Work Text:
Ilya is scrolling through Twitter on the bus after the Centaur’s unexpected win, sitting with a row to himself, when the first message comes through.
Shane.hollander.hockey: All I can think about is how stupid it all is.
Ilya smiles to himself. The text is random, completely out of context, but Shane often starts conversations about his latest hyperfixation or whatever YouTube rabbit hole he’s fallen down most recently in a similar way. There’s usually one text containing his thoughts with zero context, followed by a link to an article or a rambling summary of the latest video essay he listened to.
Shane.hollander.hockey: Hiding for more than ten years, it just feels so fucking stupid now.
His smile fades.
Ilya has felt a lot better since their conversation earlier. He almost feels silly for ever doubting how much Shane cares about him, how much he would sacrifice for him, but he’s still glad that they’d cleared the air. He knows that Shane isn’t keeping them a secret because he wants to, that he’s only doing it out of very reasonable fear, and Ilya really can’t blame him.
This, he wasn’t expecting. Hiding their… thing, feels stupid now? What is Shane talking about?
Shane.hollander.hockey: I’d give up everything to be with you. I’m sitting here and I’m not even thinking about fucking hockey. All I’m thinking about is my parents, and you. All the time we’ve had together, and all the time we could have had if I was just braver.
Ilya’s heart sinks, the noise of his rowdy teammates around him fading into the background as he quickly opens his Instagram DMs.
Ilya.rozanov.official: Hey, it’s okay, we have all the time in the world. I’m sorry for what I said, you don’t need to do anything you don’t want to. I’m happy with you, and someday we will have everything we want.
Shane.hollander.hockey: I’m so, so sorry Ilya. I love you. More than anything. I’d choose you over hockey any day.
Ilya furrows his brow, his heart still pounding in his chest as he scrambles to reply.
Ilya.rozanov.official: Stop with sorry, you do not need to be sorry. I know, Shane, we are okay. I told you about therapy, and I will be better with communication now. We are okay.
Shane.hollander.official: Ilya, there’s something wrong with my plane.
Ilya feels the world go fuzzy. The noise around him turns to ringing and his hands feel cold and tingly. He rereads all the texts Shane had sent him. No. This isn’t happening.
“Hey! Roz, whattaya say, drinks when we get back to celebrate?” Hayes asks him, leaning over Ilya’s seat from behind to shake his shoulder and get his attention.
Ilya suddenly snaps back into his body, into the present, and starts frantically texting Shane again, mumbling to himself, “no, no, no, no…”
Ilya.rozanov.official: What do you mean wrong
“Hey, what’s up with you, dude?” Hayes’ tone turns concerned. “Shit, you’re super pale, are you okay?”
Ilya knows he must look crazy, like a wreck, his hands shaking and eyes wide as he stares at the typing bubbles on his screen.
Everyone else on the bus catches onto Hayes’ tone and stops their own conversations, turning their attention to their captain.
Shane.hollander.hockey: I’m so sorry Ilya, I’d do anything to stay with you forever.
“No,” Ilya says louder. “No, this isn’t happening. Fuck. Fuck!” His voice cracks and he runs a hand through his hair.
“Hey, Roz, what’s wrong? Talk to us,” Hayes says, sliding into the seat next to Ilya and putting a hand on his shoulder.
Shane.hollander.hockey: I have to put my phone down. I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.
Ilya chokes on a sob and quickly types back.
Ilya.rozanov.official: I love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me too.
It wasn’t enough, no words could ever be enough, in English or Russian, but he was trying to type quickly, to send it before-
Error: message undelivered
“Fuck!” he yells, slamming his phone onto the chair next to him and burying his head in his hands, pulling on his hair and shaking through barely restrained sobs.
“Holy shit, Roz, what’s going on-” Hayes says, picking up Ilya’s phone to see what’s on it, not sure what to expect.
“Fuck,” is all he can say, once he reads the texts.
“What is it?” Boodram pulls the phone out of his hand, and a few other guys read it over his shoulder.
“Wait, what does this even mean? What’s going on?” Dykstra asks, more in disbelief than confused.
