Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, a flame can be utterly extinguished. Sometimes, a flame can shrink and waiver, but sometimes a flame refuses to go out. 

It flares up from the faintest ember to illuminate the darkness, to burn in spite of overwhelming odds. 

     ~Karen Hesse

June, 2011 Las Vegas

The shower tile is a cool anchor against his ankle-knee-hip-ribs-shoulder, the places where he connects to it beneath a spray of warm water. Shane feels it somewhere on the periphery holding him steady, somewhere independent of the dull and throbbing ache in his back and insides, somewhere outside the sharper one between…

He tests the spot with shaking fingers. The bleeding has stopped now, at least on the outside. He knows he should probably go somewhere, see someone about this. But how? Where? Going will lead to questions. Questions he won’t be able to answer. Obligations to report things he’s unwilling to report.

He wonders distantly if there is damage. Permanent damage. Things inside him that need stitching and mending. He chokes on a sob, bitter and devastating, as his body contracts inward, goes fetal.

Somewhere in the hotel on a floor below him are his parents. Somewhere on a floor above, Rozanov. All around him is a world that has shifted on its axis in the space of five hours.

He can’t go to his parents. They’ll ask all the wrong things, look at him with pity or judgement or disappointment or a thousand other things he cannot bear to see in their eyes.

And Rozanov…

He can’t think of Rozanov without thinking about the rest.

Unbidden, his memory comes back in flashes, jolts of pain punching his stomach and spine.

Rozanov.

Rozanov kissing him.

Rozanov kissing him on an open rooftop where anyone can walk in, and the man is acting like it is nothing.

Back alone now in his hotel room, stripping off his tuxedo. Smoothing it, hanging it, and zipping the garment bag slowly, precisely, changing into jeans and a t-shirt. He’s looking at the bed and realizing if he closes his eyes, all he will see is Ilya Rozanov’s face and all he will hear is his stupid “See you next season.” And in this realization, he knows sleep will not come for him tonight.

His memory skips like one of his dad’s old, heat-warped records, and he’s out on the street, walking the strip. It’s late, but Vegas is up, always up, up for anything. The air is warm and scented with sagebrush and bad decisions. He turns down a side street and sees a poster behind glass. A poster that’s glossy with illicit promises. Of men in tight shirts and tighter pants, and mesh and leather, dancing together beneath disco balls, faces happy, not crushed like he feels inside at that moment. His eyes track down along the slightly turned up right corner and there’s a name, an address. And before Shane can think about what he’s doing he’s hailing a fucking cab on the Vegas strip, giving the address of a place where men like him meet men like him and not…not fucking Ilya Rozanov. Not their archrivals. And he can do this in a town where he’s anonymous. A town without a franchise. A town where there aren’t posters of him at bus stops and in supermarkets and subway stations.

Flash forward again and he’s in a club. No one asks for his ID. The guy at the door in the mesh tank top and eyeliner just looks him up and down, winks at him, and sends him through. Inside, the air is thick with cigarette smoke and Shane almost calls it right then. But his eyes adjust to the sting and gloom and notice there are men talking to each other in couples and groups. Men dancing, bodies close. Men touching. Men kissing. And this is what he’s supposed to want, right? What it means if he’s…

And he needs to know. He needs to know if this stupid fucking pull inside him is more than just curious, more than just Ilya fucking Rozanov and his hands and his devastatingly possessive kisses and the way he makes that sweet, tight, little sound in his throat when Shane’s cock is in his mouth.

So suddenly, instead of being in his bed awake and alone, he standing awkwardly at the rail of a bar, and a man with a mustache and pierced nipples protruding through a tight white tank top is calling him sweetie and pouring him a drink that looks like it’s far more vodka than soda.

Things become…fuzzier. He’s talking to someone. Someone taller and broader than him with dark hair and dark eyes and a smile who’s pointing to a dance floor. Someone NOT Ilya Rozanov.

Shane doesn’t dance. He made passing attempts at homecoming dances and proms with dates he wasn’t interested in being close to, and it was an exercise in futility and advanced swaying. But he goes now, drink in his hand, and tries to find a rhythm while broad hands grip his waist.

Another song, and someone is bringing him a fresh drink, just as strong. His lips feel pleasantly numb and those firm hands are on his ass now and a tongue that tastes like whiskey is in his mouth. Nothing about it feels quite right, but it feels less wrong than other things he’s done in his life like eating pussy. His pulse feels like the music, is becoming the music, and the dancefloor somehow turns to liquid.

Another flash. The bar is gone, the music is gone, and he’s somewhere closed in. The acrid taste of panic rises in his mouth, and the odor of stale-cigarette scented polyester invades his nose. He does not know where he is, does not know how he got here. He’s being held down, face to a mattress, by a weight greater than his. He can hear his own voice, pleading, firmer than his brain feels. “Stop. Please stop.” A deep voice spits an answer close to his ear, calling him a slut and a whore and telling him he wants this. He fights with arms and legs and powerful torso but there is no leverage, no fulcrum point he can find to flip out of it. “No. I don’t want this.”  He’s 200 pounds of bone and muscle and NHL forward and he cannot make it stop. There’s a sound and something wet on his asshole. Wet but not wet enough. “PLEASE NO!” The voice in his head that he barely recognizes wails in anguish.

Pain splits him in two.

His next flash is silence. Well, not silence. There’s the hum of an air conditioner, and what might be a television in the distance. He takes stock of the space, of himself. He’s face down, legs spread, half off the mattress. His lower body is a wall of pain, his arms feel bruised, his mouth is a desert, and his head is pounding. He raises up now, just small movements, and the red blurry lights of a bedside clock tell him it’s 4am and that he’s lost three hours. He needs to move. He shifts one leg and whimpers, then tries to stay stiff and still as he rolls over, sits up, presses into the pain that he can already tell will be with him for days if not longer. But he doesn’t have time for pain now. If he isn’t back there will be questions.

He's alone. His pants are caught on one ankle and his wallet still in his pocket. Thank god. So at least the guy wasn’t a thief in addition to a…His mind won’t say the word. Like if he doesn’t form it, even mentally, it didn’t actually happen. He takes a breath and moves. 

Shane’s mind comes back to the present. He thanks god and whatever engineer is responsible for the endless hot water of hotel showers.

Move.

He doesn’t want to. He wants to lie here and go catatonic and not move for a very long time.

Get up off the floor.

The floor is the anchor point to before. It’s the only thing holding him together. He’s not sure he can detach.

They will come looking for you.

This last one motivates. With a groan he presses up to his knees, holds his breath as he gets one leg under him and then stands on trembling legs. He can manage this. He can push through. This is a tweaked elbow, bruised ribs, a blow to the kidney. He’s powered through pain before.

He only has an hour or two at best before they’ll want him at breakfast. He can probably beg off. His parents saw him taking shots the night before and he can claim a hangover. He can stand their judgement for that decision. And it’s partly true. Under everything else he thinks that might be what the pain behind his eyes is. Too much alcohol, maybe something else in his drink, he’ll never know for sure.

His brain goes into crisis mode like it’s second period overtime. His body is heavy, broken, but his mind can work, and he needs to focus. Push everything else out. Watch the puck.

He needs a pharmacy, needs something to clean the places inside him the shower won’t reach. Something to make sure he doesn’t bleed through the seat of his pants on the plane he has to get on in five hours. Something to soothe the ache and help him heal. There is bound to be a store open twenty-four hours in a place like Vegas and he can ask at the front desk without giving a reason.

