov somehow would. Right?
Out of pure despondency, Shane started to plug Ilya’s address into his GPS. When it refused to accept it as a valid address, Shane felt the last bits of his sanity crumbling away.
He slammed his hands against his car’s dashboard. “Damnit!”
What the fuck was going on?
This was completely insane. Nothing made sense all of a sudden, and Shane couldn’t understand why. And no explanation he attempted to conjure could explain why Ilya wouldn’t answer his calls after so many failed attempts. Even an angry, petty Ilya would have placated him with a text at least to be sure nothing was wrong, no matter how big of a fight they were having.
Hesitantly, Shane began to type in Ilya’s name on his phone the same way he had done his own. He pressed enter to search and, for a moment, he felt relief when images and links began to populate–proving that Ilya Rozanov was exactly as real as Shane remembered–except, all of that faded away when Shane’s eyes focused in on the actual words on the headlines before him and froze.
“Ilya Rozanov, Captain of Boston Bears, Dead at 27,” read one from some time back.
“Boston Grieves the Loss of a Beloved Hockey Captain,” reads another. “Is Now the Time to Finally Talk About Mental Health in Sports?”
Shane’s mouth dries, and his heart sinks.
What?
He scrolls, hands trembling.
“A Tribute to Boston’s Hockey Superstar on the Anniversary of His Tragic Suicide,” read the latest and final one that Shane could stomach before he had to throw his phone aside and vomit out the door of his stalled car into a snow-laden storm drain.
His breathing became erratic, and Shane had to wrap his arms tightly around his middle to keep from completely falling apart.
Thoughts of Shane’s own Ilya confessing the truth about his mother’s suicide during their first weeks at his cottage roared to life in Shane’s mind, and tears began to well up.
“I don’t want you to think she was weak,” he had said. “She was so funny and beautiful. She was so sad. And my father was so hard on her.”
A part of Shane had always wondered if Ilya had been talking, even a little, about himself when he had described his mother in this way. He, too, was so funny and beautiful after all. And when Shane thought of it, so many moments that he had tossed aside and ignored at the time of Ilya seeming low and unlike himself flooded back to him now, different from the way they had seemed back then, and made it clear that, just like his mother, Ilya had also often been ‘so sad’.
The miserable expression on his face when he’d asked Shane to leave on Boxing Day made a return trip through Shane’s mind. Fingernails dug into Shane’s skin as he tried to ground himself through this newfound grief.
It didn’t make any sense, but Shane found himself back on the road and racing toward Boston just as soon as he caught his breath. He knew it wouldn’t change anything; if those articles were to be believed, Ilya wasn’t there anymore, but it was the last place he’d been and, right now, that was close enough.
Along the way, he had time to think. It was his first real chance to do so since realizing that something was wrong around him. At first, he had thought that the weirdness was just limited to him. That, for some reason or another, he seemed to have disappeared out of his own life, but now, with what his mother had told him and what had apparently happened to Ilya, it occurred to Shane that things were much stranger than they had even initially seemed.
He wasn’t just forgotten. It was as if he’d never existed at all–never even been born.
It was impossible, obviously, and yet there was no other explanation.
But, even so, how did such a small change on a cosmic scale alter things so horrendously that Ilya had wound up taking his own life? Even just thinking those words in his mind made Shane’s heart and body ache. He still didn’t believe it; he couldn’t.
Hours passed, the U.S. border passed, and eventually, angry Bostonians stuck in evening rush hour started to pass by as well.
Shane didn’t really know the city of Boston. He was unfamiliar with the roads, having only been bused down them to and from games in the past. He’d been getting used to visiting Ilya in Ottawa more than anything these days, so going back to his old stomping grounds was strange in more ways than one. Although, the fact that Ilya had apparently never transferred to the Centaurs was currently pretty fucking low on Shane’s list of weird and inexplicable shit going on.
