Chapter Text
Ilya keeps thinking that Shane is finally going to snap out of it.
It’s been almost a month since he got down on one knee in Ilya’s front hallway, and since then, he’s shown no sign of coming to his senses and realizing this is a stupid idea. Or that he doesn’t actually want Ilya. He keeps doing things like finding a Russian restaurant in some old neighbourhood in Montreal and suggesting they go some time, or sending him memes dumping on Buffalo. And sure, he chuckles at the text that says “🙏 Hope Kent has a long and difficult recovery” about Dallas Kent being out for two weeks with an upper body injury, but these are things you send to friends, or boyfriends, and not someone you only see four or five times a year to secretly fuck. So that really doesn’t bode well for Shane recovering from his temporary insanity.
The whole thing is getting to the point where he thinks that Hollander might be fucking him up even more than the undercurrent of homophobia that now follows him around. It takes him way too much effort not to just let himself sink into it. The way Shane is acting would make that so easy. But then he’s not convinced he could make it through the rejection that he’s completely sure is looming.
Sveta, meanwhile, has been… well, worrying about him and not trying very hard to hide it. He manages to fend her off with a road trip in the west and by constantly insisting that he’s definitely fine, but after the twelfth time Shane sends a text that ends with “I love you :)”, he accepts that he can’t deal with this alone. He’s going to break down and start saying it back, or something equally disastrous. Sveta will know what to do. Or, if she doesn’t (Ilya’s not sure how much experience she has with very polite Canadian boys thinking they’re in love with you), she might at least be able to take his mind off it for a bit.
He’s so desperate — so afraid that any second now he’s going to say something he’ll regret forever — that he even reaches out to her instead of waiting for her to inevitably check in. He gets home from yet another unpleasant practice, sees the message that Shane had sent while he was on the ice, and immediately texts Sveta, Are you free? Can you come over?
He busies himself with a shower while he waits for her, partially because he could use a more thorough shower than he’d taken at the rink (which he’d made as short as possible so no one had time to accuse him of looking at them funny or something) but mostly because he can’t take his phone with him in there. By the time he emerges — without having tried to drown himself under the spray, although he’d briefly pondered it — Sveta has arrived and let herself in. She must’ve dropped everything to get over here, or maybe she’d been waiting for him to reach out; either way, he suddenly feels very guilty. She’s made herself at home on his couch, and doesn’t stand up when he enters the room, just pats the couch cushion next to her.
“What do you want to order for dinner?” he says in Russian, going over to sit down. Instead of replying, she rolls her eyes at him.
“Cut the bullshit, Ilyusha, what’s wrong?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have invited her over. She’s far too perceptive.
Then again, if there’s anyone he can finally lose his shit at, it’s her. And he’s definitely on the verge of losing his shit. He groans, scrubs a hand over his face, and avoids her eyes as he says, “Jane is Shane Hollander.” That’s probably a good place to start. This way she can get the whole picture of how fucked up all of this is.
“Ah,” she says, remarkably calm. “That explains quite a lot.”
… He wishes she were much more rattled than this. She doesn’t even sound surprised. He’s almost tempted to dig into that, but Jane being Shane isn’t even the thing he needs to talk to her about.
“And he asked me to marry him.”
This time she doesn’t respond, and when he finally chances a glance at her, she’s trying and completely failing to hide a gigantic smile. His stomach sinks at the sight; maybe she won’t be able to help him after all.
She clears her throat, and finally manages to school her face into a more neutral expression. “And what did you say?”
“I said yes. But I shouldn’t have, not even just for immigration. It was a bad mistake. I need to figure out a different way.” Please, please help me get out of this, he doesn’t say, but hopefully it comes across in his tone.
“Did he propose just to help you get… whatever they call a green card in Canada?”
