Chapter Text
Something is wrong. Ilya Rozanov knows it before he even opens his eyes. The feeling is already there, sharp, restless, sitting just under his skin. He tries to ignore it.
His sweatpants scratch against his legs when he swings them off the bed. The hotel room feels too warm. The walls feel too close.
Breakfast is worse. The orange juice burns his tongue and the eggs taste like nothing. His teammates are loud in a way that makes his teeth ache, like every voice is scraping against the inside of his skull.
He breathes out slowly through his nose. Once. Twice. It doesn’t help. Something is wrong.
Ilya forces himself into routine. Left skate, right skate. Left ties, right ties. Fix the socks. Tape. The tape snags halfway around his leg and tears. He stills for a second, staring down at it, then rips off another strip and starts again.
At thirty minutes to game time, his coach gives him the nod. He’s the Captain; it's his voice they need.
It’s the World Juniors in Regina, and they're moments away from their semifinal against Sweden. It should be an easy win, but something deep and knowing inside of himself knows better.
His father had called that morning while he was watching game footage and left a voicemail. Ilya doesn’t need to listen again to hear it pounding in his head. This is Russia’s moment. Do not fail. There is no option but forward. Do not fail me. Do not embarrass me.
Ilya exhales slowly, then steps forward to face his team. He raises his voice and tries to fake conviction.
“We’re here for a job. So we do it. One pass at a time. Stay aggressive on the backcheck. Stay in front of them. We do not let up. Now is not the time for doubt. Now is the time to strike. Let’s fucking pummel those Swedish fuckers.”
His teammates holler back, fired up anyway. He forces another deep breath out through his nose and his team follows him out through the tunnel onto the ice. All he needs is the ice. All he needs is the rush under his feet and all his worries will melt away.
It turns out your body really does always know. It's five minutes in, and he’s already missed three clean passes into turnovers. His goalie is bailing him out again and again, but it shouldn’t be necessary. Ilya should be doing his job and keeping the puck in the offensive zone. His arms have forgotten where his stick is supposed to be.
He throws himself back up over the boards for his next shift, the puck dancing between Swedish players in the neutral zone. He tries to take a step in to block a pass and accidentally clips someone's ankles, watching a figure sprawl down to the ice. Embellishment. Obviously. It doesn’t matter though, the refs would never waste an opportunity to put him in the box. The whistle blows a few seconds later for the penalty. Liam Ennberg, the Swedish centremen, is slow to get up, but he gives Rozanov a knowing smirk as he skates by him. Ilya doesn’t have the patience in him today.
“Dramatic bitch.” Ilya mutters, just loud enough. Ennberg stops slightly in front Ilya, just out of arms reach.
“What did you fucking say?”
Ilya knows it's bait - he just doesn’t care. He shoves him hard, causing Ennberg to slip a few feet backwards. It’s not enough, and Ilya wants to feel the electricity crack in his veins. He shoves again, throwing his stick and his gloves out onto the ice. Players scatter out of their way. He strikes first, getting a clean swing to the side of Ennberg’s jaw. For a brief moment he feels relief, and almost smiles as he sees a massive hand coming towards his face, but the refs have pulled them both away from each other before it can make contact.
Ilya angrily drops into the penalty box, the door slamming behind him. His sweat is rolling uncomfortably down his back, making him want out of his skin. He runs a hand over the back of his neck to try to wipe away the tracks but they keep pooling under his shoulder blades. It’s like his body is reacting to something on him. Eyes. He can feel eyes on him.
Sure, there were always eyes on him, he was the projected number one draft pick, but this feels different. He spares a quick glance above his bench into the crowd, towards the stands. Most of the fans are all following the puck, somewhere down towards his goalie, but there is one person staring directly at him. Shane. Fucking. Hollander.
Their eyes lock. For a brief moment they hold, before Hollander’s eyes widen slightly at being caught looking. Hollander breaks first and the moment snaps. All attention turns back to the ice, and the sound crashes back in right as Sweden scores. Ilya laughs once, quiet and sharp. Of course they do.