He nearly turned down a one-way street more than once on his way to the Bears’ arena but finally managed to navigate himself where he wanted to be.
The doors were locked. The team didn’t have a game scheduled tonight, so there was no good way in for a member of the general public. Captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, Shane Hollander, probably could have talked and influenced his way inside, but here, now, no one even looked at him twice, much less offered to help.
Considering Shane had never fully developed any type of plan for what he might have done once he got inside, this wasn’t the end of his world, but it did force him to confront exactly how hopeless and lost he was now feeling. What was he even supposed to do now? How was he ever supposed to move on? Was he expected to just start some new kind of life when no one on earth knew him, and the one person whom he couldn’t live without had apparently felt the exact same way? Could he even begin to learn to accept that everything in his life had just up and disappeared without reason?
Thankfully for Shane, he’d always been good at compartmentalizing and stomped his worries down until they could only nag him, but not drown him completely.
Mindlessly, Shane began circling the building until he spotted a small, derelict collection of pictures and weather-worn stuffed animals gathered together by one of the building’s side entrances. It was a shrine of sorts, a memorial, and it was clearly in remembrance of Ilya.
The picture at the front showed Ilya hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head proudly.
His hair looked shorter than Shane remembered it being back then.
Shane remembered that day. He’d been watching from Hayden’s place and had felt a dizzying mix of emotions. Now, he felt only heartbreak.
“You still won the cup,” Shane said out loud, proud but puzzled.
Their rivalry had always driven both of them to play better, be better. But Ilya had apparently managed to win against the best of them, even without the added competition. It was confusing. Had Ilya needed him in the end or not? It was hard not to look at all the success and think Shane had not been so important after all. And yet, if that were true, wouldn’t he still be here right now? Or was Shane just being egotistical and imagining his role in everything was so much larger than it really was?
“Why did you do what you did?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question for years,” a deep voice said from behind Shane.
Jumping a bit at the unexpected presence, Shane turned to look and saw Cliff Marlow standing behind him, a gym bag over his shoulder–a sign he was just leaving some sort of practice inside the stadium.
“Oh,” he mumbled. “Sorry, I was just…”
“It’s a question that will eat you alive if you let it,” Marlow told him knowingly. “Why would a guy who had everything, who was at the absolute top of his game, just end it all without a word of warning on the night of his Stanley Cup victory? Why choose a mouthful of pills when he could have had all the money, fame, success, and women he ever could have asked for instead? Absolute insanity.”
Shane’s mouth felt dry.
So that was how it had happened…
“And Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” Shane quoted absently without meaning to speak aloud.
He felt an emptiness inside that seemed almost as if it could have come from Ilya himself. On that night, he had won the pinnacle of achievements for a professional hockey player. It should have been a victory, a celebration, but to Ilya, who was always looking ahead to his next competition, it must have felt like the end of the world. Like all his dreams had already been accomplished, and there was nothing left to look forward to.
In the life that Shane knew, he had followed up Ilya’s win with two consecutive cups of his own. It had pissed his boyfriend off so bad, but it had also inspired him to keep playing harder.
But here…
“Is that, like, Shakespeare or some shit?” Marlow asked.
Shane was almost impressed that he knew enough about Shakespeare to even hazard that guess. He’d never seemed the type.
“Hell if I know,” Shane admitted. “I think I heard it from Die Hard.”
Ilya had made him watch it one night and then started an argument about whether or not it counted as a Christmas movie. Shane had said no, and, just to be a contrarian, Ilya had insisted it did.
Marlow snorted and then looked at Shane a bit more seriously.
For just a second, Shane wondered (hoped) if he recognized him, but instead, it started to become clear that he was just noticing the devastated look on Shane’s face and the wet streaks still running down his cheeks. His reaction couldn’t possibly be anything other than personal.
“Did you, like, know Rozanov or something?”
Shane sniffed and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t know how to answer that.
Marlow must have looked conflicted about it too because his voice softened and then he asked carefully, “Were you and him like…?”
