Work Text:
January 2016
After the NHL All Star Game
Yuna notices her thumbnail on her lips and deliberately takes a slow breath, moving her hand down and instead pushing the elevator call button again twice in rapid succession. It's pointless, she knows it is, but the restless energy needs to go somewhere if she wants to maintain her current streak of keeping her fingernails intact.
She deliberately takes another breath - slow in, slow out - as she watches the numbers tick downwards above the elevator doors. It's fine. Of course it's fine. Shane is a fully grown adult and of course he doesn't want her hovering. Of course he's embarrassed to have her knocking on the door just because she heard about his headache. Of course he already has Tylenol and Gatorade in his bag and hadn't needed her to hurry over with them - he's a hockey player, for god's sake. Of course he just wanted to be alone. Yuna sighs and lets her eyes shut, lets her head drop back, rolling her neck in a slow circle, trying to release the tension and the awkward, tight feeling of hurt.
When the bland chime of the elevator doors calls her back, she opens her eyes just in time to see someone take a half step towards the opening doors before recoiling. It takes her only a second longer to recognise Ilya Rozanov.
For a long, awkward moment she just stares at her son's rival. Then he sidesteps, clearing a path, and on autopilot Yuna walks inside.
Rozanov is standing in front of the button panel, blocking her access. Yuna gestures towards it, and Rosanov seems to twitch suddenly into motion.
"Can you push -"
"What floor -"
Their voices clash. Another awkward moment - get your head together, Yuna - and then Rozanov's hand drops as he shifts away from the button panel. The number 1 is lit up. "I go to the lobby - do you need a different floor?" Rozanov's asking her. His accent is the same rough-edged one as she's heard in so many interviews, and heard only once before in real life, but the tone, for once, is polite. It's oddly jarring.
"The lobby's great," she says, then "Thanks," on autopilot, and she remembers saying fuck Rozanov, fuck him right up the butt and tries not to overthink whether she should be casually polite to her son's rival or whether she should be frostily polite instead, or whether Rozanov would just be confused by some random woman being frostily polite, or get real Yuna, he'd not even notice.
Glancing sidelong, she sees Rozanov's lips start to pull into his customary smirk - the fucking smirk she's seen so many times on the screen - as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
And that's when the lights flicker, the floor lurches under them with a screech of metal, and Rozanov's phone goes flying as Yuna staggers into the arm reaching out to steady her. The lights come back on pale and wan, and Yuna's breath feels scratchy in her throat.
They both go still. Yuna feels frozen, but Ilya looks braced, ready, one hand on the rail around the wall and the other on Yuna's back. The hum of motion has stopped, and the screen ticking down the numbers is blank and grey.
"блять," Rozanov says. Glances at her. Adds, "What the fuck. I thought American elevators are not supposed to do this."
His arm is still at her back. Not gripping, not even really touching now, just hovering. Yuna straightens, steps away, takes her own grip on the rail. "Thanks," she says again, awkwardly. "Sorry. I don't normally..."
Rozanov smiles at her - quick and charming even in the dim white lights, and Yuna irrelevantly thinks remember we hate him when she feels her own tension ease a tiny bit at the sight. "So Canadian. Just like Hollander. No need for sorry. It is your shoes, yes? Your stupid shoes made you lose your balance." He looks over her for a moment longer. There's a moment where his eyebrows knit, then smooth again. "Normally I'm sure you are a strong, independent woman, who would not fall at my feet. Even if I am the best hockey player in the league."
She can't help it; her tension bubbles up into a tiny crack of laughter. "Shane is right. You are an asshole."
The smile turns back into a smirk. Smug, like she’s seen him on the ice when one of his chirps lands right on target. "Yes, this is true. But I am still very beautiful, very charming. I am the best person to be stuck in an elevator with."
At the reminder, the tension settles back into Yuna's stomach. There is no more movement - Yuna recalls the lurch and can't help thinking thank god before she pushes the thought away and tells herself movement would be good, actually, getting to a floor so she can get out and leave this smug chirping asshole behind is precisely what she needs. She strides to the panel and presses the call button. Then again, and twice more before she steps back again and pivots. Rozanov has picked up his phone and is grimacing at the crack down the screen, cutting through the coloured bubbles of a text message conversation as he types, pauses, swears.
"блять. No fucking signal. You?"
Yuna's overstuffed handbag is still clamped under her arm; she digs into it, pulls out her phone. Groans. "Fuck this. Zero bars. And I can't connect to the hotel wifi."