At least there had been a condom. He’ll get himself tested nonetheless but this is a problem for later.

He doesn’t want to look at the clothes he was wearing. In fact he wants to leave the now-stained jeans and t-shirt in the trash. Maybe he will.

For now he downs two ibuprofen, carefully folds toilet paper into the seat of his briefs, and starts laying the foundation of the walls that will fence this night off from the rest of his life forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fall 2011

Something is wrong with Shane Hollander.

He no longer returns Ilya’s texts, not even to tell him to fuck off. Over the summer, Ilya thinks this is about Vegas. Thinks maybe he somehow pushed Hollander too far that night. The look on Shane’s face was anger, but Ilya had seen the terror below it too. He understood that terror.

It’s the pre-season when he realizes something else is going on. The charming, bright-eyed golden boy is no longer present in interviews. Hollander answers questions like he’s a wooden man reading from a book. No fire, no passion, no personality, no smile. He is a dense brick. The light of him has gone out and Ilya clocks is immediately.

Hollander is different on the ice too. He’s still fast and technical, but he’s lost the art of it. He’s lost his poetry. He’s aggressive now, playing like a fucking enforcer. Already he’s been in the box four out of five games, compared to just five for the entire last season. He’s not looking like a leader, he’s playing like a man with a grudge, and this time the grudge seems to be against the entire NHL, sometimes even his against his own team.

The first Boston/ Montreal match is in early November. Ilya has not stopped trying to reach out. He hopes his messages are getting through, since nothing comes back undeliverable like Shane blocked him, but there’s no sign of response. Not even a little bubble of thought.

            L. I want to see you when I am in Montreal. Let me talk to you, Hollander. I know something is wrong.

But there is no response to this either.

The first time Ilya sees Shane it’s in warmups. There is no eye contact. Ilya might as well not even be in the arena. Hollander is focused on the ice with everything he has. He doesn’t interact with his team beyond perfunctory courtesy. He’s not rude, just cold, indifferent, and distant.

During the first face off, the wrongness of Shane punches Ilya in the face.

“Look at me, Hollander.” Ilya demands as they square off.

And just for a moment he does. Just for a moment there’s a glimmer of something behind his eyes at the command, and in that glimmer, the Shane Hollander he knows is staring at Ilya Rozanov from behind the bars of a prison cell.

Ilya’s breath leaves him. “Jesus Christ, Hollander. What happened to you?”

And just like that the door slams shut again.

Ilya loses the face off.

Chapter Text

“Pike.”

The deep rumble of his name immediately puts him on guard. The sharp spike of panic isn’t made better when Hayden turns to find Ilya Rozanov lurking in the shadows next to his car in the reserved players lot. He hesitates because he’s running late out of the lockers tonight and there’s no one else around right now. And while he hates to admit it, if Rozanov really has beef over something, Hayden’s pretty sure the Russian can take him.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Leave it on the ice, Rozanov,” he warns, car key tucked securely between his knuckles and ready.

“I am not here to fight you, Pike,” Rozanov scoffs. He moves closer and looms. “What is wrong with Hollander,” he demands.

There’s something in Rozanov’s voice that gives him pause. Because he knows there’s something wrong with Shane, that there’s been something off in him all summer that he dragged with him into camp and the new season. But how does Rozanov know? And why does he sound…worried? “What do you mean?” Hayden hedges, not giving anything just yet.

“You fucking know what I mean, Pike,” Rozanov spits at him. “The Shane Hollander I know was not in that arena tonight. He was not on the ice with me. I don’t know who that was wearing a number 24 jersey, but that was not Hollander. He hasn’t been there all season.”

 Rozanov takes a step toward him and Hayden backs up. Not because he’s scared Rozanov is going to turn violent, but because he realizes that this man is not just worried about Shane, he’s fucking desperate about it, and that makes no sense in his current reality.

“You are his friend, yes? So tell me what is wrong with him. I cannot play against this…this thing in a Shane Hollander suit.” Rozanov seems to realize that he’s escalated up to the edge of a tipping point and somehow manages to pull pack, taking a breath and shaking his head. “I did not realize how bad it was until I saw him with my own eyes tonight.”

Hayden manages to rouse himself. “Even if I did know what was wrong with him- and for the record I don’t- why are you so concerned?”

“Because we are…” Rozanov hesitates. “We are something.”

“You’re not his friend,” Hayden scoffs. “Don’t try to convince me of that.”

“No. Not his friend. Something…else.” Rozanov’s eyes bore into him, almost daring him to press further. None of it makes sense.

“Listen. Even if you wanted to help-which I’m still not convinced of-there’s nothing we can do. I’ve tried. Coach has tried. We all see it, but the fact is, he keeps on winning games and no one’s going to just pull his ass off the ice until he straightens out whatever the fuck it is that’s going on. I don’t know why you think you’re going to have any better luck than all of his friends.”

Rozanov goes quiet, and Hayden can tell he’s on the edge of a decision about something. They stand there, breathing into the cold silence of whatever this is.

“Lily,” Rozanov finally says quietly, eyes steady, holding his own.

“I’m sorry, what?” Hayden takes in the two syllables. He knows about Lily. Shane wasn’t great about keeping his phone on lock over the last year and Hayden had clocked the frequent messages that started sometime last season and the way they often made Hollander blush. He’s also noticed that he hasn’t seen those messages coming through the same way lately, or at least hasn’t seen Shane react to them, and thinks maybe a breakup of some secret relationship might have something to do with Shane’s current state of mind. “How do you know Lily?”

Rozanov sighs. “Lily.” He taps his chest.

Hayden’s jaw falls open and he just stares for the space of several hearteats. “Holy fucking shit.”

“Good, Pike. You get it now. Are smarter than I give you credit for.”

“Are you saying you and Shane…” There was no fucking way he is finishing that sentence.

“I am not saying any more than this.”

“Did you do this to him? Is this you? Did you break up with him or something?”

Rozanov shakes his head. “Was not me that did…whatever this is. At least I do not think. And there was nothing to break. Was not like that.”

“Fucking Christ.” Hayden scrubs his hands over his face. “What the hell is even happening right now?”

“Tell me how to find him, Pike. I need to see if I can...fix. Even though I do not know what in him is broken. I cannot see him stay like this. I will not.”  Rozanov’s voice is thick and he swallows something down hard.

“Jesus you actually do care about him, don’t you?” He tries to take it all in. “Well, it’s not like I can just give you his address and his front door code, man. He’d fucking kill me.”

Rozanov seems to be warring with something inside. His jaw works back and forth for a few agonizing seconds before he speaks again, his words heavy. “Please, Hayden.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane chews mechanically at his food and swallows, tasting nothing. He puts fuel in his body each day, fuel that keeps him playing, food that lets him run and lift and train. Because when he stops those things there is silence, and the wall gets thinner. Thin enough that things threaten to bleed through.

Tonight is the hardest one yet. The hardest in almost five months. He stares at the text message he ignored earlier.

I want to see you.

Let me talk to you.

What is wrong with you?

He pushes his plate aside, half finished. The thing that is wrong with him has been nudging up against the barrier in his brain all day at the knowledge that Rozanov is here, somewhere in this city. He’s a pulse point on Shane’s radar, and the beat of him is pain.

He almost broke out there on the ice tonight. He’d felt himself trying to slip free of the reins for one brief and terrifying second at the sound of that voice. Something deep down in him was trying to run to Rozanov and it took all the strength he had in him to shackle it again. He stabs at the little bubble of want that rises up in him, the stale and fetid remnant of the before.

