Archive of Our Own ^beta

один.

Ilya’s best friend Svetlana is a figure skater, and Ilya thinks she’s so cool. Ilya plays hockey, which is also cool, but he thinks what she does looks like way more fun. Sometimes, if the stars align and their practices line up, Svetlana will teach him part of her routines. Ilya’s not any good at it, untrained and clumsy in his hockey skates, but he loves the feeling of it. He learns how to land the most basic waltz jump and when he leaps into the air, he feels like nothing can touch him. it’s exhilarating. 

Today is not one of those lucky days, because his older brother is supposed to be picking him up from practice. Ilya’s distracted though, watching the skaters warm up on the rink. Ilya doesn’t really like Alexei, and Alexei really doesn’t like Ilya—especially not when Alexei has to come inside to find him, because he’s taken too long to make his way out to the parking lot. 

Ilya can see Alexei’s reflection in the glass growing closer as he storms up to Ilya.

“Do you want to be like them, Ilya?” Alexei asks, coming to stand next to him. 

Ilya nods, and the second he does, he knows he’s fucked up. Alexei looks like he wants to slit Ilya’s throats with his own skates. Ilya squares his shoulders and tries to meet Alexei’s seething glare with one of his own. This only serves to make Alexei even more mad, and before he knows it Ilya’s getting led outside by a painfully tight grip on his shoulder.

Ilya only feels Alexei’s hand leave his shoulder once they’re approaching the car. Only to stumble a second later, as he feels the hand return to shove him in the back. Ilya lurches forward, loses his balance, and lands on his knees. Alexei scoffs and doesn’t help him up.

The ride home is silent. When they make it back, Alexei drags Ilya into papa’s office, and tells him that Ilya wants to be a figure skater.

Ilya, for all of half a second, thinks that maybe this will go okay. And then his papa frowns, and Ilya is told in no uncertain terms that he will not be doing that. Ilya is informed that if he wants to make his family proud, he’ll focus on hockey. Because no Rozanov is going to be a faggot on the ice. Ilya stands there, petrified, and nods until his head hurts, because what choice does he have?

His papa sends him straight to his room once he’s done with him, and he’s told to remain there, or else. On his way out, he can hear his papa telling Alexei to fetch him his mama. Ilya hurries out even faster. He really hopes she isn’t mad at him too.

Ilya doesn’t even realize he’s bleeding until he’s alone in his bedroom. There’s a small scrape on his knee, sluggishly oozing blood. Ilya doesn’t have any bandages in his room, so he presses a few tissues to the wound. He doesn’t know where the first aid supplies are and he’s too scared to leave his room to find out. 

So he holds the tissues to his knee until the bleeding stops, and if he cries, well, nobody’s there to see it.

On nice days, when the weather is good and papa isn’t around, he and his mama will go out and walk around their small back garden. She’ll tell him all kinds of stories, fairy tales, myths. Ilya’s favorites are the ones that involve soulmates. Ilya really wants a soulmate, but they’re just myths. Not all of the ones that involve soulmates have happy endings, but the ones that do are his favorite favorites.

But even in the fairy tales, things aren’t guaranteed to work out. Just because someone is a perfect match for you doesn’t mean you’re the same for them. 

His mama tells him a tale of a storybook King, who began hoarding stuff for the Queen of the enemy nation. He starts a war with their King over it, with countless lives lost in the process. When the dust of war clears, the enemy King lays slain, and the Queen that was so coveted dead with him. In the end, the King takes his own life too, the grief too much for him to handle.

Ilya cries so hard after his mama tells him this story, it takes her the rest of the afternoon to calm him down.

два.

Ilya doesn’t even realize at first, is the thing. It’s Svetlana who points it out, when Ilya is taking his skates off after practice at the rink.

His bag is open on the bench next to him, and she peers into it. 

“Wow, you have a lot of stick wax,” she says. Ilya knows he does. Over the last few months, he’s wanted to try a different brand every time he’s gotten the chance. He liked the kind he had been using, but maybe trying new things is good? Even though he doesn’t actually feel like using any of the new ones he bought.

“So?”

“You don’t even like this brand, you always complain about how bad it smells.” Ilya’s starting to suspect Svetlana knows something he doesn’t, from the way she's smirking at him. 

“I don’t know, I was at the store and saw it and just had to get it, I guess?” 

Svetlana’s smile is becoming increasingly manic.

“Ilya.”

“What?”

“Ilya!!!” She’s nearly jumping on her skates. “You just had to buy it?”

Ilya’s not—he wracks his brain for any other time recently he’s been possessed with the need to buy something. The only thing sticking out to him besides the wax is the mouthguard that’s too small he bought and couldn’t bring himself to throw out. The weird thing was, Ilya’d known at the time it was going to be too small, and bought it anyways but—

The realization must be showing on his face, because Svetlana’s aggressively nodding at him, her curls bouncing wildly.

He suddenly feels too big for his body. This isn’t real, right? It’s just coincidence. Soulmates aren’t supposed to be real. That’s what his mama told him, that’s what everyone says. They’re just fairy tales, right?

He needs to go home and tell his mama immediately.

When he eventually makes it home, he finds his mama in one of their sitting rooms. She has the curtains open, and sunbeams cut their way through the room, illuminating motes of dust in the air. When Ilya rushes into the room, his mama looks up from where she’s seated on the couch, reading her book. She smiles softly at him, and he flings himself onto the couch next to her. 

He opens his mouth, but stops himself before he speaks. Should he tell her? Is she going to be mad at him? Is he just overreacting?

She puts her book down and turns to him.

“What’s wrong, Ilyusha?” 

He draws his knees up to his chest.

“Mama… are soulmates really a myth?” He asks, his voice wavering. His mama immediately pulls him into a tight hug and kisses his head. Ilya tightly clings back to her.

“Ilyusha, do you think you have a soulmate?” His mama asks, not unkindly. He explains the wax, and the mouthguard. She nods, before speaking again. “You have to keep this a secret, okay? You can’t tell anyone else, not even Papa.”

Ilya bites his lip. Svetlana knows, but she’s the one who pointed it out, so she’s okay, right? He doesn’t want to have to hide stuff from her. She’s his closest friend.

“Sveta knows already,” he says. His mama sighs softly but doesn’t chastise him.

“Just be careful, okay, Ilyusha?” He watches the sunlight reflect off the gold of her necklace as she speaks. “Your heart is so big, I don’t want to see you get hurt.” 

Ilya nods somberly, thinking of the stories she’s told him. He hopes his soulmate doesn’t hurt him. 

три. 

Ilya knows something is wrong with his mama. He just doesn’t know what, or how he can fix it. He tries asking her, begs her to tell him what’s going on so that he can help.

Every time, she just ruffles his curls and tells him not to worry. 

He goes to her every time he buys something for his soulmate, because it always makes her smile. Even when it’s just him picking out the same exact roll of tape, again, he still makes sure he shows her.

His papa leaves on a “business trip” to St. Petersburg for a few weeks, and takes Alexei with him. Ilya knows part of why his mama is like this is because of his papa. She never speaks when he’s around, and sometimes Ilya notices marks on her skin. Bruises that look like someone was gripping her arm. He can never prove anything though, and he’s scared to ask his mama about it. But his mama has always been happier when his papa isn’t around, so he hopes that maybe with him gone she’ll start feeling better.

But the days pass and his mama is still listless. She’s spending more time in bed, and Ilya’s started making it a habit to check in on her when he gets home from school or practice. 

Two nights before his papa is set to return, Ilya gets up in the night to go to the bathroom, and finds his mama crying in the living room. She must’ve heard him come in—she turns her gaze from the window to find him, lurking in the doorway. She looks so… resigned? Ilya doesn’t have a name for the emotion on her face. 

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he walks over and gives her a hug. His mama wraps her arms around him in return. Ilya comes up to her chin, now, so she barely has to lean down to press a kiss to the top of his head.

“You’ve gotten so tall, Ilyusha,” she whispers into his hair. They stay like that for a little longer, before his mama pulls away from him, and places a hand on Ilya’s cheek. 

“Come watch practice tomorrow? Or we can go out for dinner?” Ilya pleads.

He knows the answer—his mama hasn’t left the house in years. He knows its because his papa doesn’t want her to. Ilya still tries, because she looks so desperately sad and Ilya’s grasping at straws to try and help. His papa isn’t here now, and can’t punish either of him if he doesn’t find out. 

“I’m so, so, sorry,” she says, instead of answering with a no. Her eyes flick across his face, like she’s looking for something in his expression, but Ilya’s not sure what. Maybe forgiveness?

He shakes his head. He doesn’t want his mama to feel guilty that she’s sick. It’s not her fault.

”It’s okay, Mama, it’s not a big deal, really.”

Ilya manages a shaky smile for her. He watches another tear make its way down her cheek. She strokes her thumb across Ilya’s cheekbone, once, before dropping her hand from his face.