The sentence remained unfinished, but the expectant look on the forward’s face completed it as much as either of them was willing to.
“Um…”
“S-Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that,” Cliff rushed to say, turning away a bit to save Shane any further embarrassment, his answer essentially received. “It’s just… this memorial has been here since it happened, and most people have forgotten about it by now. The few people who still stop by these days tend to just be old fans or people wanting to take photos for their social media. You don’t seem like either.”
“I’m not.”
A nod. “I don’t mean to pry, it’s just… Not many people knew Roz the way I did.”
Shane’s eyebrow went up. Was it possible that, without Shane in the picture, Ilya and Marlow had…?
His thoughts must have transcended the silence because Cliff’s face went red. It was a funny look on someone as imposing as him.
“Not like that, though,” he promised. “I did know about him, though. Obviously. Not many did.”
“Oh,” Shane started going red, too. “You mean that he…?”
“Was more than just a ladies' man,” Cliff confirmed.
Shane stifled a desolate chuckle at this description. Ilya probably would have liked it.
“I-It’s complicated,” Shane told him.
Marlow blew out an exasperated breath and nodded. “I’m sure, but I-” he stopped himself, glanced at Shane, and then looked away again quickly. “I’m glad he did have someone. If that’s what you’re getting at, I mean! Towards the end, he’d seemed lonely, hopeless, at least as much as someone like him could be. The jokes weren’t as sharp, and the insults weren’t as biting, you know?”
Shane didn’t have to imagine it. He’d seen Ilya on days, even weeks, like that too. Is this what that was?
“After his dad died, his mooch brother practically ate him alive,” Marlow grumbled. “Drained out everything he had to give–money, time, his will to live, maybe. Never understood why he never cut that cord and moved on. Fucking leech.”
“Family is complicated.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Still, knowing he wasn’t totally alone and just self-medicating with meaningless sex to cope makes me feel a little better.”
Shane’s eyes fell.
This version of Ilya hadn’t known him at all. Coping and self-medicating were exactly what he must have been doing. And it clearly hadn’t been working.
“It ran in his family,” Shane said. “Depression and stuff. His mom died the same way. This wasn’t anyone's fault, you know?”
Marlow looked over at him, surprised. “I didn’t know that, actually.”
He sounded relieved in a conflicted kind of way. A weight was lifted at the same time a new one was added on.
“Do you know if he was seeing anyone else?” It sounded like a question a mourning and jealous lover might ask, which it sort of was, but, really, Shane was just wondering how alone Ilya had actually been at the end without him. “You seemed to know… about him, after all.”
“I’m sure you know he had that fiancée for a time, Svetlana,” Cliff recalled. “I still don’t know exactly why he called that off, but he was never quite the same afterward. It was always kind of like he was looking for something specific but didn't know what. No one was serious other than her, though.”
A shaky breath left Shane’s lips.
“I hope this isn’t inappropriate to ask,” Cliff then prompted. “But, were you that something specific by any chance?”
A beat.
“I don’t know,” Shane whispered. “But… I wish I could have been.”
His heart was in agony.
Sure, Ilya played like a demon on ice and taunted and ridiculed other players, coaches, and refs with the best of them. But, at the same time, Shane knew his soft side and how deeply he felt every emotion. The idea of him all alone and struggling threatened to break Shane in two.
“D-Do you have a picture of him to keep?” Cliff wondered, his tone suggesting an offer as he held out his phone, as if what was on it might be a gift.
Displayed was a group selfie of the Bears’ locker room just after the championship award ceremony. Confetti was still littering the floor, and the mist of champagne was still damp against the locker doors. Ilya sat in the middle of the room with the rest of the team surrounding him and patting his shoulders victoriously; his mouth formed a smile, but his eyes looked empty, a million miles away.
“I kind of hate this picture,” Marlow admitted. “I look at it now, and it's so painfully obvious that something is wrong, but… at the same time, it’s literally the last picture anyone has of him, and that’s kind of important too, isn’t it?”
