Chapter Text
They lie in heavy silence, Shane on his mattress, wrapped in a soft blanket on the floor next to Ilya´s side of the bed, his hands folded over his stomach on top of the blanket. He stares at the ceiling, listening to Ilya’s breathing. Judging by the rhythm, the pace, and the depth, he knows that Ilya isn’t sleeping either. So many years have passed, and he still hasn’t lost the ability to understand Ilya’s state and mood from small hints, like he still remembers how his steps in the hallway sound when he’s excited and how they sound when he’s angry or exhausted, or both (when those two mix, his steps sound in a very specific way, not to be confused with just tired or even irritated).
Shane remembered everything, and for the first time in years, he didn’t regret it.
He’s almost asleep, drifting on the verge between a dream and reality, when he sees Ilya’s thin hand hanging from his side of the bed. Impressed by Ilya’s story about how he sees in his dreams the hand of his dead mother hanging from the bed like this, he opens his eyes wide and gasps in fear. He tries to catch his breath and shake it off. His heart is racing in his chest.
Ilya is alive, of course he is. Shane can hear his steady breathing. Maybe he's not that good at reading Ilya anymore, and Rozanov actually already fell asleep and, turning awkwardly, accidentally dropped his hand, so it’s hanging off the edge of the bed. Nothing bad happened, he tries to explain to his body. It’s just irrational, intrusive thoughts; it’s just Ilya’s nightmares trying to crawl into his own.
Shane silently watches how Ilya’s hand hovers above his own body, tucked in on the old single mattress on the floor. Finally, it freezes for a moment around his stomach and starts to blindly search for Shane´s hands resting on top of the blanket. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t help Ilya find his hand, doesn't reach for him, afraid to scare him off. He just lies still and patiently waits for Ilya’s hand to land on his.
It finally happens.
A careful, almost gentle touch makes something twist low in his stomach. The darkness of the room and the warmth of Ilya’s palm undo him completely. He finally decides to move, turns his hand slightly, and intertwines their fingers. They fit each other perfectly, sliding in like puzzle pieces. He wonders if all people feel the same when they lock their fingers together? Does it always feel so right, so reassuring and comforting? He thinks maybe not.
He actually can speak from experience. The long-term-whatever he had with his perfect, rich, beautiful CEO of God knows what taught him many things about relationships. Things he wishes he had never found out. The man had such thick fingers (which is, in general, a weird thing to complain about, right?) that every time they intertwined fingers, it hurt a little. Until that moment, he didn’t even know that someone’s fingers could not fit. Couldn’t even match. Fingers, seriously? Until a few years into that relationship, he didn’t know that two people could be so wrong for each other
That’s the downside of finding your perfect match when you’re 17: if you ever break up, it means they ruin you for anybody else, so you will finally just give up and wait for them to become a widower and crawl back to you. Not like Shane waited or even expected anything like that, but right now, when Ilya gently holds his hand in complete silence, and his thumb absently draws circles on the back of Shane’s palm, Shane isn’t sure about anything anymore.
“Hollander,” Ilya whispers his name in the dark, and Shane flinches, caught off guard by the softness of Ilya´s voice. He squeezes his hand tighter. Ilya squeezes back as if their bodies are communicating in some kind of Morse code. Squeeze: I’m here. Squeeze: me too.
“Yeah?” Shane whispers back, still looking at the ceiling, not daring to turn his head and find out if Ilya is looking at him or not. He wants to hope that Ilya is also lying on his back and looking up, that he’s also afraid to look Shane in the eyes, because every time they looked each other in the eyes in the darkness of the bedroom, they ended up in the same bed, and there has never been an exception.
“Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you,” Rozanov says barely audible, and Shane nods in response as if he can see that. He actually can’t, but he guesses right, judging by the rustle of the pillow. He also learned to read Shane from sounds and small movements off the ice, just like on the ice, in a crowded room, just the same way as in a dark bedroom. “I don’t know how I would have stayed alone today.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Shane answers, still not turning to Ilya. “Scott and Kip would take care of you.” Shane hears him scoff.
“They are not you, Hollander. You know what I mean.” He says it without insisting, just as a fact; they both know what he means. “No one knows me like you do. At least now, there’s no one else left except you.”