“Go back to bed, Ilyusha.” 

“Okay,” Ilya reluctantly agrees—he doesn’t want to leave his mama alone, but also knows his presence probably isn’t helping. He wants to tell her that she should get some sleep too, it’s late. He wants to tell her that it’s going to be okay. He wants to tell her something, anything, so that she stops looking like this. He doesn’t do any of that, in the end. 

“Good night mama, I love you.” 

His mama presses another kiss to his forehead.

“I love you too,” she whispers, and steps away from him.

On his way out of the living room, Ilya turns to look at her again. His mama has gone back to looking out the window, staring blankly into the darkness. In the dim light, her blond hair and pale skin make her look almost ghostly.

He hates it. He hopes she starts feeling better soon.

Ilya checks on his mama in her bedroom after practice the next day. He opens her door and sees her hand, pale as marble, hanging off the bed.

Hours and hours later, after the medics came and declared his mama dead, and the coroner took her away, Ilya’s back in his bedroom. He sees something glint from on top of his bedspread, and finds his mama’s cross, carefully placed on his bed. It occurs to him that he hadn’t seen it on her- her body. Ilya picks the golden chain up, gently, reverently, and clasps it around his neck.

All it takes is one look in the mirror before he’s crying again.

Ilya turns thirteen. He spends his birthday in his room, crying. He misses his mama. 

Ilya tells himself he’s done being a baby. Ilya tells himself he won't cry anymore.

четыре. 

Even though his father banned him from figure skating, Ilya still watches Svetlana practice when he can. He can’t catch all of them, obviously, he has his own practices to go to and their schedules don’t always align. But if Ilya gets to the rink early on Mondays and Wednesdays he can watch her for the last minutes before he has to start getting his gear on for his own practice.

One innocuous Wednesday, when Ilya’s fourteen, he shows up to find that Svetlana isn’t alone on the ice. There’s another boy there too—presumably another figure skater—leaning against the side of the rink as she skates. Ilya studies him as Svetlana finishes running through her free skate. He looks to be about their age, maybe a bit older, sixteen or seventeen, with long silver hair plaited neatly down his back. He's watching Svetlana disinterestedly, and almost seems antsy for her to finish, his skates tapping idly against the ice.

Svetlana finishes her routine and Ilya claps, of course, he always does. The man? boy? on the ice claps too, Ilya notices. Good. The stranger pushes off the wall and skates over to Svetlana, in the center of the rink. Ilya watches them exchange a few words, and then she’s skating over to where he had been standing previously. Ah, so he’s going to skate.

Ilya watches the boy begin his routine with mild curiosity, and holy shit. Svetlana’s good, Ilya knows this, and he always likes to watch her on the ice. But Ilya cannot tear his gaze away as this stranger flies across the ice. He’s never seen anyone skate like this. He's seen other men figure skate before, of course, that’s nothing new. This boy skates like the concept of gravity is a mere suggestion. Every jump he lands effortlessly, every spin is executed with perfect grace. He looks divine.

Ilya’s eyes are dry from how hard he’s staring as the skater goes through his routine. What the fuck. What the fuck? Ilya feels like he’s crazy. Ilya thinks he’s going to explode. Ilya needs to leave right the fuck now and start getting ready for practice or he’ll be late. With no small amount of regret, Ilya peels himself away and makes for the locker room.

By the time he makes it out in his gear, both the male skater and Svetlana are gone.

That night, in bed, Ilya thinks about him. Ilya visualizes the way he moved on the ice, the way every motion was so controlled yet so explosive. It sparks a burning in Ilya’s gut to recall the boy’s face as he skated, the way his hair whipped around him. Ilya tells himself it’s jealousy at how free he looked. At how effortlessly he was able to be himself.

It’s jealousy that makes him slip his hand into his pants and palm his cock.

Ilya’s wiping his hand off on his sheets by the time he’s willing to admit that maybe it wasn’t all jealousy.

(He asks Svetlana about the skater the next time he sees her. Svetlana gives him a look, and tells him that his coach is a friend of her coach. He was in the area, apparently, and took the opportunity to practice with her coach at their rink. She tells him he’s some prodigy, and he’s definitely going to go the Olympics. Svetlana says his name, but Ilya’s too distracted to catch it.

He wants to ask more, but Svetlana’s still giving him a look. Ilya thinks back to what he did last night, feels a flash of guilt, and decides to stop asking questions.)

Ilya’s father remarries the summer Ilya turns sixteen. It’s to some woman less than half his father’s age. Ilya can’t think too hard about it without feeling sick, so at the wedding, he gets drunk on vodka and ends up in a locked bathroom with his coach’s son. Ilya doesn’t remember too much about his first time with Sasha, doesn’t even remember what compelled him to suck him off in the first place. Maybe it was the memory of that night, when he touched himself to that figure skater. Whatever his reasoning is, Sasha is more than willing to sate Ilya’s curiosities.

They spend the rest of that summer getting as much as they can of each other behind closed doors. It’s dangerous, what they’re doing. risky.

But so what if it’s a bad idea? All Ilya ever hears is about all the things he’s fucked up, how he’s a disappointment. He loses a game and his father berates him. He wins a game and his father berates him. Ilya tries to channel his aggression into playing, and his coach gets on his case about starting fights with other players. Whatever, everybody already thinks he’s an idiot, thinks he’s only capable of making bad decisions, thinks he’s a fucking asshole. Ilya’s tried, he swears, but nothing is ever good enough for anyone.

If it’s what they expect from him anyways, what does it matter if he drives too fast, starts smoking before he should, or fools around with his coach’s son? He’s going to be a failure anyways. So he might as well break the rules. It’s thrilling. It’s dangerous. It’s Ilya’s. 

Ilya thinks of the way he felt when he was a kid, innocently landing the most simple of jumps on the ice. That swooping feeling of freedom, the elation. When he’s doing something stupid enough, sometimes he can feel that same rush.

He sleeps with Svetlana for the first time in the fall. This is not one of his stupid decisions, as it turns out. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. He’s horny, she’s horny, they’re around each other all the time anyways. Part of him gets worried fucking her will jeopardize their friendship. Ilya’s not really interested in dating her, and he doesn’t want her to get her hopes up. 

Ilya breathes a sigh of relief, when after the first time, when they’re still lying in his bed with their breath still coming heavy, she turns to him and tells him explicitly that she does not want to date him.

He believes her exact wording is I wouldn’t be able to put up with your disgusting romantic ass. Save that shit for your soulmate, Ilyushka. He’d immediately tried to smother her with his pillow, because Svetlana only ever calls him that to piss him off.

So nothing really changes between them, which he’s grateful for. 

On the rare nights when Ilya can’t sleep, and Svetlana or Sasha are busy, he thinks about his soulmate.

He bought the first thing for his soulmate that wasn’t hockey related earlier that summer. His friends, Svetlana included, dragged him out shopping. He was wandering around idly as they hunted for clothes when he spotted a stress ball in a bargain bin and just knew he wasn’t going to be leaving the store without it. 

Ilya’d honestly been surprised. He was starting to suspect that his soulmate didn’t just play hockey, whoever they are doesn’t do anything else besides play hockey. It’s been years and not once had Ilya been hit with the urge to get something unrelated to hockey. Until now.

Which Ilya supposes he is grateful for, in a sense. He’s not compelled very frequently as it is, and it all being hockey equipment has made it easier to hide from his father as well as any nosy teammates, but—

Is Ilya’s soulmate really this boring? Ilya likes being on the ice, sure, but he also likes things that aren’t hockey. He likes fast cars, cigarettes. He likes the feeling of expensive vodka down his throat. He’s learning pretty rapidly that he likes to fuck, too. 

(One of the girls he hangs around has a cartoon bear charm hanging from her flip phone. He thinks it’s cute.

He likes to cook, too. He and his mama used to cook together, before she got too sick to. Ilya hasn’t been able to bring himself to make anything they used to since she left. 

Ilya liked the stories his mama used to tell him, too.)

But it turns out there’s more to his soulmate than just hockey—they’re fucking neurotic, too. Ilya finally had the impulse to get his first non-hockey item, and it’s a fucking stress ball??? 

How can someone who’s supposed to be Ilya’s soulmate be this boring?

He can’t wait to tell his mama though, she’ll be so excited that he finally—

Right, he can’t.

Ilya’d given the stress ball a hard squeeze to calm himself. Adjusted the cross around his neck. Told himself he's going to be okay.

пять. 

Ilya’s tired. He’s tired of getting called lazy because he doesn’t want to do extra practice, doesn’t want to run more drills. He’s better than everyone else without the extra work, so what’s the point in doing more? He has other things he cares about, why should he spend even more time putting even more of a gap between him and his teammates. No single skater has posed a challenge to him in a while. 