“No. He thinks he’s in love with me, and he doesn’t want me to risk going back to Russia, and this way I would have some kind of permanent status that wouldn’t be tied to hockey. But there has to be some other way to do that.” He huffs and slouches into the couch. It’s pathetic, but he’s kind of been avoiding sitting here ever since what happened with Shane. Maybe he should get a new couch. “I still have my visa. I could at least apply for a green card here. I still have some time before my contract is up.”
June 30th, 2018. It hadn’t felt important before, because of course he would sign an extension with Boston. He’d probably get offered a no movement clause, although he wasn’t worried about getting traded — why would Boston do that? He’d got them a cup, and everyone knew he could get them another. So maybe he would go for more money instead of the NMC. They’d give it to him, because they’d want him to stay.
And now everything is different, because he’ll have to go back to Russia to renew his visa, and Boston might not want to keep him. Some team will want him, he’s almost entirely certain. But not Boston.
“Are you in love with him?” Sveta asks, which is so far from what he’d been expecting her to say, and so far from where his thoughts had been, that he can only blink at her for a long moment.
“Why does that matter?”
“So that’s a yes, then.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m in love with him or not. That’s not the point! The point is that Shane Hollander is going to blow up his whole life just because I did something stupid. Because he is an idiot and very Canadian.”
“I think it matters a lot, Ilya.” She’s starting to sound impatient. “What’s really the problem? And whatever it is, are you going to talk to me about it? Because this sounds like a perfectly good plan to me. Hollander’s career can probably weather it. This month has gone well for him. Even if it can’t, he’s the one who gets to decide what he wants to do. The man’s in love with you and he’s offering you a good option, so if you’re trying to poke holes in it like this, either you hate his guts too much to marry him or you’re scared. Which is it?”
“He’s not in love with me,” Ilya insists, ignoring her question altogether. “He thinks he is, but he’s wrong.”
“And how do you know Shane Hollander’s brain better than Shane Hollander?”
“I am using logic! He fucking ran away when I used his first name! We fuck four times a year, and we don’t do… we aren’t friends. You and I fuck, but we’re also friends. It’s not like that with him.”
“But that was enough for you to fall in love with him. So why can’t the reverse be true?”
Ilya’s lip trembles, and he bites down on it hard. Because Shane is easy to love, and I’m not, is the answer, but Sveta won’t want to hear that.
“Ilyusha.” Her tone is much softer this time. Her hand comes up to stroke his cheek, and he manages not to flinch away from it. “I wish that you would let yourself have this.”
“I can’t, Svetochka,” he says in a very small voice. He doesn’t tell her that she had it completely right when she guessed that he’s scared. He’s pretty sure she knows that already.
Sveta sighs heavily, then tugs him closer and maneuvers him into place so that his head is resting on her shoulder. He relaxes into her on instinct, and neither of them speaks again for a while.
“It’s very romantic,” she murmurs eventually, pressing her cheek against the top of his head. “Sweet, really. Of Hollander, I mean. I better be invited to the wedding.”
Ilya doesn’t bother arguing with her. She’s clearly not going to be any help in salvaging this. It’s a strange feeling, because he can’t remember the last time they were on opposite sides of something like this. There’s a voice in the back of his mind timidly reminding him that Sveta is usually right, that if she’s disagreeing with him maybe he should re-evaluate, but he pushes it aside.
Preparing to tell Hayden and JJ about Ilya is the first time Shane has truly, actually been nervous about all of this. He’d known that even if he had to talk them around, his parents would still love and support him no matter what — at least, he hadn’t really had time to convince himself otherwise before he’d jumped into the deep end — but this is different. He’s had too much time to think about it, and even though they’ve been playing together for Shane’s entire career, he’s not sure they’ll be with him on this. They’ve insulted Ilya both on and off the ice, and it’s not really more than any other teammate, but these are the teammates that matter to him.
He spends a frankly embarrassing amount of money on steaks, having decided that cooking his friends food they’ll actually want to eat can only help. He also buys potatoes for the first time in… well, probably ever? Even though the store near him only has potatoes in fuck-off-gigantic bags and he’ll never be able to get through all of them. Maybe he’ll send JJ and Hayden home with the rest of them.