The sound of a buzzer brings him back into himself. Someone is at the back door downstairs. Probably Hayden again. Shane ignores it, pretends not to be home. He goes silent and still, waiting for him to give up like he usually does. The buzzer rings again, longer, more drawn out. He’s persistent tonight. Shane goes to the top of the stairwell. It’s not like Hayden to use the rear entrance, and he thinks maybe it’s just someone who is at the wrong door. But something draws him and he’s halfway down the flight when he stops cold.

Someone is entering the code.

Hayden has it, but he wouldn’t use it, would he? His parents have it, but they’re in Spain. He runs down the last of the steps, catching the door as it swings open. The piece of himself that’s furthest from the surface is relieved at the sight of Ilya Rozanov pushing into his stairwell.

The rest of him is screaming.

“I don’t know how you got in, but you can get out the same way.” Shane pulls up to his full height, presses his shoulders back to be bigger.

“Not until we talk, Hollander.” Ilya’s voice is softer and gentler than he expects, but still resolved.

“You’re not coming in.” Shane insists, tamping down the panic at his closeness.

“Then I will stay right here.”

“No.” Shane tests the word.

Rozanov goes silent. They’re feet away. Less than feet. Only eighteen inches of breathable, defendable space penned in on the landing between door and railway. There is no escape except up.

Ilya reaches slowly, just a small movement, aimed at Shane’s sleeve. And Shane doesn’t just cringe, he flinches. Steps back so fast his heel catches on the bottom step, and he goes backward, curls, clutches the railing and raises an arm in defense.

“Don’t.” His voice is smaller and more terrified than he wants. Panic wells up and he makes himself small because there is nowhere to run and the man in front of him is bigger and stronger and he knows what that means now. He waits for the touch-blow to land, but it doesn’t.

Because Ilya listens. And something in Shane remembers.

Rozanov asks.

Rozanov touches him softly, and makes him feel good.

Rozanov hears no.

Rozanov tells him it’s okay to be scared of things, to not want them right now.

Rozanov is safety and patience, even when he is also raw desire.

And Rozanov is the crucial brick falling out of the foundation of Shane’s carefully constructed wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane’s retreat, and the way he cowers is a physical blow. Ilya doesn’t understand it but he knows what this is. This is violence. Someone has done violence to this man who drinks ginger ale, and loves his parents, and folds his clothes into a neat pile before he gets a blow job. And the impact of that is enough to knock him sideways.

“Hollander, I will not touch you. Is okay,” he soothes.

Shane’s arm comes down slowly, but he still grips the rail like a lifeline. There’s a battle raging in him.

“Stay,” Ilya says. Because he can see that prisoner-Shane is free and trying desperately not to flee to the safety of his cell. “Stay with me. Do not go away again.” And he can see the struggle, can see the effort it’s costing him to hold the tattered remnants of Shane Hollander together in the present.

Something is getting through because Shane nods and his grip on the railing loosens. He is breathing, gulps of air, chest heaving with the effort. A storm is coming, and Ilya doesn’t know if it’s better to let it break here or someplace where there are soft things to land on. He’s strong, but he doesn’t think he can carry him up two stories, even if Shane allowed the touch.

“Do you want to go upstairs or stay here?” Choices. Everything will be about choices. Ilya will let him choose what path feels safest as long as he does not retreat into darkness again.

Shane looks up at him and it’s all Ilya can do to stop the raw ache those haunted eyes burn into his chest from erupting out of him as sound. Shane unfolds slowly and tests his weight on fawn-like legs. “I need...I have to…” Panic flares in his eyes again and he’s suddenly taking the stairs two at a time.

Ilya trails after him, but stays back a little, makes sure Shane knows he isn’t being pursued, only followed from a safe distance. He half expects Shane to close and bolt the door but it’s standing open when he reaches the top. Somewhere off to his right, he hears the sound of violent retching as Shane empties the contents of his stomach. He waits at the door, unwilling to enter without an invitation under the circumstances. He runs a shaking hand through his hair. Jesus, fuck, what exactly are the circumstances? He suspects, but does not want to imagine it.

After several minutes, Ilya hears the sound of water running and Shane emerges from a door next to the kitchen, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He pauses when he sees him and Ilya knows this is the tipping point.

“Is okay if I come in, Shane?” He asks softly, purposely choosing the familiar. Hollander is for the ice. Hollander is for distance. Hollander is not for this.

Shane nods, but hands are trembling, and his eyes are darting into corners like he’s mapping escape routes. “Rozanov…” Ilya’s name breaks apart in his throat.

He takes a step closer and holds. “You are okay, Shane. You are safe.”

Shane sucks in a breath like the words have struck him, and folds in half, arm coming across his waist like he’s holding himself together. “Oh my god…Oh my god, Rozanov.” The first sob breaks out of him, wet and heavy.

Ilya takes another step, then another. Shane is shaking now, looking like he might just go to his knees.

“Oh my god, I can’t,” Shane wails, sound of it breaking against glass and marble and tile. And in the middle of it he reaches, thrusts his hand like a drowning man searching for a lifeline, and Ilya is there in an instant.

He’s prepared to retreat at the smallest sign, but when his fingers slip across Shane’s palm they’re crushed and held fast. Something about the contact is a catalyst, because a breath later Shane is in his arms, clutching the front of his shirt and folding into his chest. He shrugs his jacket from his shoulders and lets it drop to the floor. He needs to get arms around him if Shane will allow it, because he senses this is going to last a bit. “I’m going to move us now, okay? You can tell me to stop any time,” he soothes. One hand slides across Shane’s back as Ilya dips down and lifts.

Shane is close to dead weight in his arms, his only struggle internal, as the waves of the storm break over him. Ilya gathers him close, hand beneath both knees, while Shane clutches and burrows into his neck. He charts the most direct path to what looks like the living room, because carrying 200 pounds of Shane Hollander against his chest even twenty feet is not nothing.

“Okay. Okay now.” He settles back as far as he can on the couch and let’s Shane adjust, lets him curl up into his lap like he seems to want to and take whatever is is he needs. Shane’s head settles on his shoulder and Ilya’s hand smooths his hair gently.

“I don’t know how to…how to feel this. It’s too much,” Shane sobs against his collar bone, whole body trembling.

Ilya presses lips to his temple. “You will feel what you can, and save the rest. Does not have to be all at once. It will get easier. But do not turn it off completely. Do not go away like that. I will not let you go back to that.” His own tears are dampening Shane’s hair now and he does not care. He knows pain like this, and he feels the echoes of it inside him.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane is the man on the bathroom floor in Vegas again. The man made of pain and fear. And this time it isn’t the shower tile that is his anchor point, it’s the warm, solid mass of Ilya Rozanov. It’s the memory of trust and safety and choice that comes with the feel and scent of him. He clings to it while the damage inside of him that has slowly boiled and festered behind his now-crumbled wall weeps out in waves that threaten to drag him under.

Somewhere on the edge of it, Rozanov is giving him permission to feel but not drown, permission to breakdown without breaking, and murmuring things against his hair in a language Shane doesn’t understand, but finds soothing nonetheless. So he lets the waves come for him, while Rozanov’s pulse against his cheek keeps him afloat, and the gentle rumble of his voice gives him the strength to keep swimming.

Chapter Text

Shane feels raw and tentative, fractured, and present in a sort of tandem space, the half-remembered before of him touching the devastation of the after, trying to fit and align. The flood of too-long held back pain inside of him is less than a torrent but still more than a trickle, present but somehow miraculously manageable if he holds tight.