He’s also tired of all the pressure his father is placing on him. He talks more and more about Ilya getting drafted to the KHL. Of all the success he’ll bring to the family. Ilya wants to get drafted to a professional team, he and his father agree on that much. But Ilya’s not thinking about the KHL. Ilya’s thinking about the MLH, in North America.

If he’s being honest, Ilya’s been thinking about the MLH for a while. Svetlana’s a fan, for starters, because of her dad, so he’s heard a lot through her. And there’s the one time she dragged him to a foreign bookstore so that she could get a copy of a player guide for the latest MHL season. 

Ilya’ll swear up and down he doesn’t give a single fuck about MLH statistics, but he’s unable to leave without buying a book of his own. It’s some fucking book in English he can barely even comprehend. There’s a centaur on the cover of it. He’s been plagued since by the thought that his soulmate might be in North America. Ilya knows it’s not a given—Svetlana is a russian MLH fan, they exist. Ilya just can’t shake the thought that maybe that’s where his soulmate is.

(Three weeks later, Ilya buys an English to Russian dictionary. 

A week after that, he asks Svetlana’s dad about what it was like playing for the Bears.

A week after that, Ilya’s being introduced to a scout from Boston, who tells him they’re desperate for a star center.)

Ilya leads Russia to the gold in the World Juniors. Comes home and leads his team in Moscow to the gold, too. 

None of the centers for the teams he plays against back in Russia make him feel the way he felt playing against Shane Hollander. It felt like a high, a rush, something Ilya’d been searching for without even knowing.

Ilya needs another hit.

Ilya has to tell his father three separate times that he’s been drafted to the MLH. He gets three nearly identical half-screamed lectures in response each time. The second time it happens, Ilya thinks that maybe his father is trying to make a point. 

The third time it happens, Ilya suspects that his father really has just forgotten.

He speaks to Alexei for the first time in months, who tells Ilya he needs to spend less time making things up and more time practicing. Ilya asks if their father has been forgetting things around Alexei, too. He tells Ilya he’s imagining things.

Ilya doesn’t think he is, but soon he’ll be far far away, where his father and his brother can’t use him.

шесть. 

Ilya starts his time in America off with a bang.

Literally. Because the ink isn’t even dry on his work visa before he starts sleeping with Shane Hollander.

And then keeps sleeping with Shane Hollander because well, Ilya’s not known for his good decision making skills.

He was going to try and fuck Hollander tonight, if their game and flight hadn’t been canceled. Instead, he makes it back to his apartment and finds Svetlana in his kitchen. Once his heart rate drops back down to an acceptable amount, and she stops laughing at how much he jumped, he asks what the fuck she’s even doing here.

“The code to your door is the same one you’ve used for everything since we were eleven,” Svetlana says, glib.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Don’t get a big head, I’m not here for you.” Ilya thinks this is a bold claim for someone who has broken into his home, wearing nothing but his Bears jersey to make. “I transferred to a college here. If I want to go into business, it’s better for me to do it here than in Russia.”

Ilya knows she’d been talking for a while about how she didn’t think she was going to go into skating professionally. She’d fallen out of it somewhat in their later teen years, her heart not in it the way some of her peers were.

Svetlana had confessed to him that she had fun doing skating, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do. It was her father that encouraged her to transfer to Boston College. Her father was also convinced that she and Ilya were going to end up married, but that was besides the point. He wonders what it's like to be able to choose like that.

Ilya, later, after they've fucked, thinks that he loves Svetlana. No, he knows he loves her. He loves her, he loves her. 

Not like that, never like that. For all they’ve fucked, neither of them have romantic feelings for each other. 

In part because Ilya has a soulmate. But also because it’d just be weird. Ilya can’t describe it. It’s just that for as much as he loves having Svetlana in his life, he can’t see himself with her.

It’d be easy if Ilya’s soulmate was Svetlana. Sometimes he thinks it’d be easier if he wanted her to be his soulmate. But he doesn’t even want to want that. He wants his mystery person, his neurotic hockey fan. 

Ilya hopes he meets them soon.

Ilya thought getting away from Russia for most of the year would lessen the weight around his neck. Would relieve some of the pressure his father and brother place on him.

He’s put thousands of miles between himself and his family, so why does he feel even more suffocated?

His brother won’t stop calling, asking for money, and seems completely unconcerned about their father, who called Ilya last week asking when he was going to be getting home from school. 

The worst part is, no matter how much his father forgets, he always remembers to remind Ilya of his flaws, his failures. This time, he’s berating Ilya for losing a game against the Souls. He asks what Ilya is even good for if he can’t play hockey.

Ilya hangs up. Puts his phone down on the counter. Stands outside on his balcony in the bitter Boston winter and lights up a cigarette.

Ilya thinks its a good thing he likes playing professional hockey. He knows there’s a world where he didn’t take to the ice like a fish to water. He’d be working some awful government job his father would’ve gotten him, most likely. Slaving away, miserable and unfulfilled. And he’s grateful that’s not where he is, he really is.

But if he ever wants to stop playing hockey, he’s fucked, isn’t he?

Its not that Ilya wants to stop playing hockey, he likes it enough. He’s good at it, and doesn’t have to try too hard to be better than everyone else at it, and it makes him rich. Getting to play against Hollander is another major perk. He’s only been in the MLH for a few years. It’s too early to think about stopping.

If he did want to stop, one day, would he be able to? It’d be nice to have the choice to, he supposes.

Ilya ponders this and then laughs to himself. He should know better by now than to think anyone would let him get away with that. Even if he wanted to stop, his family wouldn’t let him. 

When the thoughts of his family get to be too much, Ilya ponders the lamps, instead. 

Ever since he’s moved to Boston, Ilya’s found himself buying more lamps than any rational person could ever need. He doesn’t know how he’s even ending up with them, because its not like he’s been going to Ikea at all. But for the last two years, every few months he’s stumbled across some set of lighting and has felt compelled to buy it. 

Ilya’s lucky his penthouse is so big, so he can spread them across the place and pass it off as a design choice, for the time being.

But like, there’s seven fucking lamps in his living room, and he’s starting to get concerned people are going to start asking questions if he gets any more. Not that the people he brings home are usually paying attention to anything but Ilya’s mouth, or hands, or cock, but it’s the principle of the matter. 

Why the fuck does Ilya’s soulmate need lamps so badly? Ilya’s soulmate has to live in a fucking dungeon. That’s the only explanation. No person living in any kind of real residence should have this much of a need for lamps. 

So thinking about that, helps distract Ilya, sometimes.

(The biggest culture shock about moving to America is the topic of soulmates, surprisingly. With the lack of good vodka being a close second. But back in Russia, soulmates were fairy tales, something children grew up on. Like Santa Claus, almost. The official government stance was that they weren’t real, and it was “strongly discouraged” to talk about and act as if you actually had one. But Ilya’d grown up on the stories, on the concept of a happy ending with his soulmate.

Ilya knows that even Svetlana knowing his secret is a risk, but he can’t imagine a world where she doesn’t know. He doesn’t plan on telling Sasha, though. They don’t really talk anymore, now that Ilya’s in the States most of the year. 

He is surprised about how reluctant people in the west are to even think about it. If it’s brought up, it’s as gossip, hushed tones in corners of rooms. This is not all that unlike Russia, but he learns that the Americans and the Canadians, at least, aren’t raised on soulmate tales. 

There are days where he thinks that might be better, honestly.)

Ilya has other ways to distract himself, too. He has no shortage of warm bodies, he can go out to a club and find someone to go home with. He has Svetlana, too. 

And he has Shane Hollander. Who Ilya is still fucking, against his better judgement.

Hollander is dangerous. He’s trouble. Hollander treats every second he spends on the ice with Ilya like it’s a battle for life and death. Ilya never feels like he does when he gets to play against Hollander. 

It’s fun fucking Hollander, too. It’s nice, getting to call the shots when he’s with Hollander. He likes how yielding Hollander is, how eager he gets. How trusting he is. Ilya tells Hollander to get on his knees and he does.

Although he usually insists on folding his clothes first. Ilya’s not endeared by that at all.

And sometimes—sometimes when they kiss, Ilya gets that feeling in his chest. The swooping sensation of freedom he used to get, doing those clumsy jumps on the ice, back when he was still young and hopeful. He feels weightless. He feels terrified. 

Ilya knows they shouldn’t be doing this. Which is part of the appeal, in a sense, sue him. But throughout every time they hook up—in every hotel room, every time he pins Hollander down and sinks into him—Ilya knows they’re risking it all. Yet even though sleeping with Hollander could spell the end of his career, and sometimes leaves Ilya feeling raw, stripped open, emotionally vulnerable, Ilya keeps choosing to see him.

Ilya doesn’t know what could make him stop.

(In the aftermath of Sochi, Ilya realizes he hasn’t bought a lamp in like, six months. He’s glad they finally got decent lighting, but Ilya also wonders what kind of person his soulmate must be to have taken over two years to buy a fucking lamp.)