Rozanov grimaces. "Cheapskate NHL booking cheap fucking hotels with shitty phone signal and shitty fucking wiring." He looks at his phone again, rubs his thumb over the crack in the screen. The glow of it catches Yuna's eye in the dim light and she sees the name 'Jane' at the top of the screen before Rozanov angles it away.
"You think it's an electrical fault?" Yuna asks, because she has to say something.
"No wifi," Rozanov says. He glances at her, and his brow furrows again for a moment before he slips his phone into his pocket, shrugs, and leans against the wall. The asshole actually looks relaxed. "And no answer on the - the thing, the button you push. The power is out, maybe."
"The intercom," Yuna says absently, and then gathers herself. "A power cut. That's - good. They'll get the power back on, and the elevator will work again." She pivots, paces two steps away, two steps back in the small space, and then pushes the button again. Harder this time, and holding it for longer. As if that will possibly make a difference, Yuna, come on. "Why would they not have backup power for this stupid thing!"
"It is called ‘intercom’, I hear," Rozanov says, falsely helpful, and she can't help her breath huffing out in what is almost another laugh.
"Your English is very good." Yuna feels like she's talking largely at random, but she's glad for any distraction. "Especially the swears."
"Yes," Rozanov says. He manages to make the single word thick with pride. "Swearing is very useful for hockey. I practise all the swears, to be the best at chirping."
"You'd know, I guess." Yuna rolls her eyes, and pivots again. Two steps away, two steps back while Rozanov continues to lounge against the wall of the elevator like he's in a, a damn nightclub or model shoot or something.
"Also very useful when we are stuck in a fucking elevator." It catches Yuna by surprise and she lets out another sharp laugh. She looks up at Rozanov again and sees the furrow back between his brows. "Mrs Hollander, maybe we should sit," he says.
"I'm fine," she snaps. His voice had been steady and somehow almost kind but she knows his reputation, he's an asshole, he just bragged to her about how he likes to get under people's skin and earlier today she watched from the stands as he slammed Shane, her son, into the boards and said something that made Shane look like he wanted to punch him. Her son, her boy, who goes out onto the ice over and over again and pushes his body to the brink every time and won't even let her bring him Tylenol any more.
"You are a… thinker, yes? Like Hollander, I bet. Always thinking of the next move, the move after that. Always with a plan, and if plan doesn't work it is time to make another plan. The pacing… it helps you think, maybe, helps you plan? But right now, there is no plan. There is nothing we can do to get out any sooner. We just have to wait for the stupid button to work. So if you are walking up and down you will just get tired and your feet will hurt from the stupid shoes."
Yuna stares at him. She knows that Shane can recite Rozanov's stats back to junior league, she knows that Shane watches Rozanov play with an almost religious fervour, she knows that a player who plays as smart as Rozanov can't possibly be unobservant… and yet, hearing him calmly, steadily appraise not just her but her son, his rival, in a tone that is not only not sneering but is almost warm takes the wind out of her sails.
Meeting her eyes, Rozanov lowers himself to the floor and slumps in the back corner of the elevator. After a moment, Yuna takes her bag off her shoulder, puts it on the floor, and drops down next to it.
It occurs to Yuna, sitting there, that Rozanov knows who she is. They’ve never even been introduced, but clearly he knew who she was from the start. He didn’t even act like it was notable - just casually mentioning Shane to her as if of course Rozanov would know her. And sure, in a crowd of hockey moms it’s not hard to pick out the one Japanese woman and make a guess, but this is a big hotel and there’d be no reason to expect her here.
Rozanov lets the silence stretch, and Yuna doesn’t know if she should say something about it or what the hell she even would say. She’s deliberately forcing herself not to check her watch, but it feels like a long, awkward time before Rozanov shifts in his corner, plucks out his phone again, looks at the screen and runs his thumb over the crack, turns it off. He sighs.
"Still no signal or wifi?" Yuna asks, just to fill the space. He nods, turns the screen on again, rubs his thumb over the crack in the screen again. Yuna thinks of her own compulsive button pushing and finds she can't resist a dig. "What happened to just waiting for the intercom to work?"
If she didn't know better, she would think he looks embarrassed. "Is not about the elevator. Not really. I was - meeting someone. I wonder what… she will think when I am late."
Yuna thinks about David - he'll be back in their own hotel by now. She pictures him reading, shoes off, sitting on the hotel bed. He won't miss her for a while yet - might think she and Shane are talking. He might be hoping for that.