This makes Shane turn sharply onto his side and look at Ilya. He’s still lying on his back, his left arm twisted awkwardly so he can hold Shane’s hand, his slightly overgrown curls falling beautifully onto his forehead, his chin tilted up a little, his sharp jawline so alluring in the darkness of the room lit only by the moon from the window. Shane feels a stab of jealousy; he suddenly hates everyone who has ever kissed that chin, those cheekbones, those thin collarbones peeking from under the blanket. He hates Ilya for even trying to imply that his wife knew him the way Shane did. He wants to get up from the floor, loom over Ilya and scream in his face, take it back, take it fucking back, no one knew you like I did and you know it.
What stops him isn’t even common sense but the sudden realization that maybe it’s simply not true. Selfishly, he wants to believe that, but he’s not that stupid; he knows Ilya had a whole life with another person, and he’s mourning that person right now, so maybe she did know him pretty well, not less than Shane. The worst thing is — what if she knew him better?
Fortunately, he doesn’t have time to develop that thought, startled by the sight of Ilya slowly turning onto his left side, their hands slipping apart, the blanket falling with the movement down to his waist, and Shane sees his bare chest. God, the man is gorgeous, just as Shane remembers, still fit and toned, skin so smooth, and the veins on his arms stand out so hot. He swallows hard, remembering how those veins tensed when those hands held Shane by the waist, helping him move up, down, up, down when he was riding Ilya. He looks at him for so long, but he isn’t even ashamed; he knows that Ilya, at that moment, is just as greedily looking at his face, his mouth slightly open, plump lips wet and shining in the moonlight. Shane’s gaze lingers on Ilya and shifts from hunger into concern. He suddenly notices that his collarbones are more pronounced than he remembers, the muscles look like something out of an anatomy textbook, he can almost see every smallest muscle, Ilya has clearly lost weight, and a lot, it seems he wasn’t this thin even in their teenage years. Ilya seems to notice Shane’s concern and finally pulls the blanket up to cover his naked body from his worried eyes, the gesture almost saying enough. I exposed myself more than I wanted tonight.
“Give me your hand.” Shane himself is surprised by his own boldness, but he misses this light contact so much that he’s ready to say directly what he wants. He knows that Ilya would never hold his vulnerability against him. He always could tell Ilya what he wanted and get exactly that, maybe even more. And now, Ilya simply moves closer to the edge of the bed and takes Shane’s hand, squeezing it tightly, intertwining their fingers again, they both close their eyes in sync and sigh with relief. Their synchronicity reaching absurd levels, Shane knows it, he has seen fan edits from their interviews back when they were still together and trying to control the narrative, as Shane used to call it, where they look in the same direction at the same time, bite their lips, frown, or ask in surprise at a journalist’s question in unison, “WAT?” So many years have passed, and they are still tuned to the same frequency; their bodies still follow each other. Ridiculous.
“Remember you asked if it was easier…” he winces slightly at the word, “that I could ‘prepare’.” He lifts his free hand, making air quotes, and presses it back to his chest as if trying to protect himself. From what? From grief? From reality? Tell me, how to protect you, Ilya, and I will protect you; tell me how to ease your pain, and I will do it.
“Yeah, sure.” Shane nods, looking up into Ilya’s eyes. They lie face to face. Shane feels like he’s in a summer camp or at a sleepover with someone from his first childhood team again; he was just as excited and anxious, and wasn’t sure he would be able to fall asleep that night on somebody´s floor.
“It was horrible. Horrible, Shane,” Ilya says, closing his eyes and grimacing. Hollander doesn’t know what exactly made him flinch — the memories or Shane’s name — and he doesn’t want to find out. “You know how it is… When someone dies from a heart attack or, I don’t know, when someone is hit by a car, the dying is over. They’re gone. Bang, and that’s it. Dead.” He stops and looks at Shane as if hoping that he understood everything, and he won’t have to continue, but Hollander is not great at that social game of picking up on hints and getting each other from half a word.
“I guess…” he still tries to answer the question that started with you know how it is. He has no idea, actually.