“Shit,” Barrett whispers, looking at Ilya with a devastating look of understanding.
Ilya feels like he can’t breathe.
All he can think about is Shane, terrified, thinking these were the last moments of his life, and texting Ilya.
He thinks of Shane, distraught not because the plane he’s in might crash, but because he regrets keeping what they have a secret for so long. His whole body shudders with pain and a gasp escapes through tears.
It’s not fair. He’s supposed to have Shane forever, he can’t lose him. He can’t.
If he dies, I will too, he thinks. Mom, if you see Shane, know that I’m right behind him.
“Rozanov. Ilya! Look at me,” Hayes says, forcing his head up with a hand on his chin.
“I can’t lose him,” Ilya chokes, his voice breaking.
“I know. It’s okay,” Hayes pulls him in for a hug, holding him tight against his chest while Ilya sobs, and all the other guys put their hands anywhere they can reach. His back, arms, head, everyone just reaching in to provide comfort where they can. The bus is silent aside from choked sobs and gasps.
They pulled over at some point. After a few minutes Ilya manages to choke down his emotions, shove them back into a box, albeit temporarily, and pull out of the hug.
Sorry, he wants to say, wiping the tears and snot from his face and grimacing at the wet spot he left behind on Wyatt’s hoodie, but he can’t bring himself to.
“Rozanov… you and Hollander?” Luca asks tentatively, as if anyone still needs confirmation.
Ilya nods, looking down at his hands and avoiding everyone’s gaze, some small part of him still present enough to worry how his team might react, even though that’s the last fucking thing he cares about anymore.
He can not lose Shane.
He clenches his eyes shut and another tear runs down his cheek, but he manages not to start sobbing again.
“That’s why you signed with this shit team. To be close to Montreal,” Dykstra says.
“And Ottawa is Shane’s hometown. His parents live here. He spends summers here,” Ilya says, not caring how much he reveals at this point.
“The charity, too. The summer camps,” Hayes realizes. Ilya just nods.
“How long?” Barrett asks.
“Forever,” Ilya replies without hesitation.
Forever, because it felt like his life started the first night he spent with Shane. Maybe they only made things official at Shane’s cottage in the summer, but that had nothing to do with how Ilya had been feeling for years before that, whether he knew it or not.
“Since the summer before our rookie season,” he adds, because he figures that would make more sense.
“Fucking hell, Rozanov,” Chouinard says.
“We uh, we won’t tell anyone,” Hayes says, looking around at everyone to make sure they all agree, and feeling relief at the nods he gets in return.
“Does not matter,” Ilya replies. “If Shane… if he is gone, it does not matter who knows. Nothing matters, then.”
“Shit, the plane…” Boodram mumbles, pulling out his phone as he’s suddenly reminded how they got on this topic. “Nothing in the news yet.”
Ilya whines, a pained sound tearing through his chest, so visceral he has no chance to intercept it.
“Hey, hey we don’t know anything yet, okay? So… so there’s no point worrying yet, yeah?” Barrett says with a hand on Ilya’s shoulder. He knows it’s an empty reassurance.
“My last message did not send,” Ilya’s voice is soft, it feels like his organs have been carved out of his chest.
“That doesn’t mean anything, they probably just shut off the wifi so they could deal with the, uh, issues with the plane,” someone says, but Ilya is shaking his head before they can even finish.
“My message did not send. I did not tell him…” his face twists up as he tries to hold back the sob crawling up his throat.
“He knows,” Barrett says. “Fuck, Ilya, anyone can see that you love him. He knows.”
Ilya clenches his jaw and gets his breathing back under control. A few seconds later, he nods.
“Does… does this have anything to do with, like, your mood lately?” Dillon asks, receiving some glares from the other guys that clearly say, ‘not important right now.’
But Ilya doesn’t see those looks, and he replies.
“Yes. Is why I have been shit captain. I miss him, but I have also been mad at him. Because I gave up so much, and I am so alone, and he is still captain of fucking cup-winning Montreal with his parents and best friends and whoever the fuck else already knows about us. I was mad at him. We fought. I told him to leave-” he cuts off as his voice breaks. “I can not lose him.”