семь. 

Alexei calls Ilya again, asking for money. Ilya tries to say no. He’s his own person now! He can tell his brother to fuck off.

Half an hour later, Ilya's dad calls him, screaming at him. Calls him a piece of shit for not supporting his family, asks if he ever gets tired of bringing shame to the family. If he enjoys being so ungrateful. It’s nothing Ilya hasn’t heard before.

Then his father tells him he’s too soft, like his mother. Ilya’d hung up immediately. He feels like he does that a lot, these days.

Soft? Him? He fucks somebody new in every city he’s in. He’s a notorious terror on and off the ice. Ilya Rozanov is not soft. Ilya Rozanov is an asshole.

He doesn’t mind getting called an asshole. It’s true. And its funny, making grown men throw temper tantrums with just a sentence or two. Ilya likes pushing people’s buttons, making them lose control. 

When his coach calls him an asshole, says he needs to stop picking fights with other players, he just shrugs and smirks. Marly laughs and tells their coach he’d have an easier time teaching a bear how to read than to get their captain to stop being an asshole.

Ilya also really likes pushing Hollander’s buttons. When Hollander calls Ilya an asshole, though, it always feels different. Hollander calls Ilya an asshole like he’s saying something else, instead. Ilya likes it, likes the way Hollander smiles when he tells Ilya to fuck off, like he just can’t help himself. 

These are dangerous thoughts to be having, Ilya knows. But when has he ever let a little danger stop him? 

Ilya hasn't cried in almost ten years. So no. Ilya Rozanov is not soft.

Ilya’s father is ill enough now that even Alexei can’t keep pretending everything is fine. Not that that makes Alexei actually give a single shit. When Alexei calls begging for money, Ilya threatens to withhold it unless he goes and checks on their father. Alexei complains, but he does it, and that’s better than nothing, so Ilya has to take it.

He’s not sure why he cares so much. His father has only ever been a constant source of criticism. His father ruined his mama’s life. Ilya knows there’s nothing he could say or do that’d get his father to be unequivocally proud of him. He hates that he can’t stop himself from trying, though.

He’s halfheartedly clicking through the customization options for a car he’s thinking about buying, because he still has room in his garage for another one, and the process of figuring out what shade of neon he wants this one to be helps to take his mind off things. Ilya makes it to the end and is nearly about to send an email to the dealership inquiring about the custom order, when something makes him go back to the page with the list of options.

He’s omitted the comprehensive safety package. Of course he has. It’s extra money, and for what? For the five times he’ll drive it this year, maybe, if he’s lucky and has the time? He scoffs and goes back to composing his email. His mouse hovers over the send button for a solid fifteen seconds.

Fuck, Ilya’s going to have to add these stupid granny safety features to his car.

This is so fucking stupid. Ilya amends the email, sighing loudly as he adds the fucking safety features to the list. It’s one thing for his soulmate to be lame as fuck, but now they’re making Ilya’s cars boring too?

At the same time as Ilya’s grumbling to himself, he can’t help but feel a bit touched. Whoever his soulmate is wants him to be safe. They haven’t even met yet, his soulmate knows nothing about him. But on an intrinsic level, his soulmate wants Ilya to be safe, to be okay. 

Maybe his soulmate isn't entirely lame.

восемь. 

Svetlana thinks Ilya is going insane. Ilya secretly thinks he might be, too. She stands with her hands on her hips, pursing her lips as she judges the contents of Ilya’s bar fridge. 

“Ilyushka, I’m as excited as you are for you to meet your soulmate, but don’t you think this is getting a bit ridiculous?”

Yes, Ilya silently agrees, it is. Because he can’t stop fucking buying ginger ale.

(He ignores the diminutive. He’s long since given up trying to get Svetlana to stop calling him that.)

It’d be one thing if he was compelled to buy one case, sure, fine. Two? Okay. But right now, as it stands, his bar fridge—the current subject of Svetlana’s scrutiny—is filled to the brim with nothing but cans of Canada Dry. 

“You know I can’t control it,” Ilya doesn’t whine. “Take it up with them,” 

Ilya doesn’t tell her that he has two more boxes sitting in the back of his pantry. He doesn’t need her to ridicule him over that, too.

Svetlana closes the door to the fridge and turns to him, crossing her arms.

“The sex is going to have to be crazy for you to put up with all of this.”

Ilya tries to imagine the best sex he could possibly be having. He’s immediately assaulted with memories of Hollander dropping to his knees, Hollander’s hole split open on his cock, the face Hollander makes when he’s about to come untouched. There must be something wrong with Ilya, because he should not thinking of Hollander when he visualizes his ideal sex life. 

It’s just so easy to fantasize about Hollander, is the thing. Ilya’s flooded with guilt as he realizes he’s spent more time thinking about Hollander than his own soulmate, recently. He doesn’t even want to begin unpacking that.

“Perhaps,” says Ilya, doing a very good job at hiding his internal crisis. He hums and begins to tap his chin with his finger.

“But old people have bad bones, and I am very good at sex. What if I fuck him too well and it breaks his pelvis? I’ll have to be careful.”

Ilya realizes his mistake as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He hasn’t brought up the thing where he’s convinced his soulmate is a man to her. He doesn’t know why he’s scared to. Ilya’d be shocked if Svetlana didn’t know what he was getting up to with Sasha. 

(Ilya is pretty sure at this point that his soulmate is a man. He likes women, likes them a lot, likes more women than men, on average. He struggles, however, to think of a woman that’d own and presumably regularly wear compression boxer briefs, use men’s body wash, and simultaneously not be a raging lesbian. Ilya feels pretty confident that his soulmate isn’t a lesbian, so the only other option is that it must be a man. Ilya carefully does not think about what this means about his ability to continue returning to Russia.

The other thing is, Ilya is also convinced his soulmate isn’t just any random guy. No, Ilya’s soulmate is an old man in a nursing home. He plays on his nursing home hockey team. Or he’s a washed up ex-MLH player. There’s no other explanation as to why everything Ilya has been compelled to buy has been so.. dull. Ilya left the store last week with a pair of reading glasses. Reading glasses. Whoever this old, boring, hockey playing geezer is needs to hurry up and make it into Ilya’s life, so Ilya can tell him just how dull he is to his face.

Sometimes when he sees old people on the street or in the crowd, Ilya tries to think about if he could be attracted to them. He spends some time in the GILF category on pornhub and can’t say he’s enthused. Ilya decides he’s not going to worry too much about it, surely Ilya will find his own soulmate attractive. Maybe he’ll have pretty freckles, like Hollander.

He shuts that thought down immediately.)

Svetlana scoffs and shakes her head. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t react to Ilya’s pronoun slip.

“‘Very good at sex’? You? I’d give you a five out of ten, at most. And that's on a good day.” 

Ilya gasps in mock outrage and collapses against the bar counter in agony.

“How dare you,” he protests as he drapes his body across the granite.

He knows what her game is. She implies he’s bad at sex, he gets defensive, demands to prove himself, and they fuck. It’d be fun, he hasn’t slept with Svetlana in a while. Ilya doesn’t know why, it’s not like they’ve seen any less of each other lately. Maybe it’s because of Hollander?

Ilya shakes his head at himself. He really needs to get himself together.

Svetlana’s words stick with him throughout the evening. The sex is going to have to be crazy for you to put up with all of this. Ilya doesn’t think he’s going to be putting up with his soulmate, and his presumed quirks. He’s actually starting to become absolutely fascinated by the glimpses he can get of his soulmate’s mind. Ilya wants to know what makes him tick. 

He’s starting to get the impression that his soulmate is the kind of person who.. Ilya’s not sure how to put it. Is a bit obsessive? Passionate, maybe. 

There’s the ginger ale situation, for starters. Ilya has enough cans of Canada Dry to provide for a small country. But Ilya also has over two dozen rolls of the same stick tape. He’s had to buy a bookshelf to shelve all the hockey-related books he’s bought. He has like, at least ten pairs of the same compression boxer briefs shoved in a drawer. He still has that stress ball, too, and now also has some other weird zen shit, like a fucking yoga mat. Ilya never plans to do yoga in his life.

Ilya’s soulmate just seems to care a lot about some very, very, specific things. He tries to imagine what it’d be like to be on the receiving end of that kind of focus, that intensity.

He thinks of Hollander staring him down during their last face-off. Hollander had looked like he wanted to rip Ilya’s stick from his hands and beat him with it. It was kinda hot, if Ilya’s being honest. It was even hotter that Hollander won the face-off. 

Christ—Ilya needs to stop fucking thinking about Shane Hollander.

Instead of pursuing any thoughts about Shane Hollander further, Ilya wonders what his soulmate would collect for him. 