Ilya Rozanov had always been a beautiful specimen of sculpted athletic muscle, tanned skin, and golden curls. But in this last picture of him, he looked paler, duller, and thinner than Shane had ever seen. It was hard not wonder if he’d already made his decision in this picture or if he was still thinking it over. Either way, something was happening inside his head, and it was clearly a losing battle.
Shane nodded. “Yeah, but, um, you keep that one,” he said solemnly. “I have others.”
He understood and agreed with what Marlow was trying to do here, but immediately, he hated that picture and never wanted to see it again.
“For sure,” Marlow cleared his throat apologetically. “Sorry about that.”
“Did… anyone else on the team know about him?” Shane wondered, looking down at his feet.
“No one else knew,” Cliff answered, emphasizing that only he had been sure, but certainly implying that it was entirely possible others could have guessed. “He did always have a carelessness about him when it came to that sort of thing, though. Never anything so outrageous that we clueless Americans couldn’t attribute at least most of it to him just being a strange European or whatever, thankfully.” He chuckled at this. “But, sometimes I think he was secretly desperate for other people to know, to guess, even though he knew what it would mean for him. He was always dropping hints and he never lied about anything, but no one ever took him seriously enough to believe it.”
“Thank you for being a friend to him,” Shane sniffled, trying to keep his voice from breaking.
“W-Will we be seeing you around here at all? I could leave you tickets for our next game or something, as a tribute. I think Ilya probably would have wanted that.”
Shane shook his head. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do next, but, um, thank you for talking to me. And, thank you for being there for him when you could. Not everyone would have.”
Marlow nodded at him as though they were brothers in arms now. “Same to you…?”
He trailed off, waiting for Shane to supply his name.
Under no other circumstance had Shane ever admitted anything even close to this out loud, but he imagined that, if there was one even just singular advantage to having never been born, it was surely that he didn’t need to hide just to preserve his reputation.
“Shane, Shane Hollander,” he said, reaching out a hand and shaking Marlow’s. “And, you know, to be clear about it: I’m completely in love with Ilya Rozanov, and he is completely in love with me. We’re ridiculously in love with each other.”
He made sure to leave no room for doubt about it because that was exactly how he felt and exactly how he was sure Ilya felt as well.
The feeling of finally just saying it out loud was euphoric. Shane had always imagined saying something like this for the first time and being terrified, but he wasn’t scared at all. In fact, professing his love had made him the strongest and most assured he’d ever been.
Marlow’s face relaxed. If he noticed the use of the present tense, he didn’t indicate it in the slightest. He just looked happy at this moment, and like Shane had just agreed to share his burden.
“I’ll see you around then, I guess,” Marlow said, hiking his bag over his shoulder and walking away.
Shane looked down one last time at the dilapidated mass of tributes at his feet. He picked up one of the pictures anchored against a stuffed brown bear and met Ilya’s eyes through the image. It was an early shot from the sports section of a newspaper, taken the day of the NHL draft. Ilya stood posing with his brand new Boston jersey in hand and a single finger standing up on his right hand, separating him out as the number one draft pick in the league.
Shane remembered that day. Ilya had been so giddy and had enjoyed egging on all of the other new recruits–Shane included. It had really set the tone for what the next decade or so of play with him was going to be like from day one. But in this depiction, his playful, teasing smile was absent, and the figure of his stern father could just be barely seen behind him, watching with an eerie post-Soviet disapproval.
His father had always been against his coming to play in the North American leagues. But Ilya had always dreamed of it, to escape his father’s heavy hands and weightier expectations. Shane hoped, at least for a while, this version of Ilya had still found some semblance of what he’d gone searching for, even if it hadn’t been enough for him in the end.
He set the picture back down and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he dragged his feet back to his car.
Shane had no real plans from here. He had no home or life to return to either. Did he really have to start completely over from scratch now, somehow too?