“Hey man, we don’t know what’s happening yet. But… either way, you’ll be okay. You’ll get through this. You have all of us, now. You’re not alone, Ilya,” Hayes says. Ilya looks down at his hands.
“No. Is enough. I am done with this life, if Shane is not in it,” he says more to himself than anyone else, his voice detached. He touches the cross around his neck.
“Wait, what? What does that mean?” Dykstra asks in the silence following Ilya’s confession.
“Nothing. Forget I said anything,” Ilya mutters, dropping the cross and looking out the window at the forest they’re parked next to at some random truck stop in the middle of a long stretch of Canadian highway. There’s a young boy playing with a dog on the grass, his mom smiling fondly as she watches them from where she leans against a tree.
“The plane landed!” Boodram suddenly blurts out, startling Ilya away from gazing outside. “They’re okay. They made an emergency landing and everyone is okay.”
Ilya feels the wave of relief palpably as it washes over him, like a thousand pound weight was lifted from his heart. He sobs again, but this time he’s smiling.
The guys cheer and high five, clapping each other and Ilya on the back as the relief hits them as well.
“Roz, your phone,” someone says from somewhere behind him, passing his phone back up to him from wherever it had ended up.
He opens his texts with Jane, and Hayes looks at his screen over his shoulder.
“Jane? Ooooh, holy shit I’m such a dumbass,” he says.
“What? What’s up with Jane?” Dykstra asks.
Everyone on the team knows about Ilya’s girl Jane, who he’s constantly texting and always meets up with in Montreal.
“Jane is Shane,” Hayes says, and a wave of understanding washes over everyone. Suddenly he sits up straighter, like he’s realized something else.
“Lily,” Hayes says. “You’re Shane’s Lily. Oh my god, you guys text each other all day every fucking day, even when you’re running the same fucking hockey camp together,” Hayes says, thinking back to every time Shane left his phone laying on a bench or the boards and the screen lit up with a notification from “Lily.”
Ilya laughs. Big, and loud, and still wet with tears, but also with a smile.
“Yes, Jane and Lily. I named our contacts so long ago, so we could keep secret.”
Ilya suddenly blanches.
“Fuck, fuck, Shane will be so mad. When he finds out all of you know, he will-” Ilya panics.
“Hey, I meant what I said, man. We’ll keep this a secret, okay? You’re a damn good hockey player, and you always have been. Apparently while also dating Shane Hollander the entire time. Which is insane, by the way, but I’m trying to be cool,” Hayes says, and it manages to calm Ilya down a bit.
“This has been our worst nightmare for years, people finding out. Or, Shane’s worst nightmare, at least. Mine too until my dad died, since I can not go back to Russia once secret is out. But… now I do not care. I would tell world tomorrow, but Shane… he is scared. I think, hockey is my life, but his life is hockey. Does that make sense?” he asks no one in particular, rambling in a way this team has never heard him before.
“Yeah, it makes sense. I get why he’s scared. But fuck, man, it’s so obvious how in love with him you are. It’s… it’s hard to imagine anyone being mad about that, even though I know people would be. Just… what I’m trying to say is that you’re good here, yeah?” Boodram says, fumbling through his words a bit but feeling like he got his point across. The other guys nod.
“Thank you,” Ilya says, quiet and sincere.
“Okay, everyone sit down, we’ve still got three more hours until Ottawa,” their coach suddenly announces, reminding Ilya that he’s there. The guys all tap Ilya on the shoulder again before making their way back to their seats, while Wiebe takes the seat next to Ilya as soon as Hayes gets up.
“Um, surprise?” Ilya says.
“Yeah, surprise alright. I don’t care though, for the record. What the guys said holds, you’re good here, and I’ve got your back. Whatever happens in the future, I’m with you,” Wiebe says.
“In this modern world, and especially after Scott Hunter, I expect you not to be homophobic. But… it is different, that it is Shane. He plays centre for a rival team. I would not be surprised if anyone on this team hates him,” Ilya says, cautiously, like he’s bracing for his coach to agree.
