Chapter Text
The Centaur's dressing room is buzzing with pre-game excitement as they prepare for game three against Boston in the play-offs. Ilya has no intention of losing tonight’s game – he’s going out there to win and his team is, too.
Nothing against Boston of course, but Ilya loves kicking the shit out of his former team. Just for the fun of it. For the cup. Because he can.
Because these days, the Centuars don’t suck and it’s fucking fun to rub victory in their faces.
They have a good team this year. Even more solid than last year. Even their 2nd and 3rd lines are fucking phenomenal and Ilya has never been this excited about any team he’s played with so far.
Except for maybe the stupid all-star game, where he and Shane played together for the first time and not as rivals. He would never tell Shane just how excited he’d been, nor how much fun it was to be his teammate. He thinks Shane knows anyway, because Shane loved it too. It was the first time the both of them saw how different things could be if they weren’t rivals.
Now he gets that every game. Even if they’re not always on the same line. Between the two of them, along with the rest of their talented team, the Centaurs are no longer the league joke. They already have one cup to prove that and if Ilya has his way, they will have a second very soon.
Boston and Montreal are still lamenting their absence. The fans are too, but Ilya and Shane have both found a home and a family on this team, and Ilya couldn’t ask for a better one.
Too bad, so sad for Boston and Montreal. Ilya’s having the time of his life and Shane is too.
“If I score a hat trick tonight, will you make out with me on the ice?” Ilya asks Shane, who stands next to him in just a pair of basketball shorts. He knows the answer is no, they're professionals, but it’s still fun to get Shane worked up. “The audience would love it. We will be on Kiss Cam. ESPN.”
“God, keep it in your pants, Rozanov,” Bood says. “Nobody wants to see you two sucking face on live TV.”
“Isn’t the new car smell supposed to wear off after you get married?” Dykstra asks. “It’s been a few years, man. You should be like roommates now.”
Ilya smirks. They are like roommates. If roommates are also best friends that fuck in every room in the house, including the garage.
“That says more about you than it does about me, D,” Ilya says.
Dykstra throws a towel at him. Ilya dodges it and then throws it back.
“My husband is hot. Look at him. I can’t help myself.” He looks to Shane and flashes his smuggest, most suggestive smile. Shane just mutters his name and rolls his eyes – he’s used to this now but it still embarrasses the hell out of him when it happens. The blush is cute, though and Ilya can’t resist needling him just a little more. “And you are all just jealous. None of you would be able to keep your hands off of him either if you knew what I know.”
Troy makes a gagging sound.
“Oh, like you and Harris are any better, Barrett,” Shane mumbles.
"Yes, what was that called again? Mile High Club?” Ilya winks at Shane. “Even we are not so bold.”
"Not for lack of trying," Luca snorts, no doubt remembering this season’s Halloween party at the Rozanov-Hollander home, when he walked into the laundry room and got to see Ilya on his knees with Shane’s dick in his mouth.
Shane’s cheeks are bright red. Ilya pinches one of them, admiring the way the blush makes his freckles stand out. Ilya can tell he wants to say something, but he’s learned it only makes the teasing worse.
“We should start getting dressed,” Shane says, but not loud enough for anyone to really hear him. “And stop sexually harassing your teammate.”
Ilya ignores that.
“Was in my own house, Haasy. No one asked you to watch.” Ilya pulls on a compression shirt and tucks his chain beneath it. “But Shane is right. We have game to play in one hour and we are making him blush with talk of private things.”
Bood cackles. “It ain’t that private. Especially on the road.”
Shane just shakes his head, looking like he wants to sink into the floor. Ilya wants to push him up against the wall and kiss him until he forgets how to speak in full sentences but he’ll save that for later.
“No one told you to listen, Bood.”
Ilya’s phone starts buzzing and he glances at the number displayed on the screen. For the third time that day, an unknown Russian number is calling him. He frowns at it, assuming it’s probably his brother with a new number, since no one in Russia calls him anymore. They have not spoken since just after the wedding two years ago and it had been nothing more than a veiled attempt at asking for money. Not even a congratulations.