I had been hoping for that. Yuna presses her lips together to dismiss the thought, and deliberately looks back at Rozanov. "You think she'll be worried?"
Rozanov's smile is crooked. "I think she will be pissed. She might think I have… gone somewhere else. Found a party, found a girl. A different girl. I don't know." There is a tension in his jaw that surprises Yuna. She's not one for the tabloids, but she follows hockey, and she'd be less surprised to hear that Rozanov had found a different party, found a different girl, and then invited her back to have another party with the first girl than she was to hear Rozanov worry about his date feeling rejected. Rozanov looks up, sees her eyes on him, and abruptly shoves his phone back into his pocket.
Yuna's still looking, and catches them moment where his movement changes from jerky to suddenly, fiercely controlled. "How's your shoulder?" she asks, before she can stop herself.
Rozanov's expression closes - no more smirk now, or crooked smile. "Is fine," he says. "There is nothing wrong."
Yuna snorts. "Yeah, right. You were favouring your left shoulder through the whole fourth quarter." Rozanov's face is still closed off, and Yuna finds herself continuing on, filling the awkward silence. "It's just - I have Tylenol on me. If you want some." That gets Rozanov's attention back on her. The fixed look is gone from his face, leaving him looking startled, almost incredulous. Yuna thinks oh, he looks younger, and then she looks away, digs in her bag, pulls out the new box of painkillers. Then, reluctantly, she pulls out the bottle of Gatorade, too, and shoves them into the unofficial neutral zone between them.
Rozanov's lips twitch as he looks at them, and his eyes are light, as if he's suppressing a laugh. After a long moment, he reaches for the Tylenol box, pops two out, and swallows them dry. "Thank you," he says.
"For god's sake," Yuna mutters, and firmly shoves the Gatorade closer to him. "Drink something with them, don't be such a - a hockey player about this."
Rozanov's lips are twitching again, but he meekly takes the bottle, twists open the cap, and takes a sip. Yuna stares him down, and he takes another. "Thank you," he says again, and puts the bottle back down between them. Yuna feels some of the tension ebb out of her. "You always carry Tylenol and Gatorade?" Rosanov asks then.
His tone is polite but his lips are twitching again, something knowing in his expression, and Yuna’s jaw clenches. She's not going to tell Shane's rival, who hates him, about her bringing Shane painkillers and fluids because he has a headache, to make sure he was okay. Painkillers he didn't even want, Yuna reminds herself ruthlessly, shouldering past the smaller, painful thought that says Shane doesn't want you to make sure he's okay and the tinier, awful thought that says god I hope Shane is okay. “I carry ice packs, too, but I wouldn’t give one to a chirping asshole like you,” she snaps.
Rozanov laughs. “I do not need ice anyway. Is just a bruise,” he says dismissively.
“What do you mean it doesn’t need ice? First Casey checks you –"
“Was nothing –”
“I saw you rolling your shoulder after. Then Shane hit you on that same side, and now you’re wincing when you put your phone away but it’s ‘just a bruise’ and there’s ‘no need for ice’, you boys -”
She’s interrupted by a chirp and a faint fuzz of static from the control panel, and cuts herself off as she eagerly pulls herself to her feet.
“Uh. Hello, this is the hotel facilities team, is anyone there?”
“Yes! Hello! Yes – we’re stuck in here, the lights went out and the elevator stopped moving -” Yuna forces herself to pause.
“Okay. How many of you are there, are there any injuries?”
Yuna shoots Rozanov a narrow look, where he’s apparently content to stay sitting on the floor and letting her do the talking. He mouths ‘is just a bruise’ at her and she shakes her head. “There are two of us, adults, and no, no injuries. Ah, there are emergency lights on, I guess, but the main lights are out. Can you tell us what’s happening?”
“Okay, great. We had a little power cut in the hotel. The electricity is back on now, we’re getting our systems back up, but it looks like there was. Um. A power surge, maybe, and we’ve not been able to restore power to this elevator.”
Rozanov groans and bumped his head against the wall behind him. “Shitty fucking wiring,” he mutters, and Yuna grits her teeth against the urge to repeat it herself, and louder.
“Okay. So, how long will that take to fix?” Yuna says instead, brisk and businesslike.
“Uh, well, we’re still investigating what repairs are needed. We may be able to do repairs right away but we don’t know yet.”
Yuna pivots, takes two steps forward, two steps back. Her watch is showing 10.17pm. She imagines them opening a wiring box and seeing it filled with smoke and the smell of burned plastic; she imagines them wasting time poking around in it before finally calling an electrician who says pal it’s nearly midnight, are you kidding me?; she imagines the sheepish call back and the voice saying uh, well, um, it looks like you’ll be there until morning now.