He sighed and stuck his key in the ignition, and then blindly began driving north.
The sun was down by the time Shane hit I-93, and the world around him was pitch-black by the time he crossed over the border for the second time that day.
His body and mind were exhausted, and he seemed to be fresh out of tears by the way his reddened eyes stung but refused to wet every time he remembered what all he had been through in the last 24 hours. The radio had been on for a bit, but every song and every station was just too much for Shane to handle.
He ultimately decided it was best to finish his drive in silence, but after a few more hours of the quiet hum of his engine and the passing of other cars, his decision backfired, and the silence started becoming more peaceful than Shane had expected. More than once, he caught himself nearly nodding off behind the wheel.
Part of him knew he needed to pull over or find somewhere along the way to stop for the night, but another part of him felt like he deserved to be punished and demanded that he keep pushing through. There was still no real end goal for him here other than returning to Montreal and coming up with some sort of other plan once he got there but, even so, sitting still and making no progress at all felt like death itself to someone like him. He felt like a shark in this moment, needing to keep moving at all times before everything behind him caught up and ended him for good.
He hit a dark and peaceful patch of road not far from the city. It was late enough that there was little traffic around him, and danger felt inconsequential. He allowed his eyes to shut for just a second, to rest them more than to sleep, but collapsed into oblivion faster than expected.
It was nice until it wasn’t.
A car horn blared, and Shane’s eyes shot open. For the second fucking time in so many hours, Shane was confronted with blinding LED lights searing into his retinas, and he was forced to wrench his steering wheel to the side, narrowly missing another head-on collision.
A string of French expletives could be heard being shouted out of the other car’s driver’s side window as Shane skirted by. He deserved each and every last one of them, too.
“Fuck!” He screamed, finding just enough moisture left in his body for a single, depleted tear to slide down his face.
He was so tired.
He was so angry.
He didn’t want to do this anymore.
A terrible thought wormed its way into his sleep-deprived brain, and Shane nearly allowed it to stay. He would never forgive himself if he did the thing he was thinking about, but even so, the fact that such a thought could come from within him at all was terrifying in its sickening appeal.
Shane would probably never know for certain that his absence was the final straw that had allowed Ilya to take his life, but he was starting to become scarily certain that a life without Ilya was not one he would want to live either.
His thoughts were becoming so dark and depressing that Shane knew he needed to get off the freeway and began to exit towards the first rest stop he found.
Just as he was decelerating, his cellphone lit up with a call coming in, and piloted by fatigued muscle memory alone, Shane answered it and cried out, “What!?”
“Shane?” His mother’s voice asked carefully.
He slammed his brakes so hard he could hear the rubber screaming against the asphalt.
“Mom!?”
“Yes, sweetie,” she soothed. “Is everything alright? I was just calling because I forgot to send Ilya the link to your father’s chicken parmesan recipe, like I promised, but I wanted to confirm his email first.”
Shane’s heart pounded against his ribs. His head was reeling as if he’d just stumbled off a malfunctioning carnival ride.
“S-So you remember me?”
“Remember you? Shane, you’re my son. It wasn’t easy getting you here, so it would be pretty hard to forget.” She answered calmly but carefully. “Are you doing okay? You sound a bit strange.”
A flood of endorphins hit Shane’s blood, and his tense muscles relaxed for the first time in longer than he cared to admit.
She remembered him.
He’d been born.
Whatever had happened had switched back, and Shane was finally himself again!
“I-I, yeah, um, sorry,” he panted. “I’ve just been having kind of a weird day.”
That phrase in his vocabulary was getting worn the fuck out today.
“Is everything alright? Do you need to talk about it?”