The locker room feels wrong in the intermission. Ilya can’t tell if it’s too loud or not loud enough, like everything is just slightly out of sync with itself. There are voices overlapping in a way that makes it hard to focus on any one thing for too long. Someone is talking, a coach, probably. Someone else laughs, loudly, and it makes something in Ilya’s chest tighten for no reason. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at the floor between his skates like if he just focuses hard enough everything will settle back into place.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Again.
This is stupid. He’s better than this. He knows he is. So what the fuck is this?
No matter what Ilya tries to do, tries to say to his team, the lines aren't clicking. Pucks bounce over sticks and skates stumble on the ice. In the second period they play tight and scared, and Sweden pounces on every loose puck. When Ilya's on the ice, everything feels just slightly too fast, like the game has moved half a step ahead of him and he’s been left trying to catch up. Was his team always this slow?
His hears that familiar voice in his head. Or maybe you're ruining this.
His stick feels wrong in his hands, and his edges aren’t catching the way they always have. Passes come in and fly off, or he sends them just a little too far, just enough to ruin more plays. Sweden never hesitates, never wavers. They take everything he gives them and turn it back the other way before he can fix it.
The third period starts and whatever imaginary grip he had on things just…slips, just enough that he knows it’s gone and he can’t get it back. He's not playing smart anymore, he’s playing angry. It feels better for about two seconds before it immediately makes everything worse. Ilya knows that, but he does it anyway.
The ref’s arm goes up again. He doesn’t even remember which play gets him thrown into the box again for the third time.
The final whistle blows at 4-0.
The line forms quickly with players pulling their gloves off and tilting their helmets back. The usual choreography of respect…or whatever version of it this is supposed to be. Ilya steps forward to slide in line behind his teammate. He pulls his jaw in tight and squares his shoulders, like if he holds himself together hard enough the rest of it won’t show.
It’s just a loss. A bad game. That’s all.
The first few handshakes blur together through quick grips and mumbled words. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really hear what anyone else is saying either, he just nods at the right moments, keeps the line moving.
Then, of course, Ennberg. He takes his time stepping in front of Ilya, like he has all the space in the world, like this is his moment. Something in Ilya’s chest sours.
Ilya grips his hand harder than necessary.
“Good game,” Ennberg says, sounding amused. The tone lands all wrong, but everything today has been wrong.
“Yeah,” Ilya says. It certainly doesn’t feel like agreement.
Ennberg’s mouth twitches, like he’s about to say something else, something Ilya already knows he won’t like. Ilya forces himself to let go first and shoves past him. Ennberg stumbles back half a step, just enough to be seen.
There’s a brief moment of immediate silence, like the whole arena just stops breathing. Then the sound hits.
It's not loud, it's worse than that. It's the sound of thousands of whispers rippling through the crowd. He hears it without hearing it, and Ilya’s shoulders go rigid.
He races off towards the bench and moves to leave the ice. Ilya glances up once, pulled by…something. Hollander is still there, watching him. His face is blank, he's just…watching. Ilya looks away first this time, and he keeps moving towards the tunnel without look back. He knows, just like he knew this morning, that this is the part they’ll remember.
The locker room is quieter this time. Teammates he’s known his whole life are…careful, stepping an extra inch out from around him. Nobody says anything to him.
Ilya needs out of his gear like it's burning his skin. He pulls off his gloves, his helmet, then throws his jersey over his head and into his stall. His hands are shaking. He tries clenching them still but it just vibrates up into his arms. He starts working off his shoulder pads.
“Rozanov.” His coach is staring at him from the doorway. There is not a hint of kindness or empathy in his eyes. “What was that?”
Ilya blinks. Truthfully, he has no idea which that his coach is referring to. The game? The penalties? The loss? The handshake?
“Nothing.” There is no confidence in his voice at all.
He feels small, and he feels his teammates' eyes trying to look away. His coach doesn’t move from the doorway.
“You can’t do that.”
Ilya feels his composure slip, “He pushed first,” he says.
It’s not true. It’s not completely false either. He means to say it lightly but his voice betrays him and it almost sounds like a plea.
“That’s not the point.” His coach studies him for another second, “You’re sitting next game.”
“What?”
“Suspended. You had to have known that.”
Ilya laughs once, disbelieving, “For that?”
It wasn’t even that bad. He’s seen worse, hell, he’s done worse. No one answers, and that’s when it really hits. There is not a single look of confusion from any other player, nobody is surprised. The voice in his head pierces through the rest of the noise. I just handed them something they were already looking for.
Ilya wants this tournament to fucking end. He wants to get out of Canada and get back home to Russia. Unfortunately, he can’t just leave Regina, his team has a chartered flight home, and there is no way that his father will cover the cost of a last minute flight back to Russia to save Ilya the embarrassment of sitting in the stands for his own team’s Bronze Medal match against the USA.
Canada had made light work of the USA in their semifinal, beating them 5-1. Shane Hollander, of course, scored a pair that would both make any highlight reel. He is only a point away from taking over as Canada’s leading point-scorer in World Juniors history.
Ilya knows that. He knows a lot about Shane Hollander, which is not strange, no matter how many times the thought bounces in his head. They have been pretty much shoved together in every possible sports headline for the last three years. Who will get picked first. Who breaks out first. Who wins Rookie of the Year. The questions have been asked so often that they stop sound like questions and they start sounding like fate. Like the two of them are already moving towards each other whether they like it or not, two comets on a collision path.
For all the talk, Ilya has never actually met him, or even heard his voice in real life.
He's seen Hollander around the rink a few times during the tournament, always on the other side of the glass, always just outside of him. Not that he's looking for him. It's more that Hollander seems to just always be there, like some fixed point in the periphery of Ilya's life.
He knows what Hollander looks like. Of course he does - everyone does. He's seen the headshots, the game photos, the stupidly polished interviews. None of them really prepared him for the real thing.
People call him the Pretty Canadian Prodigy like that explains everything. It does not. Ilya has been around enough beautiful people in his life to know better. Shane Hollander is the most beautiful person he has ever seen, and that fact annoys him more than almost anything.
It's the difference that gets under his skin. Ilya is blonde and pale and full of sharp edges, all cold light and hard lines. Hollander is warmer, softer, dark eyes and hair, in a way that makes Ilya feel too aware of himself. He doesn't smile much, but he has that unmistakable Canadian niceness, the kind that comes through from all the way up in the stands. There's a clip on ESPN of him playing tic-tac-toe with a little girl during warmups, then tossing her a puck even when he wins. It's nauseating. Sure, there was the usual discussion of “hockey personality” that meant he was probably about as bland and boring as a cardboard box, but that didn’t seem to take any focus away from how good he was on the ice.
Ilya had watched the Canada-USA semifinal from his hotel room with a nasty mix of rage, admiration, and envy twisting in his stomach. Hollander doesn't wake up off his game. Hollander probably wakes up to praise and affirmations. Hollander probably doesn't have to drag himself through the day, feeling like a disappointment.
Russia manages to edge the USA in overtime, and Ilya thinks about heading down to celebrate with his team. Instead, he craves a cigarette. More than that, he can’t stomach his teammates’ careful sympathy. It’s the kind that radiates through the locker room when they think he’s too angry to speak. They won bronze without him, he doesn’t need to watch.
He slips out an ice-level exit, and heads for a secluded corner by the building’s side. His lighter fails once. Twice. His fingers are cold or maybe just shaking. It catches just as the Team Canada bus rolls up into the loading bay beside him.
A few players climb out in game-day suits, some he recognizes from draft projections. Realistically, the whole Canadian roster will be drafted by June’s end. Shane Hollander steps off near the end, not first like Ilya always needs to be, and pulls his headphones free.
His eyes catch on Ilya.
For one brief second, Ilya thinks Hollander is going to stop, step out of the walkway, say something. Do anything.
Ilya's hand twitches at his side, absurdly, like it's waiting for a handshake that has not happened yet. Like it's preparing for the contact.
Instead, Hollander gives him the smallest half-nod, barely there, and walks into the arena.