She takes a breath. Businesslike. Brisk. “Then I hope there’s also a backup plan to get us out of here tonight.”
“Uh yes, ma’am – we’re alerting the city fire department. If we can’t resolve it they’ll come and get you.”
Yuna bites her tongue on can they not come right now and tells herself it’s fine, they’re safe. She asks about the lurch and is told it was most likely just the emergency brakes locking when the power dropped. She thinks most likely? and keeps her tone calm and measured as she gives their names, as she confirms that yes, they have water, and no, neither of them have any medical conditions, and no, neither of them have anyone else in this hotel who they want to contact (she’s not bothering Shane again). She thanks them as they promise they’ll be in touch with any further updates and that someone will stay by the intercom if Yuna or Rozanov need to call again. Then as the soft static fuzz switches back into silence she takes two steps forward, two steps back.
Two steps forward, two steps back.
Two steps forward, two steps back.
“Hollander’s hit was nothing,” Rozanov says out of nowhere. Yuna pivots to him. He’s smirking up at her from the floor, his phone back in his hand again like a child with a stuffed toy. “Casey is a big guy, hits big, leaves a bruise – a small bruise. But Hollander – he hits like baby. I did not even feel it.” Yuna jerks her thumbnail out from between her teeth, but he’s still going. “Hollander says you know hockey better than anyone, you could coach better than coaches, but you can’t tell that Hollander hits like a weak baby bird?”
A sharp response dies in her mouth as Yuna stares at him. “Shane… said that to you?” she asks, honestly baffled, and then gets to see his smirking face adjust itself first into what might be a flash of anxiety, then into something fixed and closed, and then softening back into something like embarrassment. “I didn’t know you two ever really talked.”
“It was not talking,” he says quickly. “It was… chirping. I said to him, his mother teaches me… something.” Rozanov avoids her eyes at that, looking sheepish. “It was nothing, was stupid. Sorry. Hollander said, if his mother actually taught me she would teach me to be better fucking hockey player.”
An unexpected warmth blooms in Yuna. It’s not new; David says as much to her every time they watch a game, and Shane has, too. She doesn’t doubt Shane’s love for her, his respect for her, but there’s a difference between that and telling his rival to respect her hockey knowledge, and convincingly enough for Rozanov to remember it and repeat it. Slowly, she sits back down in her corner of the elevator. Rozanov shifts in place to keep meeting her gaze.
“I don’t actually have an ice pack,” she admits. Somehow she doesn’t like that she used that to slap at him. “If I did, I would give it to you. Even if you do play for the Boston Raiders.”
Rozanov grins at her, easy again. “You are just like Hollander.” Yuna looks at him in puzzlement, and he elaborates. “You know – he is a polite Canadian boy. Very bad at lying.” He seems to contemplate her for a moment, before he adds, “He is very boring.”
“You are such an asshole.”
Rozanov laughs. “Yes, I am right. You are just like him,” he says, and there is something about his voice, again. That edge of warmth. Yuna studies him, tries to make sense of it, but he’s speaking again before she can puzzle it through. “Both – high strung, yes? Hollander has his game face, maybe he hides more than you. But you both are thinkers. Sometimes too much thinking, maybe.”
Yuna can’t seem to stop herself from staring at him. That warmth, that matter-of-fact knowledge, as if seeing Shane is easy, so easy he can talk about it like it’s nothing, like it’s normal, as if people don’t watch Shane on the ice and say he’s like a machine, like a robot. As if it’s a compliment, as if her biggest fear in life for her sweet sensitive boy is that he would never feel able to let people in to know him, that people would not realise there was anything more about him to know, anything worth the effort to know.
Rozanov’s smile is fading as she lets the silence stretch, but finally she manages to work her way through to words. “Mr Rozanov – are you and Shane – are you actually friends?”
It sounds insane as she says it. She’s met Shane’s friends – well, she’s met Hayden and some of the other Metros. She’s seen how he talks to them, about them - proud of them and so pleased that they like him, ribbing them but only in ways that are deliberate and intentional, careful. And she’s seen how he talks about Rozanov, how probably the most neutral thing she’s heard him say is that Rozanov is a bit of a dick, how Shane will rip up about him when they watch his games, how Shane will snap back at him on the ice like he can’t not, how everyone says Shane hates Rozanov.