“With Camille… with this fuckin’ cancer, the dying never ends, the dying keeps going, you understand? She was dying and dying and dying, and that day just wouldn’t come. God, what am I even saying? I didn’t want her to die, Shane, I swear.” He sniffles loudly and breaks their intertwined hands to bring his palm to his face and cover his eyes.
“I know, Ilya, of course you didn’t—” Ilya cuts him off without removing his hand from his face.
“But I did. I did, Shane. In the last days, I was praying for it to end; she was in so much pain, the drugs they gave her didn’t work anymore. I was fighting with those fucking doctors for fentanyl. I was telling them, are you serious? This pain is killing her, your country is drowning in fentanyl, I can go out into the street and buy it, and you won’t give her a prescription—” his voice breaks, and Shane hears the first sob. Oh no. No, no, no, he can’t just lie on the floor and not be able to touch Ilya, soothe him, hug him tight, and rock him slightly back and forth as he used to do every rare time Ilya cried in front of him.
“Ilya,” he says, sitting up on his stupid mattress and placing his hand on his forearm, the one he’s covering his face with, but Ilya pulls away and scoots further from the edge of the bed.
“Don’t, please don’t,” he whispers through tears. “You don’t have to be here, you don’t have to listen, I…”
“But I want to. I want to be here.” Shane answers, this time touching Ilya’s hair with his hand. He doesn’t pull away anymore, letting Shane stroke him carefully, running his fingers through his tangled curls. He inhales sharply and noisily, and his body contracts in the last convulsions of sobs until he finally calms down completely and removes his hand from his face, facing Shane, guilt and shame in his eyes. It hurts Hollander to see it there; he wants Ilya to know so badly that he came here exactly for this, he drove to Boston for five hours exactly to wipe Ilya’s tears and listen to his horrible stories and let his heart hurt together with Ilya so he wouldn’t have to take the whole blow alone. How can you not know that I would do anything for you, even if we’re not together? Just as I know you would do the same for me. We’re tangled forever, our fates have been tied together from the very first day, no matter what roads we choose, they still keep bringing us back to each other. How can you not see that?
“I’m sorry,” Ilya whispers, closing his eyes, the last tear rolling down his sharp cheekbone. Shane hesitates for a second, but wipes it away with his thumb. That’s what he came here for—to wipe Rozanov’s tears, and he will do it for as long as it takes. He doesn’t say anything in response. Now is not the time to convince Ilya or say something like you have nothing to apologize for; now is the time to just be here, be close.
They stay like this in silence for a while, Ilya curled up on the bed, Shane sitting on the mattress with his back against the bed, his head tilted onto Ilya’s shoulder. They don’t talk, don’t hold hands, just stay quiet, listening to each other’s breathing.
“I never told you, but…” Ilya starts, clearing his throat, “When we were kids, maybe 13 years old, not long after my mom died, Sveta’s mom got sick. Breast cancer. She was very young, and everything was caught very quickly at an early stage, so she went through treatment. She survived, thank God, and is okay now, but back then…” He takes a deep breath, and Shane feels him fumble behind his back. He thinks Ilya is rubbing his nose like he always does when he’s nervous, then he hears him sniff, yeah, as always, guessed right. He doesn’t need to see Ilya to know what he’s doing; it’s enough to hear him, to feel him. He continues after a pause.
“Sveta kept asking me how it was, losing my mom. How it was seeing her dead. And I answered. In detail. I don’t know why. I thought she needed it.” He smiles bitterly. “I told her how I found my mom again and again, how scary it was, how the pain slowly started to fade. But every time, every single time I told her that with her mom, it would be different, she would survive. And Sveta believed me. I was right. And when Camille was dying, Sveta was telling me the same thing, that she would survive. And I believed her. I shouldn’t have believed anyone. I should have never trusted anyone, only my own guts.”
Shane is sure that was aimed at him, but he doesn’t get offended; he doesn’t want to argue with Ilya, and this is definitely not the time to say something like you can trust me. Not now. Now is not the time.