He assumes this will be the same so he sends the call to voicemail. It immediately starts ringing again.
“Is everything okay?” Shane asks in Russian.
“Is my brother, I think.”
Ilya dismisses the call again, only for it to start ringing immediately.
“You should take it,” Shane says. “It might be important.”
Now very irritated, Ilya answers, ready to give his brother an earful for not taking the hint. His brother is family, and Ilya loves him because has to, but he does not like him for so many reasons. Treating Ilya like a bank is only one of those reasons.
“Why the fuck are you calling me?” he answers.
There’s a pause. Then: “Ilya Rozanov?”
Not his brother. Not a voice he recognizes.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I am Ivan Volkov, your brother’s lawyer.”
“What has he done?” Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose, aware that Shane and the others are watching, though Shane is the only one who understands what he’s saying. “And how much money does he want from me?”
There’s a long pause. “You were not contacted?”
“About what?” Ilya gets a bad feeling. The way he did when he stepped into his mother’s room the day she died.
Something is wrong.
Shane must see something in his face because his mild concern turns to serious worry. Ilya holds up a hand and pushes his way through the locker room and out into the hall. There are people out here, but he’s not sure he wants Shane to see him fall apart if this feeling in his gut proves to be correct.
“Your brother and his wife… They were… killed.”
Ilya grows cold. Goosebumps break out all over his body. He swallows around the instant knot in his throat as the word killed sinks in.
Killed as in dead.
“How?” Ilya hates the way his voice breaks so much the word is unintelligible. He clears his throat and tries again. “How were they killed?”
This pause is even longer, stretching out into what feels like minutes.
“Tell me!” Ilya shouts into the phone. “What happened?!”
“Your brother shot his wife. And then himself."
Ilya can’t wrap his brain around that. Murder. Suicide.
Oh God. His niece, Oksana –
Without warning, pain explodes inside Ilya’s chest and he sinks to the floor, his back against the wall. Tears stream down his face and he wants to scream.
He understands the feeling of maybe wanting to die. When he was at his lowest, maybe he thought about it, but he can’t imagine wanting to take someone else with him.
“My niece. Is she okay?” his voice is barely a whisper. “Fucking tell me.”
“Yes. She is fine.” The lawyer clears his throat. “That is why I’m calling. Your brother has named you guardian in the event of his passing.”
“I – what?”
“You are the only family she has that can care for her, Mr. Rozanov. There are alternatives, but they are not good ones.”
Ilya lets out a heavy breath and closes his eyes. “An orphanage, you mean.”
“Yes. That is what I mean.” The lawyer pauses. “She has family in Germany but they have not been in contact with your sister-in-law for many years and they are only cousins. There is also a great aunt but she is not in good health.”
Ilya’s first instinct is to get on a plane right now and go get Oksana. He will deal with the consequences later. She must be so scared there, all by herself.
“Where is she now?”
“She is with her great aunt and her nurse at the moment.”
So she is safe. That is a relief. He doesn’t want to think of her in one of those temporary facilities that are like a jail for children.
Shane peeks out into the hall, curiosity and concern written all over his face. When he sees Ilya sitting on the floor, he steps out, but Ilya holds up a hand and shakes his head. Shane comes anyway and kneels on the floor beside him.
There’s no question of what he needs to do now, but the logistics are too much for him to process. It’s more complicated than just getting on a plane.
“Okay,” Ilya says. “I must make some calls. And some plans. I can call you back at this number?”
“Yes. The sooner the better, Mr. Rozanov. Funeral arrangements should also be made.”
Fuck.
Ilya has not considered that. Though Ilya paid for his father’s funeral, his brother made the arrangements. He got no say in how or what because he wasn’t there. Now he must do both and he doesn’t even know where to start.
“Okay. Thank you. I will be in touch.”
Ilya sets the phone on the floor and folds in on himself. That crushing weight he felt when his mother passed comes crashing down on him and he suddenly can’t breathe.
His brother is dead. His brother, who never had any love for him, is dead and Ilya realizes that there is a small part of him that hoped that someday they might reconcile and know one another as brothers and not enemies. He’d hoped that someday his brother might forgive him for being the rich and talented faggot that overshadowed him his whole life.