The things Ilya wants are easy. cars, sex, good food, good booze—Ilya is no stranger to wanting these things. He hopes his soulmate doesn’t have a closet filled with vodka and cigarettes for him. It’s not like Ilya would complain if that were the case, but he doesn’t know if he likes the impression that’d leave his soulmate with of him.

He wants to think there’s more to him than that. He’s not sure there is, sometimes.

Ilya’s not sure why that thought terrifies him so much.

Much later in the evening, they’re splayed across opposite ends of his couch watching the Voyageurs annihilate the Nomads. Ilya waits until a cut to commercial to ask Svetlana. He knows better than to try and talk to her about something unrelated to hockey while there’s a game ongoing.

“If we were soulmates, what do you think you’d collect for me?” Ilya thinks she’s the only person on Earth he could ask that question to.

“Ugh, don’t make me imagine that. I wake up and thank god every morning that I am not.” Ilya rolls his eyes and nudges her foot with his, and she hums, considering.

“Cigarettes, probably. lots of vodka. And that shitty cologne you refuse to stop wearing,” she eventually answers. Ilya was expecting those first two, but the cologne was a low blow.

Women love his cologne. Ilya tells Svetlana as much and she mimes gagging, choking, and then passing out.

“No they do not, you smell like a high school locker room.” She says, when she’s done with her dramatics.

Ilya lunges across the couch to tackle her, and shoves her face into his neck. She continues to mime throwing up, and they wrestle on the couch until the game resumes and he’s promptly shoved off of her.

Number 24 for the Voyageurs scores a goal within the next minute. Svetlana boos, which Ilya doesn’t get, because he watched her boo the Nomads when they scored earlier.

“I bet Hollander smells better than you,” she says.

And well—Ilya can’t argue with that.

Hollander does smell pretty damn good.

девять.

Ilya is winding through the grocery store, trying to judge what groceries he needs based off nothing but a brief glance in his fridge and some vibes. The vibes being “bad”, as it’s turned out he's needed to go down every fucking aisle in the store to try and figure out what he’s missing. Ilya definitely could’ve made a list, but oh well, too late for that now. 

Because now, he’s staring at cans of tuna. The cans do not stare back at him. It’s not that he doesn’t like tuna, but he doesn’t normally feel like he’s going to explode if he leaves the store without it.

Ilya groans out loud as he adds the cans to his cart. He doesn’t know what the fuck his soulmate wants with canned tuna, truly. He’s not sure he even wants to know (he does, god he does.) Maybe he’s like, a doomsday prepper or something. Stocking up for the apocalypse with ginger ale and tuna. At the nursing home. Where he lives, because Ilya’s soulmate is a gross, neurotic, old man.

Ilya ends up adding a couple more cans to the cart of his own free will, because he needs to make something for lunch tomorrow before he has Hollander over, and now he’s in the mood for tuna melts.

Though the next afternoon, Ilya doesn’t feel actually feel all that hungry before Hollander arrives, so he skips making himself lunch. It’s not that he’s nervous. He just has no appetite. Maybe he’ll ask Hollander if he wants to eat later? He has to do something with all the fucking tuna he’s bought. 

Hollander comes over and it’s like Ilya watches the afternoon unfold from outside his own body. He can’t stop himself from offering Hollander a ginger ale. Ilya makes him a tuna melt. Ilya calls him Shane. 

Ilya’s still on his couch long after Sh-Hollander leaves. There’s still come on his chest, drying tacky and gross, but he can’t be fucked to get up and clean it. All he can do is sit there, replaying the evening in his head again, and again, and again.

Ilya is so unbelievably fucked.

The thing is, Ilya’s not stupid. He knows the impression he makes on people, with his broken English, his childish jokes and taunts. He knows people think he doesn’t care about anything than sex and cars. He’s guilty of playing into that reputation too, because things are easier that way, but that doesn’t make it entirely true. Ilya’s acutely aware that he’s not a genius, and he knows he’ll never be an expert playmaker like Hollander. But he’s not stupid.

He knows he can’t ignore what happened in his apartment. 

He couldn’t stop himself from giving Shane a ginger ale, from making him a tuna melt. Svetlana had once so much joked about taking a ginger ale and drinking it and Ilya had felt so wrong it nearly made him dizzy. 

He knows what this means.

But Ilya also knows it’s highly likely he’s scared Hollander off, possibly for good. So yeah, Ilya could connect these dots. Yet he still refuses to actually entertain the idea. 

Because Ilya’s not stupid, and he knows what happens when he wants something too badly. So he won’t let himself want this, want Hollander like that. This is what he tells himself. 

десять.

He’s not fucking buying them. Ilya is not fucking buying them. Some stupid ad popped up on the article he was reading on his phone, and Ilya’d felt compelled to click on it before he could even fully comprehend what it was for. 

Ilya is not going to get sketchy off brand Viagra delivered to his home because his senile soulmate can’t get it up. He closes the ad. Locks his phone. Throws it across the room. Fuck this, Ilya thinks.

Fifteen minutes into the cold sweats, Ilya’s thrown up into his toilet twice. He’s slumped on the bathroom floor and can feel himself getting nauseous again. He’s not fucking buying them. nobody can fucking make him. He is a grown ass man.

Five minutes later, Ilya’s lying on his back on the floor of his living room, staring at the email confirming that his order of STALLION ENDURANCE MALE PILLS XXX STRENGTH will be arriving at his home in discreet packaging in just 3-5 business days! Lucky him! He rolls over onto his front and smashes his face into the floor. 

Maybe it’s not Hollander after all. Because in what fucking world would Shane Hollander need sketchy online male enhancement pills. Shane Hollander? The Shane Hollander that’s always dripping before Ilya even gets a hand on him? The same Shane Hollander who he’s made come three times in one hour? (What can he say, Ilya took “I don’t know. Twice?” as a personal challenge.) The guy that comes untouched just from sucking Ilya off? The only times Ilya has ever seen the man soft is after Ilya has already made him come. That Shane Hollander?

Yeah, no.

This should be a relief, Ilya knows. Hollander not being his soulmate should be a weight off his shoulders. He should be happy. Especially since the last time he saw Hollander, he was literally fleeing Ilya’s home. This is a good thing. He knows it is. It’s better this way.

So why does Ilya feel so disappointed? Why does it hurt so fucking much that it turns out he’s not meant to be with Shane Hollander?

Ilya knows why. He connected the dots and told himself he wouldn’t look at the picture they made. But somewhere along the line, he let himself get too curious. And Ilya had opened his eyes just enough to imagine the shape of Shane Hollander forming in the blanks of his soulmate.

He’s been such a fucking fool. He’d buy four more rolls of tape he knows he’d never use, and while putting them in his locker would wonder if it’s the kind Hollander uses. When he bought an expensive new blender, he couldn’t resist the urge to fantasize what kind of smoothies Hollander might drink. He knows what Hollander sounds like when he’s about to cum. But he doesn’t know how he would look in the dorky ass reading glasses Ilya bought. Ilya wants to know. Ilya’s realizing he wants to know everything about Hollander. 

God, he’s filled the blanks of his soulmate in his mind with a man he can’t even have. Who fled his home immediately after Ilya said his first name.

He’s been so focused on all the ways Hollander fit the picture he didn’t think about all the ways he doesn’t. What would Hollander possibly need with a near dozen lamps? Ilya’s been to his weird abandoned sex condo. The bedroom is furnished, Hollander himself admitted he hired someone to do it. Ilya really doesn’t remember any other rooms outside that one, but he’s sure it’s not pitch black in the place, or in Hollander’s real apartment. He sees a lot of Hollander’s underpants, but not once has he seen a pair that matches the collection he’s been hoarding. Hollander probably doesn’t need reading glasses. And now Ilya’s buying these stupid fucking erection pills, when Shane Hollander is the easiest man Ilya has ever slept with. 

For the first time in Ilya’s life, he truly resents having a soulmate. All he’s ever wanted is to be with them, to find the one person that’s supposed to actually like him for who he is. Except Ilya has fucked up beyond fathoming, because now he wants nothing more than to know Shane Hollander inside and out, see him in every possible situation, wake up to him every day. But he’ll never get to have that, because Ilya’s soulmate is somebody else. Who Ilya doesn’t even want, not if he’s not Hollander. And he can’t even have Hollander, because Hollander doesn’t want Ilya.

Ilya should’ve known better. Everyone’s always telling him how stupid the choices he makes are, how he’s irresponsible, how he can’t be trusted. He’s starting to think they might be right. Maybe Ilya really shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions, if these are the choices he’s going to make. 

A few days later, Ilya finds out Hollander and Rose Landry are an item. He storms home from the gym and finds a small white package addressed to him in his mail. 

He throws it at the wall and hopes the pills shatter. 

одиннадцать.

Ilya’s doing great, actually, thanks for asking. 

He’s definitely not going out too many times, definitely not sleeping around too much, and he’s definitely not back to smoking.

He’s coping phenomenally. He wants a man who isn’t even his fucking soulmate, who he’s already managed to scare off by being too much, too soon. Ilya knows in theory this isn’t a problem. Plenty of people fall for people who aren’t their soulmates. The majority of people don’t even have soulmates.

Ilya’s always wanted his soulmate, from the second he knew he had one. But now Ilya wants Hollander, and at this rate, it’s starting to look like he’s not going to get either of them. 

Ilya tells himself he’s fine with this. He’s used to not getting what he wants. 

The Bears play Montreal and lose. Ilya just needs to get laid. He needs to get laid, and stop thinking about fucking Hollander.

He can’t even get out of his own head at the club, because Hollander’s there too, of course he is. The woman he tries to sleep with leaves him to go fuck her kinky boyfriend. Hollander leaves with his girlfriend. Ilya ends the night alone.

Ilya goes back to his hotel room, jerks off in his shower thinking of Hollander, and sleeps in an empty bed. In the morning, he snaps at three of his teammates, because he’s all out of fucking cigarettes and slept like shit. He storms onto their plane and ignores the mutters of his teammates behind him.

Because Ilya’s doing amazing.

At the All-Star Game, Shane comes out to Ilya as gay, which, well yeah, what did Shane fucking think they were doing? He says as much to Shane, who bristles even more.

"You're not gay."

“No. Not fully.” Ilya moves to sit next to Shane. “What is the problem, you have, when you sleep with women?” The words are out of Ilya’s mouth before he’s even processed exactly what he’s trying to ask Shane.

Shane flushes in response, the skin under his freckles turning a pretty pink. He presses his mouth shut in a flat line as he stares at the wall of the hotel room. Ilya sits and waits. He can be patient.

“Is no big deal if you have trouble.. performing,” Ilya says. Okay, so maybe he can’t be patient.

Shane is still staring at the wall and not looking at Ilya.

“Thats—Can we just drop it, please.” Shane is tense and curt when he answers, and Ilya decides not to press the subject any further.

He has Shane in front of him, right now, for the first time in months, and he doesn’t want to waste a single second of it.

But Ilya does stash that answer away, for later.

двенадцать. 

Ilya’s been having, frankly, a fucking awful time in Russia. He hates it here, truly, and he thinks if he didn’t have Svetlana here with him, he’d actually be fucking losing it. He misses the phone call, busy trying to finalize arrangements with Alexei, and only sees it later, when he’s finally alone in his apartment.

The second the facetime loads and his screen is filled with Shane Hollander in those fucking reading glasses, Ilya knows. He sees Shane in those stupid, dorky, gorgeous glasses and knows there’s no more denying the truth. Every can of ginger ale, every boring biography, the yoga mat collecting dust in Ilya’s home.

Ilya remembers what Shane had said in Florida. It had slipped his mind given the immediate mindblowing sex they’d had, and then all the subsequent activity. He just hadn’t had time to unpack the implication that Shane struggled to get it up when he was with Rose Landry, okay?

Okay. So Ilya can admit to himself that’s a bold faced lie. He had had the time to think. He just hadn’t wanted to. 

He wasn’t sure which thought was scarier: that Shane was his soulmate, and wanted to be together, and they’d have to spend the rest of their careers, or even their lives, hiding; or that Shane wasn’t his soulmate, and that he was destined to be with someone else. 

Ilya thinks the scariest part is that he’d choose Shane, either way.

But Ilya’d never been good at self denial. He’s always been too aware of what he wants, especially when he can’t have it. So he can’t get rid of the idea completely. The thought floats around his head, always at the margins and never forming anything cohesive. Until he sees Shane Hollander in those fucking glasses, and it’s all over.

Ilya doesn’t cry, after they hang up, but it’s a close thing. Most of him is terrified. He’s finally found his fucking soulmate, and he doesn’t even know if he can have him, because it’d put both their careers on the line. And Ilya cares about his, he really does, but with his father dead and his relationship with his brother an inch from breaking, the money he makes with the Bears feels less important than it did before. He could not be more aware of how much hockey means to Shane, though.

Ilya’s been collecting hockey equipment for Shane since he was fucking ten. He thinks he might be the only other person in the world that understands the meaning of hockey to Shane Hollander. He never wants to do anything to jeopardize that. The danger used to get him off, but now all it does is weigh on him.

Underneath all the terror though, all the fear and uncertainty, Ilya feels. Thrilled. Exhilarated. Breathless.

He’s wanted Shane for so long. He’s wanted his soulmate for even longer. The possibility that he might be able to have both? He doesn’t know how long he’s going to be able to keep this a secret, because holy fuck. 

In the end, Ilya can’t even keep it in for an entire day. Ilya’s ranting in Russian to Shane on the other end of the line, and lets himself say it. You’re my soulmate, and I’m so in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it.

There’s one more person Ilya needs to tell the news to before he leaves Russia.

Ilya has a complex relationship with the family manor. It’s where he grew up, where he found his mother, where he watched his dad deteriorate in bits and pieces. At the same time, he can’t help but think fondly on it when he remembers the times he got to spend with his mama there.

He doesn’t particularly want to go back, but he knows he owes it not just to himself, but to her, to make one last visit.

Ilya doesn’t go inside. There’s nothing left inside there he could possibly want. Everything he cared about from his childhood bedroom he either took with him to Boston, or moved to his apartment in Moscow proper. Over the years most of the stuff he had brought there found its way to Boston anyways. Irina’s belongings had been “taken care of” by his father a long time ago.

Instead, he walks around the building, to the back gardens. His mother’s side of the family was supposed to have some kind of family plot in some stately cemetery, but they’d cut her off after she married his father, and hadn’t changed their minds after she died. His father hadn’t wanted her buried with the rest of the Rozanovs, in their family plot, either. 

His father had wanted to cremate her, just to get the whole thing over with. Twelve year old Ilya had been livid when he found out, screaming and crying and making a huge fuss because the church wouldn’t like it, and maybe he didn’t believe but his mama did, and he wasn’t going to let his father take this away from her too when she’d been through enough already.

It took an entire afternoon of screaming, and pleading—by the end of it, Ilya’d ended up with a black eye, and a written promise that the second he got his first professional paycheck he’d pay his father back for the burial costs. It was worth it, though, his mama hadn’t been cremated. Instead, she had been buried quietly in the back gardens instead, with the smallest of markers to indicate that this is where Irina Dmitriyevna Rozanova was lain to rest.

Ilya kneels next to the small stone in the ground.

“Hi Mama,” he says, and feels a little dumb talking to the open air.

Ilya idly pulls at some of the weeds surrounding the small stone. The entire area is overgrown and choked with vines and weeds, and he doubts anyone’s tended to the area since he was last here over the summer. He wishes he had more time, could make it look nicer. 

“It’s been a while. I’m sorry.” He doesn't know how to build up to it, so he just says it. “I finally found my soulmate. I think you’d love him. He’s so boring, and so intense about hockey, but he’s the only person that can keep up with me on the ice, even though his backhand’s awful. He’s secretly funny, and he’s gorgeous, and all I want to do is be with him. He makes me so happy. I love him.”

There’s more Ilya could say, more Ilya thinks he probably should say. But if he starts, he’ll never want to stop. 

“I don’t-” Ilya’s voice catches in his throat, and he has to take a second to compose himself. “I don’t think I’ll be able to come back. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I miss you.” He grabs the cross around his neck with one of his hands, and presses a kiss to it.

“I love you, mama.”

Ilya sits there, with his mama, until his tears dry. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the house now. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him now. Ilya rises slowly, brushing the dirt off his pants. 

It’s not how he wanted it to go, but he’s glad he got the chance to tell his mama he found his soulmate.

He thinks she’d like him.

тринадцать. 

If there’s a time to tell Shane, it’d be while they’re here, at the cottage. He's already confessed his love, been welcomed with open arms by Shane's family. What's one more secret spilled, on top of everything else?

Ilya leaves Shane in bed and sits outside on the pier, smoking a cigarette. He's been trying to cut down, he really has been, but he always does his best thinking when he has one.

Ilya’s worried it’d be too greedy, for him to want even more. Hasn’t he gotten enough? Wouldn’t it be tempting fate if he tries to tell Shane he’s his soulmate? 

He doesn’t know if he’s actually scared, or just making excuses. He loves Shane, so much. The last thing Ilya wants to do is burden Shane. Would this knowledge be a burden?

Shane finds him, just after dawn, when he’s down to his last cigarette. Ilya's head is still spinning in circles. Shane doesn’t say anything, just sits next to Ilya on the pier and watches the loons dive.

Ilya likes watching the loons, even though he hates the noises they make. He likes watching them slip under the water, likes guessing where they’ll pop up next. 

Ilya wants nothing more than to do this, be next to Shane, for as long as he’ll have him. Ilya can’t ruin this, can’t risk it.