He has no idea how long he has been like this, but the patch of Rozanov’s sweater beneath his chin is soggy and damp. He tests his breathing, expanding his lungs and exhaling a sigh made of tiny, tremulous hiccups. His eyes feel like fire, and his lashes are thick clumps of drying tears. He is a fucking mess, but he is awake in a way he has not allowed himself to be for many months.

And impossibly, he is still intact.

He should be panicking, being held like this. Being held by fucking Rozanov, like he is a small and fragile thing. Except that he feels fragile. More than fragile. He feels…

Broken.

Damaged.

But somehow the holding has allowed him to apply some glue and tape to the pieces of himself, even if the edges don’t quite line up, even if the fit is loose and the glue has not yet set.

“How are you here?” Shane croaks, not moving from the shelter he’s taken in the join of a familiar neck and shoulder.

Rozanov’s thumb sweeps back and forth in pendulum rhythm where his hand cradles the curve of Shane’s spine. “Pike.” There is a catch to it that explains the dampness Shane feels in his hair. “Do not be angry at him.”

Of course.

Shane nods and clears his throat. “I should probably get up.” He’s not sure if he’s talking to himself or Rozanov really. Despite the declaration of intent, he does not move but goes still instead. He’s found a relative peace here, a temporary respite, but how far does the bubble extend? Part of him is afraid there’s a black hole waiting to suck him away if he ventures outside of this space, a hammer waiting to break apart his tenuous seals and patchwork.

“Do not move for me, I am okay,” Rozanov assures him. “Whenever you are ready.” And there is the permission again, the patience that brought down his wall and admitted the torturous light that meant being present with the pain and the after.

Shane loses count of the breaths they take in tandem before he finally shifts, stretching legs first, then arms.

The void does not come for him.

The next disconnect is harder as he pulls his head up, blinking in the low light and turning his face up. He reaches up and touches the damp places on the man’s cheek and jaw. “This is for me, Rozanov?”

“Ilya,” he sniffs, and the way he says it is lilting and musical. “If I have to give tears to you, Shane Hollander you will call me by my fucking name.” He barks out a sound that is part bitter laugh, part choked sob.

“Ilya,” Shane tests the feel of it in his mouth, the pleasant, almost trilling shape of two syllables that want to be three.

“See, is not so hard, yes? Very good for a Canadian.” Ilya smiles down at him gently. “But to answer this question, no. Is not all for you, Shane. But you scared me very much.”

“How did I scare you?” Shane tracks changes on his face that might tell him more if he was better at this, but as ever, this exercise is like trying to read a book in a foreign language.

“Your eyes.” Ilya’s thumb swipes from the little creases at the corners of his lids to his temple. “I have seen eyes like this before. Eyes with no windows for light, only walls. Only one time I have seen this, but I remember.” The words are heavy. “And I would not have you look at the world from eyes like this. I could not stand on the ice and watch the light of you going out.”

There’s something more there, but he cannot process it in his stretched out and worn thin state. He shivers, realizing he is somehow cold despite the heat of Ilya’s body. “I’m sorry.”

“You do not need to apologize to me, not for this.” Ilya shakes his head. “But I will forgive you if you promise not to go away like that again. Ever. No matter how hard it is.”

“I don’t know if I can promise.” He feels the weight in his chest welling up again and a fresh flood of wetness against his already-inflamed lids. “But I want to try now, I think.”

“You are Shane Hollander,” Ilya traces the freckles on his cheek. “When have you only tried at anything?”

Shane hesitantly nods agreement, though his mind crosses its fingers on the promise.

He moves in earnest this time, leaving the things left hanging in the air between them suspended for later. He feels…heavy, and yet somehow lighter at the same time. He shivers again, unsure where it comes from, because the room is warm.

Ilya shifts forward, working feeling back into long legs that have gone partly numb from the weight of Shane’s body. 

Shane really sees him for the first time tonight. He’s sure he’s come straight from Centre Bell, and he’s dressed in fitted black pants that are now creased beyond smoothing, and a soft, grey V-neck sweater appropriate to the Montreal weather. The collar of it is a stretched-out mess where Shane’s fingers have twisted and his tears fallen. Ilya’s face is tear-stained and his eyes swollen, but he is still the most beautiful thing Shane can ever remember seeing. The pulse of desire from under the rubble is anguish, forbidden and unwelcome, and he pulls his eyes away quickly, passing a hand over his own face, trembling.

“You have a blanket?” Ilya asks, pushing up to standing.

“Yeah, in the chest over there.” Shane realizes his hand is shaking and he looks at it like it a foreign thing, disconnected from himself.

“Sit here. Put your feet up.”

The words come through what feels like a descending fog and he complies by rote, propping himself onto the L of the sofa, surprised when Ilya takes a pillow and shoves it under his knees, another under his heels. A moment of absence and then strong hands are wrapping a soft blanket around him, tucking it tight over his shoulders.

“Do you have tea?”

“What?” It’s a simple question, but Shane cannot figure out how to make his mind work properly for some reason.  He blinks up at Ilya. “Oh, yeah…yes. For my mom. In the…by the refrigerator.”

“Stay here, Shane.”

Shane knows Ilya does not mean the couch.

He tries. With everything that’s left of him, with all of his misaligned and freshly glued pieces, he tries.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ilya can see it happening, can see the tremble that’s taking over Shane’s body even as he seems to be emerging from the worst of whatever the fuck is happening. The flood has extracted a toll from him. The shock, even in the recession of it, could pull him back, and Ilya will not allow it.

He lights a burner on a stove that’s gleaming with disuse and finds a pan to fill with water, because of course Hollander does not own a proper fucking kettle. He smiles a little at the precise order of each cupboard. When he’s not in the middle of a damn crisis, when Shane is fucking Shane again and not a field of landmines, he’ll give him shit for the fact that he’s hoarding what look to be unused pans and bakeware in a cupboard below pristine Wedgewood China like he went for a damn gift registry.

He finds the tea in a tall cabinet along with a couple of Montreal Metros mugs. In another he finds honey.

“Are you with me, Shane?” he calls, turning to check. Shane is watching him with glassy eyes, but they are not the dead eyes of before, thank god. “Do you like mint or something with bear on it?” He looks at the boxes.

It’s quiet for a moment before Shane answers. “Sleepy time.”

“What?”

“The bear. Its sleepy time. I like…I like that one.”

“Good choice.” Ilya is just happy to hear a voice coming from him that he recognizes. A voice that is choosing.

He waits for the water to warm but not boil and then pours, making a mess of Hollander’s perfect kitchen with the bit that does not find the mug. He sits next to him and helps him untuck an arm. “Drink. Slowly. Is hot.”

Shane’s hand trembles and Ilya steadies it, follows the mug. “It’s sweet,” he observes at the first sip.

“Yes. You need food, but this is start.” He has not missed the plate of barely-touched and very boring looking food on the table. Couple this with vomiting and it means Shane has not eaten since expending a thousand calories or so on the ice that afternoon.

Shane sets the mug in his lap, fingers working on the handle. “How did you know?”

“I do not know anything. Drink.” Ilya prompts.

He does but does not let go of the thread he is unravelling. “How did you know there was something…wrong with me? Tonight you asked me what happened to me and I…” He shakes his head. “How did you know?” Tears are pushing against his lids again.