The she thinks, again, of how Shane will rip up about Rozanov when they watch his games – how he doesn’t miss watching a Boston Raiders game, even if he’s got a rare evening off to spend with his parents. She thinks again of everyone saying Shane hates Rozanov, thinks of her saying fuck Ilya Rozanov.
Something feels tight and clenched in her stomach.
She hasn’t been watching Rozanov’s face, hasn’t seen the journey he’s gone on this time, but he’s landed back on ‘sheepish’ by the time she re-focuses. “Not – friends. We have no time to be friends. We are only ever in the same city to play games or stay in cheap hotels with bad wiring for All Stars.”
“But you don’t hate him.”
“Eh.” Rozanov waggles a hand slightly. “On ice, I want to crush him, show him who is the number one player. Off the ice is – is off the ice.”
Yuna spends a moment grappling with the idea that there might be, emotionally speaking, such a thing as being off the ice. “Okay,” she says slowly. Then, because even if Rozanov apparently can compartmentalise a rivalry doesn’t mean she has to, “But, uh, just so you know, Shane is definitely the best hockey player in the league.”
“Hollander can’t check for shit and has a weak fucking backhand –“
“- excuse me, and you’re a grandstanding puck-hog who’d rather lose a goal than assist one, which is why my son beats you on points every season, asshole.” By the time she finishes, Rozanov is laughing, somehow transparently delighted by the insult. Yuna finds herself thinking off the ice, and her face heats slightly as off the ice allies with Canadian politeness and forces hockey talk onto the bench for a moment. “Sorry. Mr Rozanov.”
“I hear ‘asshole’ all the time. It is fine.” Rozanov grins. “But since we are stuck in a fucking elevator together, if you want, you call me Roz. Or Ilya.”
“Yuna, then,” she says. “For as long as we’re trapped in an elevator.” A beat, and she looks at him narrowly. “And for as long as you can stop yourself from chirping about Shane.”
“It will be hard,” he says solemnly. “But I will try.”
Yuna privately gives that resolution less than five minutes before it crumbles under the strain, but before she can test the theory there’s another chirp and the soft hiss of static.
“Uh, hello? Mrs Hollander, Mr Rozanov?”
“Yes, we are still fucking here. We have not got up and skated away,” says Rozanov – Ilya – and Yuna can’t help thinking the same thing even as she pulls herself back to her feet and steps up to the panel.
“Yes? Do you have news?”
“Uh, yes. Our facilities team haven’t been able to repair the wiring, but the fire department are aware and are coming to get you out of there soon.”
“And do you have an estimated time frame?” Yuna asks. It’s an effort to keep her voice level.
“Uh, no, not yet, but they will be getting to you as soon as possible.”
Yuna can read between the lines; two healthy adults trapped in an elevator is not an emergency, even if one of them treats being irritating as an art form he wants to perfect. She says the right things through teeth that want to grit themselves closed, slumps back down onto the floor, and closes her eyes.
She’s trying to resist checking the time again, wondering if David has tried to call her yet. Wondering if she ought to ask through the intercom to contact their hotel, let David know that she is stuck in a fucking elevator. She imagines the confused message – facilities team to the hotel reception to another hotel reception to David’s room, passing along the message that the fire department has been called and she feels a bit sick. David has a well of calm that goes down deep, but –
“Wifi is back,” Roz – Ilya – says suddenly, breaking into Yuna’s thoughts.
She draws her thumbnail out of her mouth. “What?”
“Hotel wifi is back on,” Ilya says. “You want to FaceTime Hollander or something?”
Relief is enough to have Yuna laughing at that. “I don’t know if Shane even has FaceTime. But – I can call my husband –” She scrambles her phone out again, thankful to see her phone connecting to the hotel guest wi-fi without a hiccup. She glances over once at Ilya, but he’s leaning back into his corner, performatively relaxed, as she opens Skype.
David answers right away. The call quality is bad, sometimes pausing and then going double-speed to catch up, but still the sound of his voice has tension easing from Yuna’s shoulders. She keeps it brief – yes, really an elevator; yes, really Ilya Rozanov; no, she hasn’t punched him yet; no, don’t tell Shane since he’s probably sleeping off his headache. Throughout, she steals little glances at Ilya; he smirks when she talks about punching him, but by the time David’s promising to get dressed again and come back to the hotel, Ilya’s rubbing his thumb over the crack in his phone screen, and his face looks… odd. Yuna’s used to seeing his face tense and closed or animated and smirking, not… open and slightly sad.