JJ whistles when he sees the meat Shane has bought. “Câline de bine (holy crap lol), Hollzy, why did you buy us such nice fucking steaks? Are you asking for a fucking trade or something?” He then immediately takes over the grill when Shane starts it up, insisting that he doesn’t trust Shane to handle meat this nice, “recent news aside.” He ignores Shane’s protests that JJ is a guest and doesn’t have to cook, and the fact that he is blushing bright red. Hayden is free to instead look at Shane suspiciously.
“Are you asking for a trade?” he says, and Shane feels bad when he sees how hard Hayden is clutching his unopened can of beer.
“No,” Shane says, shaking his head emphatically. “No, it’s not that.”
“But it is something,” Hayden says, only lessening his grip on his beer slightly.
“Well, uh, yeah,” Shane says. “Can we talk about it once the steaks are done? It’s good news,” he adds hurriedly when Hayden’s face falls.
It takes approximately a hundred years to cook and eat the steaks. Shane’s able to objectively recognize that JJ had hit it out of the park on the grilling front while still feeling like the food on his plate might as well be cardboard for all that he enjoys eating it. They make somewhat-stilted conversation about the horseshit goaltending in the Central Division the whole time, but when JJ’s plate is finally cleared, he pushes it away from himself and says, “Aweye déguidine (Hurry up & stop procrastinating)! Why did you buy us fancy steaks instead of making us eat raw vegetables?”
Shane takes a deep breath. “I’m getting married.”
Both JJ and Hayden grin, and Hayden actually whoops, and then says, “Who’s the lucky guy? Why haven’t we met him before now? I mean, I guess you couldn’t really introduce a boyfriend without saying you’re gay, huh.”
“You have met him,” Shane says, and now he looks at the table, afraid of seeing his teammates’ faces. “It’s Ilya Rozanov.”
They both go completely silent. It stretches out so long that Shane looks back up because not being able to see their faces actually feels worse — he wants to know how that landed. Hayden is gaping comically. JJ looks like he’s trying not to crack up.
”Tu m'niaises-tu (Are you kidding me?)?”
Shane swallows hard. “No, I’m serious.”
“The same Ilya Rozanov who was kissing another man in Dallas?” Hayden says. He does not sound impressed. “Like… a month ago? That Ilya Rozanov?”
“Do you know a different Ilya Rozanov, Hayd?” Shane sighs. He really wishes people would stop rubbing those stupid photos in his face.
“I just think you deserve someone who’s actually a nice person, and doesn’t cheat on you at a random club,” he says, and he sounds so earnest about it. “I’m sure we can find you someone! You’re a hockey player, and Jackie said the WAGs chat thinks you’re hot.” He quickly adds, “I mean, you’re probably hot to men too!” and looks at Shane like he’s worried he’s just insulted him.
“You are definitely hot,” JJ says. “If you actually went out, you could pick up like that.” He snaps his fingers for emphasis. “Much hotter than Ilya Rozanov.”
“He wasn’t cheating on me,” Shane says. “We had a big fight and kind of broke up? It’s… it’s complicated,” he says instead of confessing that they hadn’t really had the kind of relationship that involved discussions about exclusivity.
“Oh, cool, sounds like a healthy basis for a marriage.”
To Shane’s surprise, JJ scoffs a little at that; he makes eye contact with Shane and shakes his head in fond exasperation. “Guy pumps out some kids and thinks he’s an expert in healthy marriages, eh? You knew Jackie for a year before you married her, Pike. You’re just lucky she’s so great.”
“I'm just saying that if I had a fight with Jackie so bad that she went out on the town and fucked another dude, I would not be engaged to her a month later.”
“It was my fault,” Shane says. “I ran away because I was scared.”
There’s silence for a long moment and then Hayden says, “...That's not better. Is that supposed to make us feel better? Dude. A month. That’s way too fast!”
“Nah, dude, it’s… um, gay-normal. