Chapter Text
Ilya
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Ilya looked at his phone for what had to be the millionth time, his palms sweaty and his heart thumping in his chest like it was getting kicked around in a beating. Around him, the sounds of his team doing their pre-game routine were pressing in on him, a tightening vise that crept up his throat. Maybe that’s why it felt hard to breathe.
It’s just – he rarely felt like this before a game. Like he could crawl out of his skin and disappear into the ether, untethered to the earth.
Normally the sounds of his team, his friends around him, hyping themselves up for the game, had the effect of stoking the fire in his gut. It was what had driven them to their Stanley Cup win last year, what drove him to push into every game with a desire to not just win, but to crush the other team.
But today was different.
He knew why, logically, but he would rather not admit it to himself nor any God above.
It had been six months since the MLH awards in Las Vegas where he’d taken MVP. Six months since he’d watched Hollander put on a show, since he’d pressed his hand into Hollander’s shoulder blades, his face against the mattress and pretty ass in the air. Six long goddamn months after Ilya tried not to let his emotions surface, desperately pushing deeper with every jerk of his hips as though the force of his movements would push his feelings back into the locked box he was trying to keep closed.
Six months of trying to deny that he felt anything other than lust when it came to Shane fucking Hollander.
And, miserably, six months of radio silence from the man.
Which was… Not uncommon.
But it was a new season, and the year before there had been messages over the summer. Chirping about training. An emoji or two.
And when the season had started last year? It had been like the lights had been turned back on after being in the mental shadows that Russia always evoked in him. He’d landed back in North America and fallen into training camp and the schedule ahead and they’d hooked up at their first match up and it was normal. Blissfully easy. Like a return to a routine he hadn't realized they'd established.
But then Sochi had happened and maybe he’d started it first. Maybe he’d set the tone for what they were after that encounter when he’d pushed him away so forcefully. Maybe this silence was his fault? A tit for tat that he hadn’t realized he set in motion?
It’s just – Hollander didn’t play these games. He wasn’t a beacon of communication and honesty, neither of them were, but the man was so responsible that the only notifications he probably hadn’t ever cleared were his socials (which Ilya knew he avoided like the plague).
So, Ilya knew he’d read the message. He could see he’d read it, for fucks sake, but Hollander had chosen not to respond.
And for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why.
Had he hurt him?
The last time had been intense, sure, but Hollander hadn’t seemed in pain. There’d been no discussion of crossed boundaries, nothing to flag that his eagerness had resulted in injury. Hell, if anything, they’d sat around after like two buddies on a couch shooting the shit. A buddy that Ilya had desperately wanted to take in his arms and kiss until he couldn’t breathe. But still… A buddy. A hook-up.
Ah fuck, who was he kidding?
He checked his phone again. Silence.
Ilya
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He shoved the device in the stall and cursed, slapping his hands against his thighs and turning to his teammates to get his head in the game.
Hometown crowds were always loud, but Ilya loved the way his team was able to shut them up with a solid defeat. Montreal was a beast of its own though, passionate and deafening and a little bit feral. It made Ilya work that much harder to bring in a win, his team driven right alongside him.
Entering the ice for the warm-up, Ilya listened to the crowd’s rumble and the music playing overhead as he glanced across the ice to the Montreal side. It didn’t take him long to spot Hollander warming up in the corner, practicing a few moves with Pike before taking a few shots at the net.
Ilya managed to do a few rounds of his half of the ice before hovering near the center line, their typical meeting place before the match. He’d tried to signal Hollander’s attention without being obvious about it, keeping to his routine before trying to meet him half-way.
But Hollander didn’t come to the centerline like he usually did.
In fact, he barely looked across the ice to the Boston side, his focus solely on the puck he was toying with and the occasional teammate who skated into his orbit.
Ilya’s stomach clenched as the buzzer ending the warmup blared above him, the realization sinking in that he had definitely done something to piss Hollander off.
The other man was ghosting him, just like Ilya had done before Vegas in a last-ditch effort to stop the dangerous feelings he had felt brewing for his rival, the same man he’d been fucking for an unholy number of years.
But why?
He didn’t try to ask at the face-off. He didn’t ask at the boards, when they battled for the puck. He didn’t chirp him about it, didn’t pull him in to ask as they shook hands at the end, 3-1 for Boston.
Hollander had played like shit and that was more terrifying than anything Ilya could imagine was wrong between them. There were very few things that he thought Hollander would get distracted by that would make him play as poorly as he had, and Ilya knew there was no way that Ilya mattered enough to Hollander to be the cause of a performance like this. Ilya’d never, not once in all of the time they’d been playing against one another, seen the type of listless effort Hollander gave to the game as he did that night.
It made the sinking feeling in Ilya’s gut freeze, a coldness slithering through him that not even the win could thaw.
After the game, Ilya went through the motions, giving interviews and chatting with his teammates as though there was nothing wrong. He was nothing if not consistent at pretending like he wasn’t losing his fucking mind. He’d had decades of practice at this point.
But inside he was twisting himself into knots, thinking back through every minute, every text he’d sent. Back at his stall, he opened his phone and didn’t even bother to check whether his message was read or not. Instead he opened the browser and quickly glanced through the headlines for “Shane Hollander” over the last few months.
Not a great start to the season.
Distracted, inconsistent.
Goal count lower than the last two years.
How had he not noticed? He watched Hollander’s clips. He followed the outcomes of the games. Montreal had been winning, hadn’t they? But not because of Hollander’s performance, it seemed. At least not according to the reports.
It didn’t make sense.
What had happened since Vegas that turned the greatest player he’d ever competed against, the man he had feelings about that he refused to confront, into this? This shell? Who wouldn’t even text him back?
If it was just the texting, he’d get over it. He’d have to. It would fucking hurt but he would do it because eventually they’d have to anyways. Because hockey. Their careers. Russia. All of the stupid reasons he could never have what he wanted.
But if Hollander didn’t have hockey? If he’d broken something in Hollander that took hockey away because Ilya was careless and took and took until there was nothing left?
He needed to not think about this anymore. He was blowing it out of proportion. The season was still new, there were plenty of games left for Hollander to recover. Maybe he was just having an off few games. Or he had a cold. Or…
It didn’t matter.
Clearly it didn’t because the man didn’t want to tell him what was going on. That wasn’t the relationship they had.
“Rozy, you good?” Marleau asks, breaking him out of his miserable fucking spiral.
“Yes – just tired. Game was so boring I almost fell asleep on the ice,” he grumbled in return. Marleau laughed, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Right? Was almost too easy with Hollander on another planet. We’re heading out for drinks after. You in or seeing that girl you’ve got in town?”
Ilya shook his head, grabbing his things from the shelf and finishing packing his bag. “No to both – shit to deal with. Will head back, have early night.”
“Alright man, I’ll try not to be too much of a dick if I make it back to the hotel tonight,” he responds with a wink and heads from the locker room with some of the other players.
Ilya blows out a breath and rubs his thumb between his eyes, the tension of his thoughts pressing against his skull.
None of it matters.
That’s what he’ll tell himself as he grabs his bag and takes the team bus back to the hotel.
Hollander could do whatever the fuck he wanted. Ilya would be okay. He was always okay. They weren’t anything to each other, just stress relief when in the same vicinity. A familiar fuck after a good game.
Except –
No.
Why did it feel like he was twelve and his world was falling apart again?