A fantasy maybe, to think of it, but sometimes he did. Once his brother retired, once the resentment finally left him. That can’t happen now and Ilya will live the rest of his life knowing that his brother hated him.
“Ilya?” Shane’s hand slides across the back of his neck and the last of Ilya’s composure cracks.
Shane’s arms go around him and Ilya leans into it, desperate for something to hold him together. There are no questions. Shane just holds on, rocking him back and forth on the hallway floor like there’s no one around but them.
“Geez, guys, really?” Wyatt says. “You gotta do this now? Oh – shit. That looks serious.”
“Just tell everyone to finish getting dressed,” Shane says. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Ilya has to get a grip on himself. There are things to do. He presses his face into Shane and focuses on the scent of him, on his warmth, on the comforting sensation of his fingers gliding through his hair, and it fills him with gratitude and love to have Shane there.
“What happened?” Shane asks.
Ilya can’t even say it in English, even though he knows the words. His mind is back home, on Oksana, on all the things he must take care of.
“My brother,” Ilya finally says in Russian. “His wife. They are dead. He killed her. And then himself.”
“Oh my god, Ilya,” Shane murmurs and his grip tightens. “I’m so sorry.”
Ilya allows himself to be comforted, but only for a moment. He pushes Shane away, not unkindly, but if he allows this, he’ll end up sitting in this hallway crying in Shane’s arms for an hour. There is a game to play and there will be time for this later.
Shane takes Ilya’s face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away his tears. It almost makes Ilya break.
“What do you need from me?”
“You can win this game for me.”
“That’s not what I meant. Do you want me to go get my mom? She can help you sort through whatever you need to do,” Shane says. “Lawyers. Travel visas. Hotel. Whatever you need.”
Ilya has not thought of these things. He’s not a Russian citizen anymore. There may be problems with travel since he’s now considered a traitor. He’s also married to a man and all of Russia knows it. It could be very dangerous to go.
“Yes. Yuna will know what to do.” He takes a deep breath and puts his game face back on. “I will need to speak with Coach, too.”
“You got it,” Shane says.
As Shane walks away, he’s never been more grateful for Shane Hollander and his wonderful family.
Ilya is in Coach’s office, scrolling through available flights to Moscow when Yuna bustles in, all business. She stops and takes one look at Ilya and he actually sees her heart break. He must look pretty bad if Yuna is looking at him like he’s a wounded puppy.
She opens her arms and Ilya goes into them, struggling to keep his shit together. He’s over the shock, but this is a lot. He keeps thinking about Oksana and what she must be going through, all alone with only a sick, elderly aunt to look after her. He can’t stop thinking about what his brother must have been going through if he thought murdering his wife and killing himself was his only way out.
“I’m so sorry,” Yuna says. “We’ll get this sorted out, okay? Just tell me what you need and we’ll go from there.”
“Okay.” Ilya pulls back and wipes his eyes. “My niece is priority, yes?”
“Yes, of course,” she says. “David is calling someone he knows who can help us with the legal end of it. And I know someone who can handle emergency visas for us in the morning. Once we have those, we’ll book a flight, okay?”
This is good thinking. There’s no use booking a flight if he can’t get into the country. If he can’t get into the country, then he isn’t sure he will be able to do anything.
That is just another thing to stress about.
“We?” Ilya asks.
“Yes. We.”
“Who is we?”
“You, me, and a lawyer I know. He’s not Russian but he’s familiar with Russian law, so he can help us navigate any snags we run into.”
“You know someone like this?”
It hasn’t been that long since Shane talked to Yuna and Ilya can’t believe how quick she’s gotten the ball rolling. He shouldn’t be surprised. Yuna is a force of nature, as David likes to say. And when she wants something, she makes it happen.
“An old classmate. He helped a few of the Russian athletes that defected a while back when they wanted to immigrate to Canada.”
“So I didn’t have to marry Shane for passport?” Ilya asks with a straight face. “You have betrayed me, Yuna.”