“Can you FaceTime her? Your date?” Yuna finds herself asking, and Ilya’s face belatedly goes back into a little smirk.
“She… doesn’t use the internet much. But, no need. I will sweet talk her out of her pissy mood later. It will be fun.” Yuna doesn’t think Ilya’s face is quite managing to match his words, but she feels out of her depth in trying to have any kind of relationship gossip with Ilya Rozanov, of all people.
“If you say so,” she says instead. She leans back into her corner of the elevator. She watches, sidelong, as Ilya lets his head lean back against the wall.
After perhaps another minute, she takes off her shoes.
She’s not going to check her watch again – she’s not – so she doesn’t know how long it is before Ilya pushes the Gatorade bottle towards her. “I have no terrible diseases. You should drink.”
“I’m fine,” Yuna says, because she is.
“Okay. But, is better to stay hydrated, so you stay fine. So you should drink.”
“Because we don’t know how long we’ll be stuck, you mean,” Yuna says, and stands back up again to push the call button.
“Hello? Everything alright?”
No everything is not alright, Yuna thinks, and asks “Just wondering if there are any updates from the fire department?”
“They’re still on their way, Ma’am, but they were diverted for another call.”
“Right. Okay,” Yuna says, and as the static fades into silence she bursts out “We’ve been in here for over an hour!”
“Maybe you should tell them I am a bigtime hockey superstar. Very rich and famous,” Ilya suggests. When Yuna looks back at him, He deliberately meets her eyes and carefully enunciates, “Best player in the league.”
Yuna turns fully from the panel to glare at him, annoyed and reluctantly amused and even more reluctantly grateful for the chance to snipe at him. “For someone who says ‘off the ice is off the ice’, you sure seem committed to the rivalry.”
“I am the best, he is second best-“
Yuna interrupts with a loud buzzer noise. “Wrong answer –“
“No, listen – we compete, we are rivals, yes. But if I am the best and there is no Hollander – I have no rival, no competition. No fucking point.”
“The hockey is the point,” Yuna says immediately, automatically, before her thoughts catch up and she processes what he’s saying. Even trying her best to work it through, she’s still baffled. She’s seen Ilya’s face on screen as he lifts the Stanley Cup – what more point is he looking for?
Ilya shrugs. “Playing against Hollander is the best hockey. If there is no Hollander - I would not have to be as good. It would not be so much fun.”
Yuna is staring, she knows she is, but she doesn’t know how not to. She wonders if Shane knows Ilya thinks this way. She wonders what Shane thinks of him. She knows her son, knows that hockey is his world, but she finds herself wondering now if there is hockey and then there is hockey with Rozanov and if the second might be something different, something that has shifted his priorities in the way it seems to have shifted Ilya’s. Could it be true? How would she know? Would Shane even know? (Fuck Rozanov, fuck him up the butt) and would Shane tell her if he did know?
Ilya’s talking again, and she makes herself refocus in time to catch the end of his words. “- Mrs Hollander, if that is okay?”
Ilya’s standing up, so Yuna lowers herself back down again, tucking her legs out of his way to give him room. The elevator’s big enough for them both, but he’s still careful about how he uses the space as he moves, stretches. Rolls his shoulders without a flicker in his expression.
“Stiffening up?” she asks.
“Is okay. Just from sitting on the floor.”
“You can have the Tylenol,” Yuna says before she can stop herself. “I mean, if you want to. You’re not due another dose yet, but you can take the box, for later.” Ilya giving her an odd look, confused and sort of doubtful, and she scrubs a hand over her eyes. “Sorry. You probably already have some. Like Shane does.”
“You bought them for Hollander,” Ilya says. It’s not quite a question.
Yuna’s earlier worry about Ilya chirping Shane about it seems irrational now. “Yeah. He had a headache earlier. But he’s got some already, of course.”
“Of course,” Ilya echoes. That warmth again. “Hollander is very organised. Plans ahead. Probably has a little medicine kit, with стетоскоп and band-aids and something for headache and something for stomach and something for coughs...” Yuna herself would bet money on it, and her lips curve at the idea. “I am less organised,” Ilya admits after a moment. “I did not pack Tylenol.”
“Then have them,” Yuna says firmly.
Ilya sits again instead of answering her, the box and the Gatorade still sitting between them. “Hollander is lucky,” he says, after another long moment. Yuna raises her eyebrows at him. “You, and your husband. You come to his home games, you come to All Stars, you bring him medicine when he is sick. He is lucky.”