“This is not for now, Shane.” Ilya soothes. “Tonight is one job. Staying here.”

Shane nods and this time he drinks without being told and his hand is steadier. “Do you know why I feel like this?”

“Is shock, I think. Is a very big thing you are doing. Very hard.”

“How do you know, Ilya?” Shane asks.

And fuck if there isn’t something so damn innocent about the way he asks it, and something so tender in the way he says his name. He’s already gone there tonight, cradling Shane in his arms, and feeling the resonance of past pain beating the insides of his chest.

He gives, because Shane has stayed through the onslaught of it. Stayed and fought so bravely. And somehow pain exchanged for pain seems the currency of the moment.

“My mother,” Ilya begins.  “She died when I was young, only twelve. I remember her death, like…like is movie in my head?” He puts a hand to his chest. “And the hurt is like the music and the talking. Always playing in the back of it, over and over. But was much harder in the beginning. Was too much to feel at once, much easier to feel nothing.”

Shane is watching him, eyes more focused than before, and reflecting back the hurt of it.

“But after, I do not remember other things again for a long time. Until I am maybe thirteen. Is memory like…like cheese with too many holes. All my memory is ice. Ice and pucks and nothing beautiful. Is shock,” he explains, probably poorly. “I am sorry, I do not have good English words for this.”

“How did you..? I mean, you’re here now. You got through it. Did someone do this for you?”

“Was different, but yes. Svetlana. Is still good friend.” He leaves out the details. “We were very young, but not so young that she did not see me. That she could not tell the fire in me was very close to going out, like you.”

“How did she die?” Shane asks softly.

Ilya hesitates. Because there is truth and then there is truth and he does not know how much of this Shane really needs tonight, or how much he can give him without it becoming additional weight for him to bear. “It was a long time ago.”

“Not so long.”

“Long enough,” Ilya meets his eyes. “And this is enough for now. You can ask me again sometime not tonight. I can carry this myself, Shane, you have more than you need now.”

“You’re carrying for me too, aren’t you?” Shane asks. Ilya supposes it’s a good sign that he’s trying to argue the point.

“Yes,” Ilya sighs. “But I have eight seasons, and you are still a rookie. I know how to do both.”

Shane lays a hand over his on the blanket. “Maybe you should have some tea.” The edge of his mouth lifts just a fraction.

Ilya touches his cheek and smiles, because just the fraction of something on his face that is not pain or emptiness is miraculous. “There you are, Hollander,” he whispers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ilya Rozanov has cooked him eggs. In his kitchen. With his cookware. And has served it to him on Shane’s own plates. He’s made him tea, and talked about his mother, and cried actual tears for him-for him. And this is enough to make this new reality, the one where he has maybe consciously decided to survive again, the one where there is maybe something left of him that is small and safe and worth trying for, very surreal.

Shane looks up from where he has been lost in thought. The mug in his hand-his second- has gone cold but is almost empty. Somehow he’s found a temporary respite where the world feels clearer but not overwhelming. He’s managed to push away the things that are still too much, the flash-images that try to thrust themselves into the space behind his eyes, but he’s left the debris of his wall in a crumbled pile without trying to rebuild it.

For now. 

“You probably have to go.” He looks at Ilya. “It must be past curfew, or close” For some reason the thought fills him with a trickle of cold dread. For five months, he’s tucked the part of him that feels things away. Created distance. But to be left alone with his thoughts and none of the insulating padding…

“It is. But you will let me worry about this.” He won’t leave yet, if Shane will allow him to stay. He’s been working through it in his mind on the periphery. “But if you want me to leave, I will go.” Ilya does not mention that he will put up a fight about it.

Shane turns this over in his mind. “How could you stay? Don’t you fly tomorrow?”

“We are home for three days. No games, only practice.”

“Oh.” His forehead creases. “Three days? You would…you would stay? For me?”

“Yes. But it does not have to be this. Can be one day, or whatever else you want, but enough to make sure that you have people here. People who do not let you slip away again.”

His eyes glue to the mug in his hand, turning it, twisting, working fingers on the handle like the smooth, ceramic surface holds answers. “I think…I think I want you to stay. Tonight maybe at least? I have a spare bedroom, or the couch. Whatever you want. And then…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I guess we can decide? I don’t know what happens next. I don’t…I don’t know how to do this.”

“Is okay.” Ilya shifts closer. “This is enough for tonight. No thinking forward yet.”

Shane nods. “I should go wash my face. I’ll get you something to change into? I think I might have to buy you a new sweater.” His fingers touch the hem. “There’s um…there’s a bathroom next to the kitchen. There are towels if you want to…clean up or anything?”

“Are you telling me I look like shit?” he laughs.

“Shut up.” The corner of his mouth lifts again, almost immeasurably. Not a smile, but something. The echo of a smile in a place that smiles have not lived for far too long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ilya stares into the mirror. He knows this is crazy. Shane Hollander is not his fucking responsibility, and yet he cannot reason with his irrational mind about it. He also knows he cannot lift the weight of this himself, cannot carry Shane through what he knows will be a long journey. But fuck if he’s willing to leave until he is sure that others can help shoulder the burden a little. He cannot-will not- go until he is certain he will never see those flat, dead, lightless eyes staring back at him across the ice again. That there will not be…worse, for Shane.

He is afraid. Afraid that if things had been different, he might have been too late. Afraid of the almost, maybe, could have been, if he had not come through this door tonight. He could have failed. He could have failed again. The emptiness in Shane’s eyes, the prison-pain that had held him hostage, they were the same as his mother’s eyes. Deep brown instead of color-shifting hazel like his own, yes, but too much the same.

Ilya knows this is different. His mother’s pain had carved into her slowly, like water across rock. It had worn her away in chips and pebbles with every casual cruelty, every dismissal, every harsh word, until there was nothing left of the beautiful woman who had birthed and loved him. Even if he had been older, bigger, stronger, gotten there before, he doesn’t know how much of her was left to save at the end.

Shane is different. His is not a gradual wearing down, but a detonation. He is fragmented and not worn away. There are pieces to mend, a pattern that remains despite the damage. And so he will stay, and he will bandage, and he will make tea and eggs, for as long as his life will reasonably allow, until someone else can carry for a while.

It is late. Too late. He takes his cell from his pocket.

His first call is to Cliff Marleau who is currently sleeping in a room alone when Rozanov should have been in the bed opposite him hours ago.

“Roz, are you in jail?” Marleau’s voice is sleep heavy and confused when he answers.

“No. Not in jail. I am with a friend.” It’s almost true.

“Ahh…this is your Montreal chic, isn’t it?” Marleau is waking up now. “Good for you, man. But you know you don’t need to check in with me when you’re getting laid, right? I’ll cover for you.”

“No, Marley, is not woman.” At least this much is the truth. “Is...is old friend from Russia who is living here. He is very sick, so I came to visit tonight. But is much worse than I thought, and he has no one here. I will need to stay for a short time to help make arrangements. I will not fly back with the team.”

“Coach is gonna be pissed,” Marleau warned.

“I cannot help this, but this will be my problem. I will be back in Boston before we leave for next game.” While he could reasonably justify missing a few practices for a personal emergency, missing games is off the table.

“What do you need from me?”

“Can you pack my bag? Leave with the hotel in the morning? I will have someone come pick it up.”

“Yeah, whatever you need, brother. I hope your friend is okay,” he says sincerely.

“I will tell him you said so.” Would he feel the same if he knew if was Hollander? “Thank you, Marly.”