“When Sveta’s mom was sick, I spent a lot of time at their place so Sveta wouldn’t be so scared. In the end, I was the one who was scared. I remember the smell of antiseptic and gauze. I remember those morphine ampoules on the table they used for her pain, and I thought then, I don’t want this to ever happen in my house, I don’t want to see someone slowly dying. I was 13, Shane, and for the first time, I thought, I’m glad my mom just closed her eyes and disappeared; she just went into the darkness. That was it. She just died, but she was not dying. I mean, what’s it called, present… present—”
“It’s called present continuous,” Shane answers almost in a whisper when Ilya stumbles over the words and can’t find the term. Shane can’t help it; he did it so many times, it’s a habit from that very first press conference together, every time Ilya can’t find a word in his second language, Shane saves him.
“Da. That thing. I thought no one would ever be dying in my house. I would never watch that. Twenty years passed, exactly twenty years, and there I was watching someone die, and my whole house was full of pills and syringes and bandages and that smell of a dying body.”
Shane doesn’t notice the exact moment when it happens, but his shoulders suddenly start shaking, and the tears he’s been trying to hold back finally roll down his cheeks; he bites his lower lip to stop a sob. The familiar thought comes back again, why you, Ilya, why does this keep happening to you? He thinks, pathetically, how do people keep believing in God when things like that happen to kids with big bright eyes, big smiles, and messy curls, when these little kids think to themselves, I’m glad my mom just closed her eyes and died.
“I’m so sorry, Ilya, so, so, so sorry,” Shane whispers through sobs he can’t control anymore, when suddenly a familiar hand gently lands on his trembling shoulder.
“Here we go, Hollander. Sad widower just made you cry with his sad stories.” He tries to sound amused, but even without turning, Shane knows he’s worried, concerned, and there is real guilt in his voice, again. He gently squeezes Shane’s shoulder and moves closer so Shane tilts his head, and the back of his head lands on Ilya´s tanned stomach.
“I… I don’t know what to say or do, Ilya, I don’t know how to help,” he says in a strained voice, turning so his forehead presses into Ilya’s abs, skin-to-skin contact makes them both gasp simultaneously again when Ilya’s hand moves into his hair. Shane thinks that if not for years of therapy, he would have thrown the blanket off Ilya, pulled down his underwear and taken him apart with his mouth until Rozanov would be sobbing and screaming his name, and it would be the most degrading, pathetic and unhealthy thing they could do, they would never be able to look each other in the eyes again and Shane would probably run away the next morning while Ilya was still asleep. Too bad he spent thousands on therapy, and now he’s just resting his forehead on Ilya’s stomach instead of desperately sucking him off.
“You don’t have to do anything, just stay with me tonight, don’t go, I—” he stops and stays silent for so long that Shane lifts his head and looks into his eyes searchingly before he speaks again, “I’m scared to close my eyes, Shane.”
“Oh, Ilya.”
I. Am. Scared. To. Close. My. Eyes.
God. It’s the most devastating, the most heartbreaking thing Shane has ever heard in his entire life. He can’t help but wonder how many times Ilya was scared like that, completely alone in the darkness of his childhood room or a blank hotel room or his own bedroom. A dull ache fills Shane’s body, seeping into his bones, the worst kind of pain, the pain for someone else, the pain you feel seeing someone hurting so much. He thinks, was it what Ilya felt? How much worse could it be? How devastatingly painful was it when his wife was screaming in pain in her last days?
He gently cups Ilya’s face with his palm, and Rozanov leans into the touch, his skin warm and soft, just as Shane remembers. He closes his eyes and relaxes, leaning back onto the pillow. Shane sees his lips moving barely noticeably, he realizes Ilya is mouthing stay stay stay stay time after time after time until Shane says,
“I’m here, I’m with you. Try to get some sleep. And if you wake up from the… the—” he’s not sure how to call it but settles on the safest option, “from the bad dream, I’ll be there, you’ll wake me up, and we’ll just wait for it to pass. Together. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ilya says almost sheepishly, not opening his eyes, just wrapping himself tighter in the blanket. Shane only nods in response, even though he knows Ilya can’t see him. He gently strokes Ilya’s face until his breathing becomes slow and even, and Shane knows just like years ago that he slipped into an anxious, restless sleep. A sleep that he, Shane Hollander, has to guard tonight and every night after, as long as Ilya asks him to.