Chapter Text
🎶I Go Back to December All the Time🎶
The silence of the dark bedroom had always pressed in around Shane Hollander, as if the darkness itself were waiting for an answer he never gave. For years, that quiet wasn’t just the absence of sound—it became the heavy air of secrets, a private world where he hid the truths he was afraid to share. The darkness had been a fitting metaphor for his time in the closet: a space where he kept his real self out of sight, safe from judgment but also aching with loneliness and longing. Looking back now, Shane wished he’d found the courage to step out of the dark door sooner and let the world see the person he had kept hidden for so long.
Since he was seventeen, his life had been defined by a rigid, self-imposed drive for perfection that he put on himself and that others expected of him. Lines he couldn't cross. Walls he had to reinforce. Canada’s Golden Boy of Hockey. At the apex of these years was Ilya Rozanov—the true north that Shane spent a decade pretending to ignore while his entire internal compass spun wildly out of control.
🎶I’ve Been Here; Silent All These Years🎶
Lying in bed at the cabin, Shane looked at his hands in the dim light of the Ontario moon, reflecting beams of softness on Lake Muskoka. His hands had gripped hockey sticks until the knuckles turned white, held trophies aloft under blinding arena lights, and signed autographs for fans who saw the proverbial Golden Boy instead of the man vibrating with a secret. Shane gave in to the solace of his cabin -– their cabin — where he first heard Ya tebya lyublyu whispered in his ear twice, followed by the words that he had wanted to say to Ilya for so long, the words that Ilya was brave enough to say first: I love you.
Shane thought about the rivalry that the world thrived on for years. The biting comments in post-game interviews and the staged glares at center ice. It felt like a fever dream now, but a tragic one. He had traded his spontaneity for safety. Every time he wanted to reach out and touch the hem of Ilya’s jersey on the ice, or laugh at one of Ilya’s arrogant, beautiful jokes, or kiss Ilya as he chirped at him while taking a face off. For too long, Shane had retreated behind the "Hollander" persona: cold, professional, dependable, and straight as an arrow.
Shane felt the ache of those lost years—the dinners they didn't have, the kisses that were swallowed down, the lost declarations of Ya tebya lyublyu that died in his throat because he was terrified of becoming a headline in the tabloids.
🎶I Had a Dream About a Burning House
I Was Stuck Inside, I Couldn’t Get You Out🎶
The man asleep in the cottage wasn’t a rival anymore—not to Shane. He was just Ilya, his husband. Watching the steady rise and fall of Ilya’s shoulders, Shane realized that was the only rhythm that mattered now. He couldn't wait to settle in behind him, wrapping around Ilya like a shield as he pulled him close.
Something shifted in Shane’s chest—a tectonic plate finally sliding into place. The fear that had acted as his shadow since he was a teenager was suddenly, remarkably, gone. In its place was a dormant wildness that was waking up, a desperate need to make up for every second he’d spent being so methodical and careful with his interactions with Ilya in public.
He was tired of the shell he had worn for so long. He was finished with the tense Shane Hollander, who had calculated every move for years. If the world wanted to look at them both, let it. He had spent his entire adult life hiding a passionate fire; he might as well let it loose and burn the house down.
🎶Give Me Your Eyes, I Need Sunshine
Your Blood, Your Bones, Your Voice, and Your Ghost🎶
“No more playing it safe,” Shane whispered into the dark, the words tasting like freedom. “I’m done waiting for what I want. I deserve sunshine, and so does he.” He leaned over, closing the small gap between them, ready to start the life he should have been living since he was seventeen.