“No, no,” he assured her until he realized that he did absolutely need to be talking to someone right this second; however, that person was not his mother. “I do need to go, though, actually. I need to talk to Ilya. W-We got in a fight, and it was all my fault, and I need to apologize.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t all your fault,” she said mildly. She was his mother, after all. “But I’m proud of you for how it sounds like you’re handling this. I won’t ask what happened if you don’t want to talk about it, but you and Ilya impress me every day with the way you put each other first and work through your problems together. I really am so happy to have him as my other son.”
Shane wanted to melt.
“I really haven’t been putting him first, lately,” Shane admitted shakily. “But I’m going to from here on out, I swear.”
A pause and then his mother’s voice answered with an audible smile on her face, “I’m glad to hear it, baby. Let me know how it goes, and good luck! Love you lots. Call me later!”
He hung up, and Shane was dialing Ilya’s number as fast as he could. Just like every other time he tried to do this exactly same thing, though, it rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail.
Shane’s mom had remembered him, but was it possible that this was the only thing to switch back? What if Ilya still didn’t? Or, worse, what if Shane had changed things back but was too late doing so? They’d been in a big fight before, and Ilya had looked so despondent. What if this had pushed him to do exactly what he had in that other life, and he had taken his life for real tonight?
Shane’s heart leapt into his throat so quickly he thought he might choke.
His car was back in gear, and the gas pedal was to the floor as Shane raced back to the house.
Most of the lights were off when Shane pulled in, but he could see one dim lamp lit up in the bedroom.
He fiddled with his key and unlocked the door. Thank god he still had it on him, and that hadn’t changed at least.
“Ilya!” he shouted as he forced his way in. “Ilya!!”
He padded up the stairs and began to be able to hear the water running in the primary bathroom. A thousand nightmare scenarios began circling through his mind like a twisted picture carousel.
He nearly broke the door, shoving it open, and was greeted at first by an opaque wall of shower steam and, eventually, the form of Ilya’s broad, bare shoulders jumping back, startled.
“What the fuck!” he shouted, nearly slipping and wiping out on the wet tile at the shock. His eyes flashed angrily. “Don’t scare me like that. I could have died!”
If he’d had any tears left to cry they’d have all come out then and there. Even without them, though, Shane’s face crumbled, and he ran forward.
Ilya’s eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen, and he tried to shut off the water stream from the showerhead, but Shane was faster and enveloped him before he could. His skin was so hot. Shane could feel the sturdy build of his living body between his arms and the steady, but admittedly elevated, pace of his heart beating inside him.
He was alive.
He was alive, and he had said Shane’s name, so he still remembered who he was.
It was more than he had thought he could hope for.
“Stop this. You will get wet!” Ilya protested, but Shane couldn't have possibly given fewer fucks.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” he breathed, squeezing tighter with every second.
Ilya sighed. “It was just a fight, Hollander,” he rolled his eyes, completely unaware of the hell that Shane’s life had become since they’d last seen each other. “Not the end of the world.”
“It felt like it was,” Shane argued.
Ilya’s body softened slightly.
“Okay,” he relented, freeing one of his arms and shutting off the water. Shane was completely soaked already, clothes and all, but it was still the furthest thing from his mind. “Do you think we should talk now, then?”
“No,” Shane shook his head. “After.”
He grabbed Ilya's face and pressed his lips against his boyfriend’s as hard as he could. Everything about him in this moment, from the heat radiating off of him to the smell of his freshly cleaned skin, put Shane at ease but also turned him on like nothing else could.
Ilya’s hands clasped hard, first against his back and then trailed their way forward to begin unzipping Shane’s wet jacket. His shirt was next, and eventually those talented russian fingers made quick work of his belt and pants as well.
And thank god for that.
Ilya was already stripped naked from his shower, so there was little for Shane to do there, but his hands still found their way through his wet hair, where Shane grabbed a possessive fist full of dripping curls.
Shane kicked his own clothes aside as Ilya grabbed him and flipped him, tracing his hand along his side as he did before planting firm kisses up from his shoulder to his ear, where Shane could feel his lips and teeth grab a soft but greedy bite of the lobe. He couldn’t help but moan.