Yuna rolls her eyes and struggles to hide a smile. “Okay smartass.”
Ilya grows serious. “You do not have to go with me.”
He wants Shane to go with him, but that isn’t possible in the middle of playoffs. The team can afford to lose him, but not both of them. It’s also dangerous. They could be arrested if they forget the laws, even for a second, and Ilya doesn’t think he can abide by those laws anymore. He’s too used to holding Shane’s hand in public. Too used to showing his affection.
“This isn’t something you should go through by yourself,” she says. “You should have family to lean on.”
Ilya gets choked up again. He’s so grateful for these Hollanders, who welcomed him into their family without question and have given him everything his own family never could. The stars must have been shining on him the day that Shane Fucking Hollander caught him smoking next to a no-smoking sign and had the audacity to tell him he couldn’t smoke there in his own polite Canadian way.
“Okay.” It’s all he can manage without crying again. “So we know more tomorrow.”
“Yes. I wish it was sooner, but…”
“Is late. I understand.” Ilya rubs his sore eyes. 'I must plan a funeral and I have never done that before. I don’t know what I need to do.”
“Okay. Why don’t you get your things and I’ll drive you home. We can get some take-out and David and I will walk you through what you need to do.” Yuna types something on her phone. Frowns, and then looks to Ilya. “Any preferences?”
Ilya isn’t hungry, but he should eat. “I don’t care. I just want to get this done.”
It’s after midnight when Shane gets home. The high of beating Boston 3-1 is dulled by the knowledge that Ilya is hurting and he couldn’t be there for him when he needed him. He drops his bag beside the door and kicks off his shoes and heads upstairs, where he finds Ilya in his underwear staring at his half-packed carry-on bag with a blank expression.
“Hey,” Shane says. He goes to Ilya and wraps his arms around him from behind. All the tension leaves Ilya’s body and he turns around and hugs Shane back. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Do you want to talk?”
Shane expects that Ilya will want physical comfort more than he wants to talk, but Ilya sits down on the edge of the bed and rubs his eyes.
“Yuna and David are in the guest room.”
“I know. Mom texted.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Mom wasn’t able to help?” Shane sits down beside him.
“They both helped. I will need to start making calls soon, but I meant Oksana. My niece. My brother named me her guardian and we have no other family.”
Shane doesn’t know why he assumed Ilya’s brother’s wife had family in Russia who would take her in, but he did. That would be the best case scenario for Oksana, who probably didn’t want to leave her home for somewhere she’d never been, to live with an uncle she hadn’t seen since she was little.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
“How old is she?”
“Fourteen.”
They sometimes talked about kids, but it was always in an abstract future kind of way. Once one or both of them retired. Not while both were expected to travel for two weeks at a time. That didn’t make sense.
“I think I will have to quit hockey.” Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to, but there is no hotel for teenagers and she will need her family.”
Shane stifles a smile, imagining dropping her off the way they used to with Anya, who mostly stays at his parents while they’re gone these days. David took a liking to her and more or less insisted Anya stay with them when Shane and Ilya are on the road.
“We’ll figure something out, okay? Season’s almost over and… we’ll figure it out.”
Ilya drops back on the bed and closes his eyes. He looks exhausted.
He moves Ilya’s bag and places it by the dresser, then strips down to his underwear and climbs into bed. Ilya crawls in beside him, wrapping his body around Shane’s with a tired sigh. He smells clean and his skin is warm and Shane wants nothing more than to pin him down and make him forget his broken heart for a little while.
“I feel terrible for her,” Ilya says. “She must be so scared, Shane.”
Ilya would know what his niece must be feeling. Their circumstances were different, but that didn’t mean the loss felt different. Except that she’d lost both of her parents at once and in such an awful way.
Shane combs his fingers through Ilya’s hair and wishes he had some magic solution to this that would allow Ilya to continue to play. One that would also allow them to give Oksana a safe place to land. At present, nothing reasonable comes to mind and he’s too tired to put his mind to work on that task.
“Your parents were a big help. Too much goes into funerals, I think. Big stupid production,” Ilya says. “But I will keep it small, no reception, no dinner.”