The odd look is back in his face again – open and slightly sad. Yuna doesn’t know how she’s meant to be responding to it. “It must be hard, being so far from Russia. From your family.” Ilya’s shoulders twitch in what might be a shrug, but he doesn’t say anything. Yuna rubs her hands restlessly against her legs, then fills the silence. “It’s what, a ten hour flight from Moscow to Boston? Hard to make it to a game.”
Ilya snorts. “My father would not come to see me play if it was ten minutes,” he says. It’s quick and harsh, and he tightens his mouth closed afterwards. He’s not looking at her, and his face has closed off again. Yuna wonders if he wishes he could take the words back.
She thinks back to the draft. She remembers Ilya’s father, she thinks. It’s impressions more than anything else – bullish, a hardness in his manner, a cold edge to his words. She thinks of Ilya, stuck in an elevator with her for almost two hours, making her angry and making her laugh and with a strange light in him as he talks about her son. She imagines what it would have been like to be stuck in an elevator for two hours instead with Ilya’s father, the cold hard figure she’s half-remembering and half-imagining.
She wonders what it was like to be stuck in a house with him for eighteen years.
“And your mother?” Yuna asks. She can’t help it, wanting to poke holes in the image she’s drawn herself of that house, those eighteen years, but she watches Ilya’s face harden further, impassive and indifferent. Watches it harden so much that it cracks a bit and she can see something else bleeding through, and she wishes she’d kept her mouth shut.
“She died.” Ilya’s voice is flat. “It was – long time ago.”
So you were young, then, Yuna thinks. He still is young, he’s the same age as her Shane, and he was so young when he moved away from everyone he knew, from the language that he knew, to play hockey and be the best at it and meet someone else for the first time who was maybe the best at it too, someone who he could see.
Yuna thinks about how when Shane was young, when he was sick or stressed and she used to stroke her hand through his hair and cup the side of his head in her hand. Sometimes she still does, but not often. Shane doesn’t always let her now, and she’s sometimes not sure if she’s reading him right and doesn’t want to push in and get it wrong.
She imagines, for a moment, stroking her hand over Ilya’s blond curls, cupping his cheek. The idea makes her heart ache a little, even as she almost laughs. He’d probably spook like a wild horse.
Instead, she pushes the Gatorade bottle towards him. “You played a game today. And I bet you were in the bar after. You should drink the rest.”
Ilya looks startled again, just like the first time she gave it to him, but after a moment he smiles softly and takes a drink. Another moment, and then warmth blooms in Yuna again as Ilya picks up the Tylenol box and flattens it into his pocket, next to his phone.
“Спасибо,” he murmurs. Looks at her, clears his throat. “Thank you, Yuna.”
Another long pause. Then there’s a chirp, a hiss, and both of them look over to the control panel. “Hello, this is the fire department. Are you folks ready to get out of there?”
“Actually, we are having nice conversation –”
Yuna’s already climbing to her feet again. “Shut it, Ilya. Yes, definitely!”
They’re stuck between floors, apparently, and the fire service will have to pry the doors open and help them out. They stand at the back of the elevator, and Yuna pins her eyes to the line of the door, waiting for – something. A noise, a crack of light. Her chest feels tight
“Yuna, why are you so happy to leave, even though I am so charming. Is hurtful,” Ilya complains. Yuna takes a breath in to turn to him –
BANG. BANG. Two sharp clear knocks sound on the outside of the lift doors, followed a tense moment later by a narrow gap of bright artificial light.
Yuna feels Ilya’s hand on her elbow at the same moment that she registers her knees going weak. A face appears at the opening, halfway up the doors. “You two doing alright?” the firefighter asks, and Yuna’s barely paying attention to the exchange as Ilya says tells him - something, because then the firefighter is saying, “Stay at the back there,” and “Just another minute, and we’ll have you out of there.”
Ilya’s hand stays on her elbow as the doors winch open wider. The opening is chest high on her, and there’s a brief mention of bringing a ladders before Ilya snorts, kneels by the doors, and offers her his cupped hands. Yuna places a bare foot into them without hesitation, and in the next moment she’s being lifted, a hard grip on her arms and a gentle grip on her feet, and then she’s out, standing in a beige hotel hallway with a group of firefighters, a nervous looking hotel employee, and David and Shane.
She’s in David’s arms in the next moment, drawing in a breath. He’s wearing his suit from earlier, a little crumpled, and over his shoulder she sees Shane is wearing athleisure and an anxious expression, so she pulls free and hugs him too.
“I told you not to wake him,” she tells David, voice muffled against Shane’s shoulder.