Ilya is happy this part is done. Cliff will not ask too many questions. His coach is another story so he types out a text now, with plans to call first thing in the morning. He’s prepared for the fines that may come with this, and the weeks of penance doing extra laps and passing drills.

The next call is one he is not looking forward to.

Pike has messaged him several times in the last two hours, and he scrolls through the notifications before punching the call button. He should never have given his number as an exchange for Shane’s address.

“What the hell is happening, Rozanov? Why didn’t you call me?” He demands without introduction.

“I had other priorities, Pike.” Ilya runs a hand through his hair and breathes. He knows this is a friend who is just worried about Shane, but part of him still wants to punch Hayden Pike thought the phone.

Hayden’s voice gets softer. “Is he…did you talk to him?”

“Yes. I am here now.” He hears water running above him and continues. “Is bad, Pike. Something has happened to him. I do not know what yet, but I think someone has hurt him.”

“Like physically hurt, or…”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” Hayden hesitates on the other end and Ilya knows what is going through his mind. “Hurt like..?” Like the thing he won’t say out loud.

“Yes, I think so, maybe,” Ilya says, because he will not name it either.

“Jesus. Did he tell you anything?”

“No, and I have not asked. I will not. Must be when he is ready and not before. But he will need his people. And he will need patience and not pushing.” This is a warning. "He would not want people to know this. Is just us right now, Pike." 

“Yeah. I get it. His parents are in Spain. They’re back Friday, but I can try to reach them,” Hayden offers.

“I think maybe not yet?” There’s not a map for this, and Ilya is going on instinct. “Maybe is good for him to wait for them to come home. He is not standing on his feet with this yet, I think. He will need time. And he will need someone who knows about these things. Will need therapy, I think. This is not a thing he can fix, but I think he knows he also cannot ignore it anymore. I think this is maybe the important part for now.”

“I can come over tonight and stay with him? The kids are asleep, but my wife…”

“I am here tonight.” Ilya stops him. “And can stay until next Boston game in St. Louis Thursday if Shane decides is what he wants. What about Metros schedule? He should not play yet. Not until he gets more help. He does not need cameras and arenas right now.” Not to mention the pressure to perform.

“He won’t like that.”

“No,” Ilya agrees. “He is stubborn. But we need to try.”

“We’re off tomorrow, but we’re playing Washington here on Tuesday.”

“He will tell coach he is sick tomorrow. No practice. After that, we see.”

“Jesus, you sound like you’re his fucking mother, Rozanov. How are you going to convince him?” Hayden scoffed.

“Let me worry about that.” How was he going to convince him?

“You’ll call tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Rozanov...” Hayden hesitates. “Thanks. Whatever you did, I owe you. I think maybe we all do.”

“I did nothing.” All he had done was come looking for Shane and opened the door. “But I will remember this, Pike.” He makes his voice more menacing that he feels.

“Of course you will,” Hayden signs. “Tell him…tell him I missed him.”

“Yes. Goodnight, Pike.” He ends the call without waiting for a response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane is tired. Tired like he can’t remember being in a long time, and yet he dreads closing his eyes. Sleep has been his greatest enemy these last months. He could never hold the wall against his nightmares, and more often than not, he wakes up after too few hours, covered in sweat, with darkness stabbing at him from behind his eyes. And the sharp-edged blade of it is a voice in his ear rasping out a mantra that engraves itself under his ribs.

Dirty slut.

Filthy whore.

I’ll give you what you deserve.

Don’t pretend you don’t fucking want this.

The voice hasn’t waited for sleep tonight and Shane tosses beneath a thin sheet, trying to push it out, to focus on anything else.

Ilya Rozanov is asleep on his couch, wearing his clothes, smelling like his soap, and skipping a team flight to stay with him.

Ilya Rozanov has been worried about him. Ilya Rozaonv has come looking for him, and even more miraculously, Shane has allowed himself to be found.

His mind curls into the safety of strong arms, tucks itself up against the warmth of Ilya’s chest, and burrows into the sheltered space between shoulder and jaw he’d like to stake a permanent claim on, until sleep finally comes for him.

Chapter Text

Ilya is awake.

Partly because, given the hour, he hadn’t anticipated his coach calling him immediately after he sent a text explaining why he wasn’t in at curfew and why he wouldn’t make the team flight in the morning.  But LaClaire had lit up his phone right away like an anxious parent and had at least asked if he was okay before laying into him hard for twenty minutes. In the end he seemed to accept Ilya’s explanation, and his promises that this was not something that would happen again and that he’d be on their Wednesday morning flight to St. Louis with bag in hand. So this part was done, and the rest, like arranging his own flight and getting his bag, was for tomorrow.

He knows he should sleep. He wants to sleep. His body and mind are exhausted, but instead he’s lying awake and having fucking feelings and getting more and more frustrated by the minute.

What he’s feeling most is worried. That alone is pissing him off. He’s not supposed to be worried about this man. He’s not supposed to care at all, beyond winning more face-offs, and scoring more goals, and whether Hollander keeps showing up in his hotel room and sucking his dick with that beautiful, eager mouth.

Ilya’s not really sure what he expected, showing up here unannounced, letting himself in the door like had any fucking right. But he didn’t expect this. He’d known it was bad, but he didn’t expect Shane to collapse like the puppeteer holding his strings had suddenly let go, to look at him like Ilya was the only thing tethering him to reality in a world that was falling apart.

He does know he’s not supposed to be lying here awake tonight in Hollander’s apartment on his expensive leather sofa in fucking agony over him, and he’s cursing the stupid and persistent ache in his chest at the memory of those lost, dead eyes that suddenly had him shedding tears and spewing confessions tonight, giving penance for the life he could not save while the warmth of Shane’s body rested heavy against his chest. And if he’s being fucking honest with himself right now, what he really wants is to run up those damn stairs and put arms around him again.  

But Ilya’s even more angry at the thing flowing beneath the worry, the undercurrent of something more than curious that’s nagged at the back of his brain and curled up in his chest since their first meeting. Because Hollander was supposed to be an entertainment, a diversion, maybe even an act of rebellion. But out of the gate, he’s been a puzzle Ilya wants to solve, a mystery that gets his dick hard at inconvenient fucking times, and the emblazoned images of scattered freckles and Shane’s perfect, pretty cock behind his eyes every damn time he comes.

To make everything worse, he’s wearing Shane Hollander’s clothes. At least he’d had the decency not to bring him a Metros t-shirt instead of something plain and grey and soft with the tag cut out of it. It smells like lightly scented detergent, but even laundered, there’s the scent of him clinging to it in places, and Ilya wants to pull the softly worn collar up over his face and just breathe. He tells his body to stop reacting, that this is not the time, and it doesn’t matter that Shane is this close, and that he can still feel the warm and solid weight of him against his thighs. But fuck him if despite everything he isn’t uncomfortably and embarrassingly hard right now.

He adjusts himself for the second time and knows it’s no use, so he throws off the blanket and pads guiltily to the bathroom where he bites his lip, and quickly and quietly jerks into his fist over the sink thinking not of tonight, but of cold Saskatchewan alleyways, and the hot and tentative pull of Shane’s lips the first time his mouth was around him. He comes hard but silent, sagging with relief that among all the other problems he has at the moment, at least his dick isn’t one of them anymore.

But a half hour later, he’s still awake.

It’s not that Shane’s couch isn’t comfortable. He can and has slept in far worse places. And it’s not like a bed wouldn’t have been nice. But if he’s tucked away in a spare room with insulated walls, and too many pillows, and comfort, he cannot hear, and he will not wake, and part of him is waiting.