“You don’t think his friends want to go?”
“I don’t care if they do. They can have their own party.” Ilya settles fully into Shane with his head against his chest. “No one goes to funerals when…”
Shane doesn’t need Ilya to elaborate. “That happens here, too. There’s a stigma about it.”
“What is stigma?”
“It’s like…” Shane searches his weary brain for a definition that isn’t too complicated. “A mark of disgrace? People don’t want to be associated with that kind of thing.”
Ilya knows the word disgrace. It was all over Instagram after they were outed. All over Russia when he defected.
“I’m tired of thinking about this,” Ilya says. “How was the game?”
As if Shane doesn’t know that Ilya put the game on in the background while making his plans. And if he hadn’t, Yuna did.
“We won. We’ll win the next one too.”
“What did you tell them? The team.”
“Nothing. Just that it was a family thing. Do you want me to tell them about it?”
“You can tell them. It is not a secret. Someone will post online anyway, so the truth is best,” Ilya says. “Do you think it will look bad?”
“What? You taking care of your family? Of course not.”
“No. I mean my mother and my brother both… the foundation. Will it look like I didn't help my own family?”
Another thing Shane hadn’t even thought of. “No, Ilya. Don’t even think that, okay? Their choices don’t have anything to do with you.”
“I know. But –”
Ilya doesn’t finish the thought. He heaves a sigh and Shane feels the warmth of Ilya’s tears dripping onto his skin. It sucks that all he can do is hold him. Shane would give anything to take his pain away.
Oksana Rozanova stares out the window of her great-aunt’s bedroom clutching a cup of tea that she secretly spiked with some objectively terrible vodka. Behind her, on the bed, Aunt Bettina struggles to breathe. Every now and then, she mutters something in German.
It won’t be long now. Even though she’s still breathing, Bettina is already dead, the way Sana’s father has been dead for a few years now. Her mother, too. Different causes, different diseases, but living dead just the same.
Sana understands this because she feels the same. Alive, but barely.
This room is like a tomb and it smells like death, too. The way her home smelled of death beneath the scent of blood and gunpowder just two days ago.
Sana closes her eyes against that memory, but her mind won’t stop replaying it over and over again. Her father snorting cocaine off the kitchen table, his eyes wide and crazy. Her mother’s blood, everywhere. Dripping down the white cabinets. Puddled on the floor.
Maybe once the bruises heal, Sana won’t feel the back of his hand across her face anymore. Maybe once they are buried, she can forget that he almost shot her, too, before turning the gun on himself.
She sips her tea and watches the street below, trying to shut it all out, trying to find peace in the movement of the people on the sidewalks going about their normal, boring lives and in the pale green buds of new leaves on the skeletal trees.
“Oksana.” She turns to the door, where Mr. Volkov, her brother’s lawyer stares at her. His suit is expensive. Worth more than everything she owns and she hates him for that reason alone. “I have news.”
Sana sets her tea on the small table in the corner and sits down in one of the chairs, covered in faded floral fabric and edged in frills like something from a doll’s house. Everything in here looks like it was chosen by a little girl. The comforter on the bed. The curtains. The paintings on the wall.
She motions for Volkov to join her but doesn’t offer refreshment. It’s not polite but Sana is past the point of being polite.
“What is it?”
“Your uncle has made the arrangements. He will be arriving in Moscow shortly.”
Sana hasn’t seen her uncle in a very long time. She remembers him being funny and kind, like a big kid himself getting down on the floor to let her put barrettes in his soft, curly hair. She remembers him bringing her gifts from the states and talking to her when all the other adults ignored her. He had such a light in him. He was so vibrant and full of life in a way that the people around her were not.
All she’s heard of him since are the bad things her father talked about when he couldn’t pay the electricity or afford a decent bottle of vodka or a baggie of cocaine.
Ilya Rozanov, her rich uncle who defected from Russia to marry a man and play hockey, while ignoring his very poor family in Moscow. If he cared, he would have helped, instead of buying new cars and embarrassing the family with lies about Irina Rozanova’s death.
