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The thing about your secret hookup and professional rival dying is that, despite the ending of your entire world, no one can ever, ever know how much you care.
Which is to say that Ilya Rozanov dies, and Shane is putting every ounce of himself into pretending to be okay, and it’s never going to work. But he cannot grieve openly. He cannot admit that he feels anything beyond a vague sympathy for Rozanov's friends. He cannot explain to anyone that a part of him has been carved out of his body and it will never return. No one can know that he has been keeping and tending to this all-consuming flame of a secret, and now that it's been doused for good, he feels like there is nothing left of him.
He cannot let go of Rozanov or of what little they could have, and no one will ever be allowed to understand this. The reality of sharing a secret such as theirs is that, when there is no longer a sharing, when there is just one of them left alone with the truth, the secret becomes so much harder to bear. So much harder to carry. And Shane cannot fucking do this alone.
He was supposed to be the best in the world, and he supposes that he is now, but it wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to be a triumph, a dream come true. It was not supposed to break his heart and will into pieces.
Because while he was always told he could one day be the best, while he always dreamed of it, somewhere along the way it stopped being about always standing alone and started being about standing at the top of a great mountain with Ilya fucking Rozanov. Somewhere along the way, something important shifted. Rozanov was always supposed to be there at his side, catching up to him, pushing him forward, challenging him, making this whole fucking pressure cooker of a career into something fun instead of just intense.
Only one person can be the best, yes. But Rozanov made it into a challenge. More than that, really, he made hockey into a game again. For that, Shane can never repay him. So no matter the constant debates of who was better, the truth is that they stood at the top together, constantly reaching levels that no one else can ever understand. And without Rozanov around, there is no one left to understand it all. Not their game, and not their secret.
The other thing about keeping a secret such as theirs is that even Rozanov couldn't know the full truth of it. Even Rozanov himself didn't understand the depth to which Shane felt something for him. Something unnameable, something impossible, something not at all allowed and yet something he wanted to take anyway.
And now Rozanov is gone, and Shane will never get to tell him. Rozanov is gone, and he died believing that Shane didn't feel anything real. The last time they saw each other, they were searching for—finding—each other from across the dance floor at a club. The last time they looked at each other, all Shane could hear was the rushing of blood past his ears and the sound of his own name like a gasping breath or a prayer come true.
That night in the club, Rozanov was dancing, was kissing some woman, and it hurt, so badly, but Shane couldn't just reach out to stop him. It wasn’t that simple and he wasn't brave enough. So he just stared, and he let himself hurt, and then the crowds closed between them, and he left with Rose. He didn't turn around. He didn't look behind him. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if Rozanov was there, waiting or following.
Now, without Rozanov anywhere at all, he thinks it might have been that simple all along. He thinks maybe if he had just reached out that night, if he had turned around and chased after Rozanov despite his fear, if he had worked a little harder, been a little braver, tried to be a little stronger, this would all be ending differently. Maybe if he had just turned away from Rose, had just reached a hand out—
But he didn’t. And he can't go back and change that. He can’t ever change that.
The Boston Raiders are holding a memorial for Rozanov, and Shane plans on attending. He’ll have to skip his own game, but he doesn’t care, not right now. If Rozanov isn't playing ever again, if there's no challenges left to be had, if there’s no joy to be found in it, then what's the fucking point? So he’s skipping the game against fucking Ottawa.
It’s a show of good faith, of truce, of respect. It’s also, entirely secretly and only in the privacy of his own loneliness, a show of love for someone who will never know he did it. He knows that this is the only time he's ever going to be allowed to grieve in the safety of other people who are just as or almost as broken. So he plans on going.
Except on the day of the memorial, Shane blinks himself awake and does not find himself in his hotel in Boston. He does not find himself alone in bed. He does not find himself in Boston at all.
He wakes up, instead, in Montreal. He’s standing outside of the club where he had last seen Rozanov. The cold air biting at his bare arms combined with the ruffling of the wind through his hair makes him shiver. It all feels more ghostly than real.
There’s a woman standing outside of the club. She’s got a tiny, shimmering black dress on, and she’s watching him carefully. Shane can acknowledge that she’s stunning, and the way she’s leaning against the wall with one foot propped against the brick and a cigarette casually between two fingers tells him that she knows it.
“Shane Hollander,” she calls out. She has a Russian accent thicker than Rozanov’s, and the way her tongue curls around his name sets him at ease for some reason. She reminds Shane of him, kind of; maybe his dreaming self had invented her out of some misconstrued desire. She continues: “Will you disappoint him?”
Shane flinches. “What did you say?”
A laugh, bright and simple. “Bring him back, Hollander. Get him from that club, make him follow you out, take him home to us, and maybe the world will be different when you wake up.”
“What are—”
“Go,” she says, voice suddenly low, intense. “You don't have much time. Just lead him out of here. And don’t look back. That’s the deal. Lead him home, and don’t you dare look back.”
Shane swallows hard. Maybe it's something as awful as devotion or maybe it's something fucked up as hope, but he nods sharply. It’s just a dream, maybe, unless it isn't. His dreams are never this vivid.