He knows about the terror that comes at night, the haunting of dreams when the waking world has fallen away. He knows about the faces that appear in the darkness, the voices that echo and reverberate against the walls of the mind when the ears try not to listen.

He spent years fighting his own nightmares, running from the disappointed curse of his father’s voice chasing him down endless echoing corridors like a pack of wolves, searching for exits that did not exist, entering dead-end room after dead-end room filled with his mother’s empty eyes and lifeless limbs and scattered pills. Eight years later and the dreams still come for him some nights. Not as often anymore, but not never, and his mind has still not built itself an emergency exit.

For now, all Ilya hears is silence from the top of the stairs, and he hopes that Shane has been able to find some peace tonight, some solace from dreams. With a sigh, he turns onto his side to hide his eyes from the blue-tint city glow seeping through the windows and finally allows himself to drift off.

Ilya’s not sure what time it is when he wakes, whether it’s been ten minutes or four hours, but something has pulled him out of sleep. He holds his breath, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and the distant whoosh of air through the forced heating vents, until the sound of Shane’s voice stabs at him out of the silence. The terror in it has him on his feet before his body has caught up with his brain and he nearly trips over the blanket tangled around his ankles.

Stop.

He takes two stairs, four, six…

Please.

Sickness grows in the pit of his stomach at each distinguishable and agonizing word.

I don’t want this.

A cry that splits the night and his heart in two.

When he reaches the bedroom, Shane is curled up around himself, sheets in his fists, fighting an invisible enemy.

“Shane,” Ilya calls softly, hesitant to come too close. He wants to rush to the bed and wrap around him, but some instinct tells him this might be the very worst thing he could do at the moment.

Shane’s breathing changes but he is still locked in. Ilya tries again, slightly louder. “Shane, wake up.” This time there is a beat, a tremor, and then Shane sits bolt upright, eyes darting into corners like the shadows have knives. He retreats to the furthest edge of the bed from the door, between nightstand and solid headboard.

Ilya makes his voice as gentle as he can and tries to keep the ache out of it. “Shane, you are okay. This is a nightmare.”

Shane draws his knees to his chest beneath the sheet and crosses arms around them as he turns his face away. “I know.” The words are tremulous and distant. He’s breathing like he’s just finished skating an hour of drills.

“What can I do?” Ilya’s whole body is leaning, canting itself toward the space he wants to run to.

“Nothing. I just need a minute.” Shane’s voice is rough and raw, muffled as he drops chin to chest and forehead to knees.

Ilya counts heartbeats as Shane’s breathing evens out and he begins to flex his fingers, coming out of his tight cocoon.

“Okay.” Shane finally lifts his head and takes a deep, shaking breath. He keeps his knees drawn up, but sits straighter and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry if I woke you up, or if I scared you again.”

“Is okay.” He’s still hovering near the doorway. 

“I think you can come in now if you want.” The invitation is uncertain, like he’s testing himself and not Ilya.

Ilya moves slowly, coming to the edge of the bed that’s furthest away. Shane’s eyes are wary, guarded, tracking him, and he wishes there were literally anywhere else to sit in the room. “This is okay?” He gently lowers his weight to the mattress, one knee raised and folded so he can angle toward Shane, ready to shift again if it’s too much.

Shane nods, staying silent like he’s unclear which answer will come out if he actually opens his mouth. They both feel out the tentative truce of space, and the accords seem to hold for the moment.

 Shane is looking at him like he’s waiting for Ilya to ask. Like he’s waiting for him to start the conversation he doesn’t know how to have. Like he’s pulling at the door of it but cannot undo the lock.

“You were saying things in your sleep.” Ilya builds the entryway, but Shane will have to walk through it.

Shane nods his head again in acknowledgement and then turns away, unable to look at Ilya in the face of it. They sit there like that in silence for a while, as Ilya waits to see if Shane will come to him or back away from it for the night. He’s not sure which one he’s hoping for as his insides twist painfully. He’s almost ready to say something that will move them past it when Shane finally speaks.

“I’m never strong enough, even in the dreams,” he says quietly, voice just loud enough to be heard.

Ilya lets the words crash into him, breath held at the impact, trying not to flinch. He’d known. Something in him had recognized it, but just these first few words are enough for grim confirmation.  

“I didn’t…I didn’t think something like that could happen to me. I never thought someone could…that I wouldn’t be able to…” His breath hitches, and he rocks slowly back and forth. “But I wasn’t strong enough. I tried, but I couldn’t stop it. God, I couldn’t stop it.” The last words break on a cry, and he buries his head. Something high pitched and devastated bursts out of him as his body heaves with the force of it.

Ilya moves in slow motion, each shift and step measured as he comes to Shane’s side of the bed and lowers himself to the floor, legs crossed. He’s close now, but now positioned in subordination, a supplicant to Shane’s suffering and grief.

His fingers curl into his palms leaving tiny half-moon imprints of pain. Ilya feels like he is going to fucking break open if he doesn’t touch him, and a moment later he can’t help the audible sound of relief that escapes as Shane blindly reaches a hand down for him to grasp. Ilya squeezes tight and waits until Shane gets himself back under control enough to continue.

“In Vegas, after I left you, I couldn’t sleep. I needed to think, so I went for a walk.”

The two sentences explode like an atom bomb inside Ilya’s chest. Fuck, he’d known it must have been sometime over the summer, but not then. Not after…He feels like his ribs are cracking open hearing him say that it goes back to that night. A night when he had held Shane in his arms and kissed him. A night they had fought. A night when they were sleeping under the same roof. When he might have made things different if he’d known, or if he’d…” Shane resumes speaking through the tears, cutting off the thought that’s going to haunt him.

“I went to a bar,” Shane continues. “I had to know…I had to find out if…oh god, Ilya,” he wails.

“Shh,” Ilya soothes, his own tears sliding silently down his cheeks. “You don’t have to do this tonight, Shane,” Ilya swipes his thumb back and forth over the knuckles in his grasp, and Shane’s grip tightens.

“Yes I do…I have to tell someone. I have to say it before…before it fucking kills me.” The words are broken on wet sobs. “And there’s no one else I can tell it to.” The sound of his words is desolate as he pleads to be heard.

“Okay, Shane. Shh, I’m listening.” He wants desperately to be what Shane needs him to be right now, but he feels like he’s breaking apart with each word. That Shane has held onto this for so long without fully coming undone is nothing short of miraculous. Ilya’s not sure he’ll survive the mere confession of it intact.

“I was just dancing. I wasn’t looking for…I didn’t want that that night.” This comes through firmly. “I think maybe…maybe there was something in my drink, I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ilya watches and waits, feeling like they’re coming to the hard part, the dangerous part, the part that he does not want fucking visuals of in his head.

Shane’s voice goes flat and quiet, unable to approach this without at least some distance. “I woke up in a hotel room and someone was on…on top of me. I don’t know how I got there.”  

Each word is like being hit with a slapshot to the chest.

“He was so heavy.” Shane’s voice is devastated, breathless, and Ilya can tell he’s reliving it in the moment. “He had my arms held down.” The hand not holding Ilyas opens and closes against the sheets reflexively, like he’s pushing something away. “I told him to stop. I should have been able to move, to get him off me, but I…I couldn’t. He wouldn’t listen to me he…he said that I wanted it. That I deserved it.” He buries his head again. “And it hurt…Jesus, it fucking hurt.” His body shudders at the memory.