“I missed you,” he said tearfully.
“It has only been a few hours,” Ilya told him, sliding one of his arms under Shane’s and up and over his bare chest like the protective belt on a roller coaster. Shane felt sure this was a warning of the ride that was soon to come.
“Too long,” Shane told him. “I missed you. I love you. I was wrong.”
He felt Ilya’s head shake as he rolled his face from side to side against his neck, the damp stubble brushing against his skin as he went.
“It was not just you,” he murmured. “And I love you too, but now I agree. We will talk after. Not now. Right now, I want to fuck you. Is okay?”
Shane nodded. “Absolutely.”
He’d never wanted anything more.
The arm around Shane’s chest tightened its grip and anchored onto his shoulder. Ilya’s other arm pressed firmly against the shower wall for support as he pressed himself up against Shane’s back with only the steam between them.
Shane could feel the pulsing of his hard cock against his back and wove his fingers between Ilya’s against his skin. Then he allowed Ilya to muscle him forward so that his face was pressed against the shower wall as he took him from behind. It had always been incredible how quickly pleasure exploded through Shane’s body when he was with Ilya. This was no exception.
It was almost immediate, and it was amazing.
“Harder,” Shane whispered. And Ilya obeyed him, thrusting with even more force and speed. “F-Fuck,” Shane breathed. “I-I’m close.”
He’d wanted this to go on longer, maybe forever, but his body had other ideas.
Ilya’s rhythm slowed teasingly, but the softer, more intentional movements were heaven itself and made Shane’s body seize and relish every moment. The arm across his chest slid down and brushed long and smooth against his clenched stomach until it grabbed hold of his hip and squeezed the two of their pelvises together, closer.
“Ilya…”
It was officially too much, and Shane came fast and hard. The sound that escaped his mouth was less than polite, but he could feel Ilya’s face twist into a pleased grin over his shoulder.
“A-Are you?”
“Almost,” Ilya agreed stiffly.
Shane reached back and grabbed a hold of Ilya’s cock with his hand. His boyfriend’s body tensed with a happy shiver as Shane worked it up and down, brushing each nerve ending as it swelled at his touch. His breathing accelerated and would heighten and turn to gasping when Shane got the rhythm just right, which wasn’t so hard considering how well he knew both Ilya and his body after all these years.
Ilya’s grip on Shane deepened until he guided his lover over the finish line, and they both nearly stumbled backward from the rapturous force.
Looking back at him and his reddened, damp face, Shane felt his heart melt and rushed towards him again, just to hold him this time. He never wanted to let go. Their panting breaths matched each other, and neither released their grasp until the air had cleared and the room was starting to cool.
“That will leave a mark,” Ilya told him provocatively, pointing at Shane’s face where the pattern of shower tiles had stamped a geometric impression into his skin. “Like a branding. Everyone will know I fucked you in my shower now.”
“Let them,” Shane said.
Ilya raised a brow, already keenly aware of the change inside Shane, even if he may never understand or believe where it came from.
“I love you,” Shane told him.
Ilya took his hand and pulled them both up to stand.
“It is because I fuck you so nicely, yes? Make your body do fun tricks?”
“I don’t mind that part at all,” Shane laughed wearily. “But, seriously, I really love you. I haven’t been thinking enough about you, but I see that now, and I am going to do better.”
Ilya’s eyes softened. “Ah. So this is the serious talking you wanted to do after, then?”
“Better than before, isn’t it?”
Ilya smiled.
“Who says I am done with you?” He pulled Shane back towards him easily with a mischievous smile.
“I don’t ever want to be without you,” Shane told him seriously. “And I don’t want you to ever be without me again.”
His tone seemed to surprise Ilya, who more easily dealt in jokes than truths, but it also seemed to delight him and set him at ease.
“Good. Then don’t be. I will not go anywhere, too. I also do not want this.”
It was a promise.
“Never,” Shane agreed. “Never again.”