“Go,” the woman says again. “He'll follow you if you just ask. He's been wanting to for a long time now.”
“Oh,” is all that Shane can think to say, something hoarse in his throat. And what other choice is there then, but to enter the club?
The moment that he enters, he starts feeling a pull towards the sectioned off VIP tables. With a glance, he can see Rose and Miles laughing over glasses of champagne. They’re both already tipsy, probably, and they'll want to be dancing soon. Shane is familiar enough with this game.
But this—this isn't about either of them. It’s not about dancing or music or being something he's not. It’s not about who he could try to be with Rose; this dream is about who he wants to be with Rozanov.
Rozanov has never asked him to be anything other than what he is, has never given him anything less than what he wants, has never told him to pretend to be different. Rozanov, who is fucking dead, who is gone in a way that Shane can't even imagine. Rozanov, who was supposed to always stand next to him at the top of the world, who had gone ten steps ahead of Shane anyway, and then left him behind to deal with the aftermath.
So he finds Ilya Rozanov at the center of the dance floor. He finds him amongst the thrumming of dancing bodies, the pulsing of the colorful strobes, the beating of music under their feet and all around them. He finds Rozanov, and he doesn't fucking hesitate. There is no room for hesitation in any story with a happy ending. There is no room for anxiety, or for hiding his love, or for fearing his own desire.
“Rozanov,” he breathes out, and he doesn't know if Rozanov even really hears him.
But Shane would know Rozanov in any light and in any life, and he daringly hopes that Rozanov feels the same. A hundred lifetimes, and Shane will always find him. Again and again and again, he’ll find Ilya Rozanov. Now, he’s determined to build the two of them a happy ending in this lifetime.
Ilya is dead, except for how he isn’t, except for how he’s here, he’s right here, now and in this world, and so Shane is going to take this chance. He’s going to build them a life so great and so happy and so beautiful that death can never touch it.
“Hollander.” Rozanov doesn't sound surprised.
Rather, he sounds tired. He sounds sad. He also seems angry, a little, but mostly just weary. Like he's hurting as badly as Shane is and he’s just tired of it. He’s tired of lashing out and he’s tired of holding onto bitterness and he’s tired of the heaviness which weighs on a heart that’s been broken.
“What do you want?” Rozanov asks, voice twisting in an ugly, jealous way. “I saw Rose Landry somewhere over wherever.”
Shane swallows. In reality, he’s long broken up with Rose; but Rozanov will never know that. “I’ll talk to her later. Right now I want—I need—”
Rozanov tenses. The strangers pressed body to body on the dance floor feel as if they are closing in on them. As if they are suffocating any exit strategies. Rozanov says, the word barely there amongst the music and the hurt, “What? You need what?”
“I need to—” Shane cuts himself off.
He reaches out for Rozanov, and Rozanov flinches back. It makes Shane feel sick; he was the one who broke Rozanov’s heart and so why the fuck has he been the one tasked with bringing him out of the dark? What gives him the right? What gives him any chance at all?
He doesn’t know when he started to believe in this. He’s not sure if there was any singular point at which he understood that this is real and that he actually has a chance at fixing this, but his level of belief changed somewhere along the way. His hope grew a size too big for reality, but now he's desperate to succeed.
Whenever that shift happened, whenever this changed from nothing more than a dream to the trial of his life, Shane doesn't care right now. What he cares about is taking Rozanov home. Maybe when he's back, he’ll bring Rozanov to his real apartment in Montreal. Maybe he’ll get to hold his hand. Maybe he’ll ask to kiss him where other eyes can see.
“I need you,” Shane says, the words torn from his throat in pathetic desperation. “Fuck, Rozanov, I just need you to come outside with me.”
Rozanov studies him for a long moment. He’s so beautiful even like this, even in his own hesitation, even in his lack of confidence. He’s purple and pink and red and blue under the lights; he’s both sharp and soft and both steady and unsure. He looks like he wants to follow; he looks like he is afraid that Shane will purposefully lose him in the crowd.
“Please,” Shane whispers, and the word is lost in the breath between them.
Please, let me take you away from here. Let me take you home. Let me be the one to lead you out. Please, please follow behind me. Trust me with this chance, with your hand on the scariest road of them all. Let me love you like this, Ilya Rozanov.
Finally, something seems to click. Rozanov gives him a single, sharp nod. “To talk. Nothing more.”
“Okay,” Shane says, and he doesn't care about the stipulation, doesn't care what they do after this, what they become, if anything. He cares only that there is a chance. It isn’t over yet. It can’t be.
He reaches out, carefully, giving Rozanov every chance to move away again. But Rozanov doesn’t pull away. He lets Shane take his hand. He lets Shane begin to lead him through the crowd.
Shane’s heart is beating in his throat, every piece of him coiled up too tight and wired like something ready to blow. The pulsing and strobing of all the lights of the club are little explosions everywhere, little flashes of bright, brilliant color that make his vision turn spotty and his heart pound harder.
Rozanov’s hand is clammy in his, but it’s warm, it’s holding on tight, it’s all him. It’s entirely familiar just as it is unfamiliar. They have never held hands before. Shane never wants to let go.