“I wasn’t asleep, Mom, and of course I want to know if you’re stuck in an elevator in my hotel.”
“Stuck with Ilya Rozanov,” David says. It sounds as if he’s been saying it over and over since she called him, and that he still can’t quite believe it.
“It was fun,” Ilya says. He’s just finished climbing out, waving off the firefighters as he stands and dusts himself off. “It was like a party, only not enough vodka.” Her bag is by the elevator doors, where he must have passed it out, and he bends, comes over, offers her her shoes.
“Thanks, Ilya,” she says, and steadies herself against Shane as she takes them, fits them back onto her feet. In Ilya’s other hand she sees that he’s still holding the last of the Gatorade.
“Ilya,” Shane repeats, incredulously. Ilya smirks at him.
Shoes on and David and Shane on either side of her, Yuna feels more able to deal with first the firefighters – no, no injuries, a little shaken but just needing rest, and then the hotel manager – yes, she will be wanting to talk about appropriate compensation and will be in contact with them about this. Ticking that off her mental list she considers the next item, and sees Ilya, brushing off the same conversations. It feels somehow wrong, him standing off to the side when she is here with her husband and son, and again she’s talking before she can think better of it. “I’ll ask them about compensation for you, too,” she informs him. He starts to wave her off, but she shakes her head. “No. The – the shitty fucking wiring was not acceptable, you were stuck too, and I will talk to them about compensation for us both.”
For a moment Yuna worries about overstepping, worries about him rearing back from her, but Ilya relaxes into a smile and so does she. “Tell them – I don’t want to pay for my room service,” he suggests. “Tell them, I want the most expensive bottle of vodka in the hotel bar.”
The manager is offering some kind of response, I’m sure we can arrange something, but Yuna is too tired to negotiate properly and she wants to go into the meeting fresh and sharp, so she just says “Tomorrow,” and turns back to Ilya. “Do you think you can still make your… date?”
Ilya’s eyes skip away from hers for a moment. “…Maybe,” he says. “I think I will go upstairs, make a call. See if she still wants to meet. If she is not too tired, not in the wrong mood now.” His smirk comes back. “I think perhaps I will need to… what is the word, go on my knees?”
“Grovel? Beg?” Yuna suggests.
“Yes, that too.” Shane seems to be choking a bit at the friendly nature of the exchange, and Ilya winks at him over Yuna’s shoulder. She hears his throttled noise of outrage and his hiss of ‘asshole,’ and decides to ignore it. “And you?” Ilya says. His face is open, still, but his brows look like they might want to furrow as he looks at her.
“I just want to sleep,” Yuna admits. David steps closer to her, close enough that she can rock back and let some of her weight rest against his shoulder. “Shane, you should sleep, too. I didn’t want to drag you out of bed for this.”
Ilya nods, steps back. His face smooths out. “Goodnight, Mrs Hollander,” he says.
“Ilya, wait.” It’s on instinct, automatic that as he starts to turn away Yuna leans forward again, touches his arm, and then as he pauses draws him down into a hug. He’s stiff at first, startled, maybe, but then his arms gently fold around her and she lets herself tighten her grip. She still wants to stroke her hand over his hair, but holds herself back, and instead rests her hand lightly fall on his left shoulder as she steps back. “You should put some ice on this,” she tells him, and he grins.
“You do not hate me, then. I have won you over,” he says.
He sounds so pleased with himself that she can’t help but smile even as she rolls her eyes. “You’re an asshole, and I’ll cheer when Montreal crushes you on the ice,” she informs him, and he is smiling back at her in that soft, somehow surprised way. “But off the ice…”
“Yes.” Yuna releases him, and gladly leans back into David – who, bless him, is willing to hold his questions for now. “Goodnight, Yuna.” And as Ilya turns, looks at the second elevator, still lit up and ready, “Hey, Hollander – you going up? Want to share an elevator?”
“No chance,” Shane retorts. Ilya’s laughing as he walks towards the stairwell, and Shane glares after him for a moment before turning back to her. “Mom – you’re really alright?”
Yuna savours it as she hugs Shane again. “Yes, really – go to bed, don’t worry about me.”
She watches fondly as Shane heads towards the stairs. Ilya’s lingered for some reason, holding the door, and Yuna thinks she can hear him saying “Scared to be stuck with me?” and Shane responding with an elbow jab and the edge of a laugh. She watches as Shane looks up and their eyes meet; she wonders what they see when they look at each other, and for a moment feels incoherently relieved before the door closes behind them.