Ilya feels anger well up inside him, vaulting over the pain. He usually contains his anger to the ice, finding a sanctioned outlet for it by checking an opponent into the boards with just a little more force than necessary, or throwing a punch when its well deserved. But this anger is different. For the first time in his life he realizes he is, in fact, capable of murder. He would put his hands around the throat of the person who has done this to Shane and squeeze the life from his body if he knew how to find him, and he would walk away just fine about having done it.

“It was my fault,” Shane chokes out. “If I tell them, everyone will know it was my fault. They’ll know about me. That I went there…that I went looking for….”

Ilya comes to his knees and clasps Shane’s hand in both of his. “This was not your fault.”

Shane remains quiet, and Ilya can only hope he’s listening.

“It does not matter that you went into a bar, or what kind of bar this was. It does not matter that you danced with someone.” He says each sentence slowly, as clearly as he can. “It would not even matter if you went back to someone’s hotel room. You said no, Shane. You said stop. I know you. I have fought you myself on the ice, and I know you fought as hard as you could. I know this. Please look at me now.” He touches Shane’s calf tentatively, the only part of him he dares to. 

Shane raises his head and looks at him with wrecked eyes.

“This man hurt you. This is not sex, Shane. This is rape.” He uses the word. The one his brain has been avoiding all night. “This is crime. He is criminal. This is not your fault, Shane. Please hear me.” He drops his head, presses a damp cheek to the sheet above Shane’s feet and holds to the small points of contact he’s been allowed. He knows he looks like a beggar, down here on his knees at Shane’s bedside, pleading with him to accept forgiveness, but if pleading is all he has, he will make Shane listen until he believes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane is saying the words out loud, his lips and tongue tangling themselves to set free the shame that feels infinite, the guilt that has crawled and clawed beneath his skin and festered behind his wall. His mouth moves reluctantly to release the black weight of it into the world to live and breathe.

He pulls the confession out of his throat one word at a time like a magician pulling scarves, past the pressure in his chest, past the choke point of pain that wants to keep it in, keep it smothered and smoldering, ready to ignite again like a flashover if he isn’t vigilant.

Telling Rozanov is torture, but easier than it would be with anyone else. There are things he doesn’t have to explain, background he doesn’t have to give. Ilya has the context for the secrets that came before, the ones that are a tied up and twisted tangle around the heavy curtain that has fallen and blocked all the light out of his world.

When it’s over, when he finally wrestles the breath from his lungs to give it all, when the last word has fallen from his lips into the silence of the room, he feels like he’s dangling on the edge of a cliff, and the tandem points where Ilya connects to him are the rope and clip saving him from the fall.

And then Ilya is on his knees, praying words of absolution for him, feeding him forgiveness and making him swallow. He’s been ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of guilt and shame for so long and suddenly Ilya is trying to stay his execution, grappling with him for the knife at his wrists.

I know you fought as hard as you could.

He hears it, but pushes it away.

This is not your fault.

Ilya’s hands are clutching, writing the words across his palm in the press of flesh to flesh.

Rape. Criminal.

This is not your fault.

Not your fault.

Something in him lets the words pierce the barrier.

His hand slips into Ilya’s curls, anchors, and he closes his eyes and breathes. There are places in him that the words do not penetrate, but he listens and lets them settle into the spaces they can reach, feeling the ripples of them travel through him.

“Please say it, Shane. You have to say it.” Ilya’s fingers curl around his calf.

“I didn’t want it,” he whispers, testing the truth of it on his tongue.

“More,” Ilya urges.

“I said..I said no,” Shane’s mouth twists with the agony of it, and fresh tears fall.

“Yes, Shane.”

“It wasn’t my fault.” The words come out more solidly this time.

 Ilya pushes himself up slowly and sits on the bed at his feet. “Tell me. Once more.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Ilya.” He wants so much to believe it.

Ilya reaches out a hand to brush the tears from Shane’s cheeks and he closes his eyes and presses into the touch, with a trembling sigh.

Shane waits for the fear, for the instinct to flee, to hide from this man who is bigger, and taller, and stronger, and so close when he feels small and vulnerable. But it does not come. All he can find it within himself to feel in Ilya’s presence right now is relief.

“I need…” Shane begins the sentence and then backs away from it, a different kind of shame taking over.

“What?” Ilya asks, thumb caressing his cheek.

“Like earlier…I’m sorry, just…please.” Because these are the only words he has to tell Ilya that it feels like someone has just flayed his skin off and every tender part of him is exposed to the air. That he needs the solace and safety he felt for just a little while he was wrapped up against the solid mass of him.

Ilya nods and pushes up to the head of the bed, watching Shane like he is a ticking bomb that might explode.

But Shane goes without hesitation, fitting himself into Ilya’s voids like he was born to fill the empty spaces of him, dropping his head to the flat muscle of his chest. Ilya pulls Shane’s drawn up knees over his thighs, and the embrace that followed him into sleep enfolds him again, holding gently and without restriction, leaving him exit routes should be need them.

“Thank you.” His fingers curl and he presses his lips to the soft material of his own shirt that is stretched taut over Ilya’s wider shoulders and broader chest, drawing the scent of him into his nose through the fabric.

Ilya rests his chin in the thick nest of Shane’s hair and his hand strokes the softness at his nape. “Is very big thing to trust someone with this, Shane. You are very brave. I do not know that I would be so strong.”

“I don’t feel strong. Or brave.” Because these words do not even make the top ten on the exhaustive list of emotions he’s feeling at the moment.

“This is maybe bravest thing I have ever seen,” he says softly, risking the lightest touch of lips to Shane’s temple.

Shane is quiet, finally finding breath after the cessation of the torturous outpouring. “I feel like I’m never going to be okay again,” he confesses, because despite the rippling echoes of self-forgiveness, he’s still desperately uncertain about what awaits him tomorrow, or the next day, or any tomorrow after. Will he ever walk down the street again without fear? Walk into a bar without panic? Sleep the night on a hotel mattress? Drink what is handed to him if he has not poured it?

“Yes, Shane, you will.” He pulls back to look at him in the almost darkness. “But you will need to let someone help you with this. Not me, or your parents, but someone who knows about these things. This is not a thing you can make go away. This is not a thing to do on your own. You will be okay because you are strong and you are brave. But being okay does not mean being same. Things like this, the terrible things, they change us. What was done to you cannot be undone. You will need to learn to be new kind of okay.”

“I don’t think I know where to start.”

“Shane, this is already start, yes? You have said all the words to me, and you are still here. All of you is here.” His hand runs the lines of Shane’s back pressing in gently, soothingly. “And you are asking me to touch you, trusting this. This is like running the same day you can walk.”

Shane tries not to think too hard about any of it, because there are words on his tongue trying to force their way out right now and he’s too tired to swallow more tonight. “I think maybe part of me was waiting for you.” His mouth spills the confession. “When you came through that door tonight there was something in me that was so relieved. I think…I think I needed you.”

Ilya makes a small sound in the back of his throat and then swallows it down. “It is late, Shane. You should sleep.” The words are tight like they’re stretched over something else.

“Will you…will you stay with me for a while? I know it’s late, or early, or whatever, just…can you just stay? I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Yes, if this is what you want.” The deep rumble of Ilya’s voice is like a lullaby.

Shane stretches and shifts, lining up along Ilya’s side, calm when he should be panicking. He listens to the strong heart beating beneath his ear, and synchs his breathing to Ilya’s, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.