A narrative that is supported by Ilya’s long silence. He used to send birthday cards in English with money in them. Or packages with gifts. That all stopped after grandfather died.
“Arrangements are being made for you to go home with him. To Canada.” Volkov looks so pleased with himself Sana wants to scream.
“And what if I don’t want to go to Canada?”
The lawyer is taken aback, then offers her a hopeful smile. He spreads his hands out like he’s performing a magic trick.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity, Oksana. Your uncle is very wealthy and Canada is a very beautiful place.”
“You sound like you approve of this traitor.” She almost uses some of her father’s more colorful language for Ilya, but she is not so sure she believes Ilya should be condemned for loving someone. Abandoning his family, maybe, but not if it was for love. God knows, Sana doesn’t know what that kind of love looks like anymore. She’s not even sure if it’s real.
“I didn’t say that.” It’s clear he doesn’t share the sentiment, he’s only trying to appease her. “But you must consider your options. They are few, Oksana. And it’s only until you turn eighteen. Only four years and if you wish, you can return to Russia once you are old enough.”
Return to what? she wonders.
Will she come back to Russia and marry a man like her father and have children she doesn’t want and spend the rest of her days as unhappy as her mother was? What sort of life is that?
Sana is smart enough to know that she has no power here and she is too young to make her own choices. She will go to Canada and everything and everyone she knows will be thousands of miles away, with an ocean between them.
“And when will the police speak to me?” Sana already knows the answer to this question, but she still asks. “They have not taken my statement.”
The lawyer doesn’t answer.
“The case is closed then,” she says knowingly. “What will it be, officially? An unfortunate home invasion? Retaliation by the mob?”
“Oksana –”
“No. I don’t care. It changes nothing and it will not stop them from lying.”
That hangs between them for a torturous moment, while Bettina struggles to breath on the other side of the room. There’s no sound but the soft hiss of the machine that keeps her alive.
Volkov clears his throat. “Ilya will be here this afternoon. The funeral will be tomorrow. He wanted me to ask if you have something to wear.”
At the apartment, she does, but Sana does not want to set foot in that place ever again. She’ll lose her mind if she has to go there so she shakes her head no.
“We will find something, then.”
“I don’t want to go to the funeral.”
“Now is not the time to be difficult, Oksana. You must pay your respects. He was your father.”
“He shot himself in front of me.” Volkov visibly winces at her cold, flat delivery. “I have paid all the respects I will ever pay. If there is nothing else, please excuse yourself. I am tired of talking.”
Volkov leaves, reluctantly. She’s sure there is more he wants to say to her. Perhaps he wants to call her a brat or something worse, but he holds his tongue and leaves quietly.
As soon as he’s gone, her bravado leaves her entirely and she slumps in the ridiculous pink chair, simultaneously feeling ancient and also impossibly young.
She needs something to focus on, a distraction of some kind. She could read to Bettina, who doesn’t understand a word of what she’s saying, but she doesn’t want to hear herself talk. Instead she takes another sip of tea and turns on the VPN she’s not supposed to have on her phone and connects to a server in the Netherlands.
From there, she calls up Ilya’s Instagram.
There are thousands of pictures and thousands of comments on each one. Many are of hockey and other hockey players but Sana isn’t interested in these. It’s the other, more personal photos she wants to see.
She needs to know if her uncle Ilya is still a bright light in a dark room or if he really is the awful monster her father has made him out to be.
All she sees as she looks at the photos of Ilya with his husband is a man who is happy. He looks like the man in her memories.
Sana inspects the pictures of Shane Hollander carefully, trying to find any sign that he might also be a monster, but all she sees is a beautiful man with a kind face and warm brown eyes.
It is easy to tell that they are in love and Sana can’t help the resentment that boils up in her chest. Sana’s parents never looked at each other that way. When her father was angry he often said that her mother was just some whore he knocked up and married because he wanted to do the right thing. That Sana was the burden he carried for his mistakes.
This is a miserable place and a miserable life and Sana isn’t sad to be leaving it behind.
Maybe she will hate Canada, too, but maybe it’s better to be miserable there with her rich uncle, instead of dirt poor and all alone here in Moscow.