Shane’s grilling way too many hot dogs, later. Ilya’s watching him with amusement, which he knows he’s doing a bad job hiding, from the glares Shane keeps directing at him. Ilya’s down so fucking bad, he should not be this fucking endeared by his boyfriend refusing to make anything less than the twelve hot dogs that were in the package. 

Ilya’s admiring how good Shane’s ass looks in the short shorts he’s wearing when another option presents itself. He doesn’t have to tell Shane he’s his soulmate. What if Ilya just showed him? Like how Ilya doesn't want to tell Shane his ass looks great, when he can just go give it a slap to get the point across instead.

This way he’s not lying, and he’s not hiding, but he also doesn’t have to say anything that could jeopardize their new relationship. If Shane notices and it’s not the same for him, then he doesn’t have to say anything, and nothing will change.

Wow, Ilya’s so fucking smart. He thinks he’s going to go kiss his boyfriend on his pretty, pretty neck as a treat. Shane tries to smack him with the spatula, and accuses him of being a distraction, but he still lets Ilya cling onto him and kiss his neck, and doesn't even swat back when Ilya slaps his ass, so really it’s Ilya’s win.

четырнадцать.

Ilya is painfully aware hockey is the most important thing in Shane’s life. He has the collection of hockey gear to prove it. Shane’s love for hockey is like nothing Ilya’s ever seen before. He’s been with Shane for long enough now to know it just from seeing it, too.

Ilyas fine with it most of the time. Most of the time, it’s endearing. But theres times when he gets so tired of Shane being obsessed with it. Of Shane picking it over everything else—over him.

It’s times like these when Ilya feels the most insecure, because he thinks if Shane Hollander had a soulmate, it’d be hockey. 

He knows thats not how it works, he does. But there are times when Shane’s being fussy about his paleo-keto-vego-macro whatever diet because he has to be better on the ice, he missed a shot last game he should’ve taken, and this is how he’s going to improve himself. Shane will refuse to eat with Ilya, skips meals because of it, and Ilya just wants to hold him by the shoulders and shake him, repeatedly. He doesn’t even know what he wants to tell Shane. It just kills Ilya to see Shane do this to himself.

Ilya tries his best, slipping protein shakes and bars into Shane’s bag when he gets the impulse to. Makes him recovery smoothies. Does his best to accommodate whatever Shane can eat. He just also thinks that it wouldn’t fucking kill Shane to chill out and eat a fucking donut.

It hurts, too, when Shane brushes Ilya off in public. Ilya knows their careers are on the line, knows they can’t be irresponsible. He doesn’t get why that means he can’t even be seen getting lunch with Shane. That was the whole fucking point of the charity, fuck, so that they could be seen together doing normal things.

He thinks about saying something, sometimes. About telling Shane that he’s his soulmate. Instead, Ilya’ll do something so blatantly obvious, and Shane wont say anything, and Ilya thinks Shane knows, and he just doesn’t want to break the news to him. 

(Ilya feels like he’s fucking screaming it, sometimes. The other week, when he went to visit Shane in montreal, he couldn’t leave his home without grabbing a bottle of muscle balm from his bathroom. When he shows up at Shane’s home, it was to the man himself opening his door with a limp.

“Fuck, Hollander, you are still sore from our last time?”

“Go fuck yourself, Rozanov,” Shane says as he lets Ilya in. “I think I pulled a quad or something during practice yesterday. The team doctor looked at it and he thinks it’s nothing serious, I just need to rest it for the next day or two.”

“I will do all the hard work for us then,” Ilya says, and then pushes Shane unceremoniously onto his couch and gets to work. 

He eats Shane out on the couch until he’s fucking sobbing and pleading to come, and once he has, Ilya takes him to his bed and fucks him until he comes again.

In the aftermath, Shane’s sprawled out on his bed with Ilya working his hands into his thighs. Ilya can hear Shane groan softly into the pillows as he tries to work out some of the ache in his legs with the balm. 

Shane can’t think Ilya just carries giant containers of Icy-Hot on his person at all times, right?

Right??)

So he doesn’t say anything to Shane.

Ilya opens instagram one morning in late Autumn, and immediately feels like his stomach is going to crawl out of his throat. 

He’s still bleary and half awake, but he doesn’t think he’s hallucinating the marriage announcement his gay awakening posted. And Ilya definitely doesn’t think he’s misreading that it’s an announcement that he and his partner, a fellow men’s skater from Japan, have been married for multiple years. The post has a bunch of cute photos of them, and of their dog, and of some surly blond kid.

Must be fucking nice, Ilya thinks. To have a career on the ice you love with the man you love. to be open about it. The similarities between them and his relationship with his own boyfriend are not lost on Ilya. He wants to be happy for them, he really does, but he feels like he’s being swallowed alive by the envy, instead.

Ilya gets halfway to texting their instagram post to Shane before he thinks better of it. He doesn’t see an outcome where it doesn’t end in he and Shane bickering, and not even in the fun way. But he wishes, god, Ilya wishes. 

He settles for just liking their post, instead. He posts a photo of the dinner he had made for he and Shane the last time they were together to his own account, and tells himself that this’ll be enough.

пятнадцать.

The Cens play the Bears—the Cens lose, of course—and afterwards Ilya goes out for dinner with Svetlana. They text all the time and they try to call once every few weeks or so but—Ilya still misses her. On the phone, they never talk about anything more serious than shittalking players or complaining about trivial shit. Ilya can’t talk to her about the stuff that really matters, that he really wants to. 

They only get to meet up a handful of times a year now, too. He hasn’t seen this little of her since… well, Ilya can’t remember ever seeing this little of her. It’s weird. He doesn’t like it. And he really doesn’t like keeping this secret from her, either, especially since she makes sure to ask him about his soulmate every time.

They’ve just ordered their entrees and are working their way through a bottle of nice vodka when Svetlana broaches the subject.

“Are you still drowning in ginger ale?” Is how she chooses to start the conversation, with her normal lack of any tact or consideration for his feelings.

Ilya sighs. Takes a sip of his vodka, feels the bite as it burns down his throat. “Sveta.”

“What? I just don’t understand why you would leave Boston for that backwater team, unless it was for whoever they were. You are too good of a player to be stuck on an awful team like the Centaurs."

“We’ve been over this, they needed a good center.”

“Yeah, but-” She pauses and purses her lips. “Ilya, don’t tell me you like playing for Ottawa more than for the Bears. you liked your team, I know you did.” Svetlana visibly hesitates before continuing. “I don’t want you to be miserable out there, alone and playing for a shit team.”

Ilya wants to tell her so fucking bad, wants to tell her that he’s not alone out there and that she doesn’t need to worry, he has his soulmate. He can’t though. Because even if he was allowed to tell her that, he doesn’t know if it’d be the truth. He doesn’t have anyone else in Ottawa when Shane’s gone. He hasn’t done anything to connect with his new teammates. He’s in therapy but making no progress. Sometimes he wonders if his soulmate loves him nearly as much as he loves hockey. Ilya always feels guilty for thinking it, immediately, but the thought never goes away completely.

“This has nothing to do with you missing me, I’m sure.”

“Why would it? My life has never known so much peace. I wake up every day overflowing with the joy of finally being free of Ilya Rozanov." Ilya can tell her heart’s not in the retort. He also knows her well enough to know that she’s not going to drop it. “Seriously though. Is this about Jane?"

For a second, a brief shining second, Ilya considers saying fuck it and just telling her. He knows Shane would be upset, but it’s his Svetlana. He hates keeping anything from her. She already knows “Jane” is another man, has known for years. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if she knew parts of it?

He thinks about the tight look on Shane’s face any time they come too close to being exposed. Or, more accurately, when they get what Shane thinks is too close to them being exposed. Ilya telling someone Shane’s never even met, despite her being his literal oldest and best friend, would be coming too close to that wall Shane’s erected for the both of them.

And he loves Shane, loves that Shane is trying to protect them. So Ilya’ll do this for him. 

But he’s not fucking happy about it. Something has to give soon.

Ilya takes another large sip of his vodka. 

Svetlana sighs loudly at Ilya’s continued silence and rolls her eyes.

“I just don’t understand. I know there’s something going on, Ilya, I’m not fucking stupid.” She leans forward in her seat. “You don’t have to tell me what it is, I guess. But don’t sit here and insult my intelligence by lying to my face that everything’s okay. Whatever it is—”

“Svetlana, enough.” He snaps, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. He regrets it immediately, seeing the open hurt on her face. Ilya opens his mouth to try and apologize, fix something, but she beats him to it.

“Fine, enough.” She says, cooly. “I forget sometimes what a complete fucking asshole you become whenever someone tries to actually check in on you and help you.” Svetlana pushes her chair away from the table but makes no move to stand up. 

“I’m sorry. I want to tell you. I do. The situation right now is just… complicated.” She rolls his eyes at him again. “It’s just not my secret to tell. Soon, though, hopefully.”