The music changes. It’s something faster now, something so loud that it slams against Shane’s chest like bullets. His breath is coming too fast, panic setting on like a wave. He can’t fuck this up. he has to—he can't—Rozanov—
And then Rozanov's hand slips out of his.
It could mean anything. Maybe the crowd got too close for just a second, and Rozanov is going to grab his hand again at any moment. Maybe someone bumped into him, and Rozanov didn't mean to let go, and he’ll be right back. He’ll be here again in a moment. He could—he could still be right behind Shane, he could still be following. He could still be here with Shane, with this last shred of hope that he has. This last shred of dream.
The music pounds in Shane’s head, beating down any thought other than the one reminding him how empty his hand is, how Rozanov’s own hand had fit so perfectly in Shane’s palm, how his hand isn't there.
And it’s not like Rozanov really has any reason to trust him, to trust that Shane will lead him home. It’s not as if, over the past few months, Shane’s given him any reason to believe he cares. He hasn’t explained how he wants Rozanov so badly that it’s terrifying, how he wants to be something they cannot be; how after all this, he is so close to saying fuck all of that and trying to be something new and brave anyway.
Shane just has to trust him, has to believe that Rozanov is behind him. He has to believe in this being enough—the emptiness in his hand, the sweat at his palm, the shaking of his entire arm as he reaches back for any sign or grasp of Rozanov. He cannot turn around. He will not break the rules. He will make it out, he will change the ending, he will—
Somewhere in the distance, somewhere amongst the rest of the club, but so much farther away than it should be, Rozanov’s voice echoes above all other sounds: “Hollander?”
He sounds so far away. So lost, and so isolated. Like Shane has left him behind.
But Shane needs him to be here. He needs Ilya Rozanov to be standing right behind him, like he always is, pushing them both forward and teasing and making them better players and better people; he needs Ilya to be calling out his name from just a few feet away, because otherwise Shane will be entirely alone in all this for the first time in his adult life.
He cannot leave Rozanov behind again. He cannot let Rozanov think Shane doesn't want his hand in his, his given name on his tongue, their entire lives shared instead of just their secret—
“Shane?” Ilya calls again. It’s a gasp, it’s a panic in the moment, it’s a desperate call to be found, and he suddenly sounds so much farther away. It could be a memory just as likely as it could be an audible sound.
The club is so big, the world is so fucking terrifying, and there are so many people around them. Ilya is so far away, and Shane is never going to be able to bear it if Ilya isn’t right behind him, trusting and following. He won’t recover, if Ilya doesn’t want to do this—living—with Shane as much as Shane wants to do it with him.
And it’s so tempting to be reassured that Ilya feels this too, and to know for certain that there is hope. There has to be hope. At the end of all this, there has to be some kind of hope left for them. He has to find it somewhere, he has to know that it’s real.
He has to know—he has to—he—
“Oh,” Ilya says softly, and his words are forgiving as Shane turns around.
Shane stares at him, his lips parting and no sound coming out. There is no sound which can fix this.
He was there. He was right there behind Shane, waiting for Shane to lead them out. Following, trusting him. Believing they could make it to the door, to the other side of it.
The door is probably only a few feet away. It’d take barely a minute to navigate through the people coming from and going to the bar. They’re so close that Shane can see the door handles, can see the few scrapes in the wood, can see so clearly how they had almost made it.
But they didn’t. He didn’t. He lost sight of the endgame; he got scared that this dream wouldn’t be enough to save them. He stopped. He turned around.
Now, his sight blurs as he tries to look over Ilya so carefully, trying to memorize every inch of him when this is the last time they will see each other; and Ilya is everything Shane has ever wanted, even like this, and he is also everything Shane has ruined.
Ilya continues, somehow finding it in him to be teasingly fond, “It was only a few more feet, no?”
This, maybe, is when Shane’s heart cracks open for the final time. This, maybe, is when the world slows down and comes to a stop. Grief begins to flood through the grates of hope like dirty river water, and all Ilya can do is offer him a small smile.
“Ilya,” Shane whispers.
“It's okay,” Ilya tells him. Behind him, the rest of the club is beginning to fade into nothing. Disintegrating, leaving only the memory of sound and light and fear and bravery. Ilya does not look at the world ending—he just keeps his eyes on Shane. “Was nice to hold your hand for a little bit.”
Shane’s face crumples, something in him so shattered that he doesn't think there will be any shards left whole enough to piece back together. All he can find in him to say, again, is Ilya’s name. The name that had once scared him so much to say because it meant so much. It means all of that now, and more.
Ilya shakes his head slightly. He looks like he's hearing something that Shane cannot bear to say out loud. When he says Shane’s given name again, it sounds like forgiveness. It sounds like understanding. It sounds like love—
And then, “You have to wake up now, Shane,” Ilya murmurs. “Time to be brave.”
Shane is barely able to desperately stutter through the first syllable of Ilya’s name, just once more, just one more time, before he’s surging awake in a Boston hotel room, a pressed black suit hung neatly on the door, and Ilya Rozanov’s memorial service scheduled to start in two hours.