“How could I possibly hate the reason that Ilya Rozanov left Boston to sign with fucking Ottawa? We wouldn’t even have a team this year if you hadn’t come here to be closer to him,” Wiebe laughs, then gets more serious. “I’m not saying it isn’t complicated, because you know that it is. But… it isn’t impossible. And from what I’ve gathered, it seems like it’s worth it. So like I said, whatever you need, now or in the future, I’m in your corner. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, coach,” Ilya says sincerely.
Wiebe goes to get up, but hesitates and sits back down, his body language shrinking in a bit and voice lower when he speaks again.
“I was listening, during all of that. I think… we should book you an appointment with the team psychologist,” Wiebe says. Ilya sighs.
“I am seeing therapist. She is Russian,” he explains. “I, um… I have depression, she says. We are working on it,” Ilya explains, not worrying so much about keeping his voice low, feeling like he wants to be more open with this team from now on.
“Shit, Rozanov. I wish you'd told me sooner, but I'm glad I at least know now. You gotta learn to lean on people, you know that?” Wiebe says. Ilya laughs, but it's strained.
“My dad always said opposite. To never depend on everyone, that I am only person I can trust,” Ilya says. Wiebe gives him a sad look.
“I don't mean to speak ill of a dead man, but he was wrong. You can trust us, Ilya. You can lean on us. This team has your back, alright?” Ilya can't quite meet Wiebe’s eyes, but he nods anyway.
Wiebe pats his shoulder, squeezing it briefly, then finally pulls away and gets up. Just as he does, Ilya’s phone starts ringing. He picks up without checking who it is.
“Hello?”
“Ilya,” Shane’s voice gasps on the other end.
“Shane,” Ilya smiled, his eyes crinkling and shoulders finally relaxing in relief.
Ilya heard whoops and cheers coming from his teammates on the bus, and he can't help but blush.
“Shit, are you on the bus? Sorry, you can call me when you get home, I just wanted to hear your voice-”
“I love you, Shane Hollander,” Ilya interrupts, followed by even louder cheers and whoops in the background.
“I love you too, Ilya. What's going on there? I can hear cheering. Did you guys finally win a game?” Shane asks, his voice still shaking but the smile on his face still audible even through the phone.
“We did, yes, but that doesn't matter. Shane, I'm so glad you're okay. I don't know what I would do without you,” Ilya says in a rush, like he can't get the words out fast enough. His teammates finally resume their own conversations, doing their best to give him some privacy.
“I… I love you too, but Ilya, can't your team hear you right now?” Shane’s voice shakes with anxiety.
“Yes, they know. I am sorry. Shane… when I got your texts, it felt like world was ending. I could not hide from them. I'm sorry,” the apology is genuine, Ilya is sorry to have done it without talking to Shane first, but he still doesn't regret it. Shane is silent for a few moments, aside from slow and even breathing that Ilya recognizes as a breathing exercise.
“You don't have to apologize, Ilya. I'm so sorry for scaring you. I… I meant everything I said. I'd pick you over hockey any time,” Shane says, and Ilya can tell that even through the anxiety, he means it.
“Are you flying to Montreal tonight? I drive to meet you there?” Ilya asks, knowing this conversation would be better had in person.
“Yeah, I'll be there late, though.”
“Does not matter. I will pick you up from airport.”
“Yeah, okay. I love you, I have to go,” Shane says apologetically. “Are you okay?” he adds on, almost like an afterthought.
“I-” Ilya is about to say ‘I’m fine', like he always does, but he hesitates. He wants to be more honest. “I'm better now you are okay. We will talk more in person, yes?”
“...yeah, okay. I love you,” Shane repeats, with more emphasis this time.
“I love you too,” Ilya replies.
The bus breaks out into whoops and cheers again, and Ilya can't help the goofy grin that breaks out on his face.
He touches the cross around his neck and looks out the window at the trees rushing past.
I'm sorry you have to wait longer, mom, he thinks. But I can't leave Shane right now. Or any time soon.
I'm not quite done with this life yet.