He hopes that soon he can tell her some version of the truth. A part of him doesn’t want to burden her with keeping their full secret.

Svetlana seemingly deflates, all the fight leaving her.

“You are so fucking stupid. And you are so fucking lucky I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ilya says, the words coming easy off his tongue.

Their food comes and they move the conversation to lighter topics. She complains about the other students in her MBA program, calls them all American dipshits. She’s enjoying it, though, Ilya knows. He can tell by the way she talks, about how excited she sounds for her classes next semester.

Ilya’s glad she’s been making a name for herself on her own, finding herself. He'd been worried, a bit, when he’d moved to Ottawa, about leaving her behind. A dumb worry to have—she’s always been more than okay on her own. Svetlana thrives no matter where she is. It's Ilya that struggles with being alone. 

Outside the restaurant, he gives her a big hug and a sloppy kiss on the forehead. She makes gagging noises, and then comments that his new cologne makes him smell much less like a horny teen. He tells her to fuck off. They’ll be okay, he thinks. This will get sorted out soon.

Ilya watches Svetlana as she gets into her Uber, and in the dim glow of the streetlight, thinks of his mama, the last time he saw her. 

Soon ends up being approximately three weeks later, over Christmas. Ilya thinks he’s probably going to spend the holiday staring blankly at his ceiling. It’s what he’s spent most of the last night doing, anyways. Ilya doesn’t want to be awake, but he can’t sleep.

He can’t believe Shane asked him if what he’d pick, him or hockey. As if Ilya hasn’t spent his entire life picking Shane Hollander in one way or another. He chose Shane over his soulmate, before he knew they were one and the same.

Ilya did really think Shane knew, though. He doesn’t know how he could’ve made it more clear.

Well—he could’ve just said the truth directly. That would’ve been more clear. He's had two years to say something to Shane.

He just never wanted to freak Shane out. Shane can spiral, sometimes, and Ilya gets the feeling he especially would over this. And he doesn’t want to burden Shane with that, doesn’t want to make one of his many problems that he needs to deal with.

If Ilya’s being honest, alone in his room, he didn’t want to tell Shane because he was worried about himself. A part of him has believed Shane’s going to cut and run if he finds the truth out.

Ilya knows this is ridiculous, and that he’s been a coward. He can try to run from it all he wants, but in the cold silence of his empty room, he knows there’s no escaping the truth.

шестнадцать.

As it turns out, Ilya has no idea what the truth is, because Shane’s been collecting for him the entire fucking time and Ilya never had a single clue. Shane’s curled up next to him in his bed, where he belongs, and Ilya thinks about the ring Shane showed him.

There’s another ring, living next to a bottle of boner pills, underneath a pile of clothes in Ilya’s closet. 

(Yeah, he kept the pills. What? It could be hot to use them together someday.) 

They’re not ready. He knows now isn’t the right time. Things are still too fragile between them in the aftermath of their revelations. A proposal from either one of them right now would be an awful move. Proposing will not fix any of the underlying issues that caused them to make it to the point of fracture. If anything, it’d make things worse. They’d be building a foundation on something cracked.

But god, Ilya wants. Wants to call Shane not just his soulmate, but his husband.

He can wait, though. He has Shane now. Maybe, not that far in the future, he’ll get his ring out and get down on one knee for Shane, but not now. They have all the time in the world to get themselves figured out. 

Ilya walks into the living room and gets to experience the joy of watching Shane cycle through multiple emotions in real time, before eventually settling on disgust. Shane looks at Ilya, then looks down at Ilya’s shirt, and then looks back at Ilya.

“Seriously?” Shane asks from where he’s seated on the couch. Ilya thinks he looks downright edible in the holiday sweater he’s wearing, tight enough to be just this side of indecent. His knee also won’t stop bouncing, and Ilya knows Shane just has to be working himself up right now.

“Is there a problem?” Ilya replies, just to be a dick.

Shane levels a glare at him. God, Ilya’s never going to get tired of pissing him off.

“Are you actually going to wear that shirt out?”

Ilya looks down at himself.

“Do you not like it? Yellow color goes well with my skin tone, I think.” Shane continues to glare at him, but Ilya can see the corner of his mouth twitch. “Was gift from my soulmate! Very kind of him. He has very good taste. Both in men and in shirts.”

“Oh my god, can you go five seconds without being a dick?” Ilya thinks Shane’s complaint would be more effective if it wasn’t being undercut by the dopey smile on his face as he says it. 

Ilya plops himself next to Shane on the couch.

“If only there was some way to make me shut up for more than five seconds.” 

“You’re actually insufferable,” Shane murmurs, but he’s leaning over to give Ilya a soft kiss anyways. As is normally the case with them, the one kiss rapidly multiplies into many, many more.

Ilya’s tongue is halfway down Shane’s throat, and he’s trying to see if he can get away with sliding his hands down Shane’s back to give his ass a squeeze, when Shane pulls back and gives him another dirty look. Ilya refuses to feel guilty. Shane’s acting like he wasn’t the one just grinding shamelessly into Ilya’s lap with his hands tangled in his curls. 

“You’re seriously going to wear this?” He asks again, as if the answer will have changed now that he's managed to muss Ilya up. Cute.

“You gave it to me for reason, right? Can the reason not be wearing it to party?” Shane looks like he’s going to protest again, so Ilya adds “and, maybe it will catch people so off guard they don’t question us.”

Ilya regrets saying this the second its out of his mouth. Shane visibly tenses back up at the reminder that their presence together at the party might cause a stir.

Ilya sighs.

“If you really do not want to do this, we do not—”

Shane cuts him off with another firm press of his lips against Ilya’s, pulling away immediately when Ilya tries to lick into his mouth again. Whoops.

“I don’t want to, but you’re right,” Shane says. “It’s just your teammates, who you trust, and we’re not even going to go as a couple. We run a charity together. It’ll be fine.”

Ilya aches a bit at the reminder that they still won’t be able to be a couple in public, but he also knows that this is progress. Shane still sounds like he’s still trying to convince himself, there’s no use in pushing it. They’re just laying the groundwork tonight. letting themselves be seen as the friends they claim to be.

Bood’s party is labeled as a tentative success. His boys gave them some shit for “bringing the enemy over,” or whatever, but he would’ve been surprised if they didn't. And after the first few quips, nobody really has anything more to say about Shane’s presence. Every time someone accepts Ilya’s explanation for Shane’s presence without question, he watches Shane’s shoulders become less and less stiff. Eventually, Shane even manages a smile at an awful joke that Harris makes.

It’s still hard, watching his teammates be able to shamelessly throw an arm around their partners, kiss them on the cheek, display their relationship without any qualms. It still makes Ilya sting a bit.

The bitterness is soon soothed, however, when after triple checking that they’re alone in the kitchen, Shane slides his hand down Ilya’s chest and tells him he can’t wait to take that fucking shirt off of him when they get home. Ilya can’t tell if he means it as a threat or a sexy promise, but he’s excited to find out either way.

(Shane doesn’t end up ripping it off, in the end, but it’s a close fucking thing.)

навсегда.

Things don’t get better immediately. Of course they don’t. Shane is still Shane, and Ilya is still Ilya. Them being each other’s soulmates doesn’t make it guaranteed things will work out, if they’re not willing to put in the effort.

Luckily, both of them are.

So they start by talking. To each other, and then to other people.

Ilya tells Shane that he’s going to tell Svetlana. He doesn’t ask for permission, because this is a non-negotiable for him. She’s his closest friend and he owes her the truth.

Shane is… surprisingly okay with it? He makes a face, and asks if they can trust her. But once Ilya explains that she’s his closest friend, they’ve known each other since diapers, she’s known about him having a soulmate since before Ilya even did, Shane’s completely fine with it. 

Encourages it, actually. And then apologizes for telling him it was a bad idea the first time Ilya’d ever brought it up. It registers distantly to Ilya that he doesn’t think he ever actually told Shane any of his history with Svetlana, besides telling him that they used to fuck and that he’d marry her for a passport. 

In retrospect, maybe he should’ve led with that all those years ago. 

Well, you know what they say about hindsight.

(Ilya actually doesn’t know, because it’s a stupid English saying.)

Ilya means to wait until he sees Svetlana again to tell her in person, but that’s months away. In the end, he lasts all of a week before he calls her and fills her in on everything. Well, eventually he does.

She picks up on the third ring and Ilya can’t stop himself from opening the call with a gleeful Hey Sveta, did you know Shane Hollander’s favorite drink is ginger ale?

There’s silence on the other end of the line. 

Then:

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. You’re fucking with me. Ilya. Ilya I need you to tell me you’re fucking with me, you bastard—”

Ilya laughs until he feels like he can’t breathe. Yeah, he thinks, a bit hysterically, maybe things are going to be okay.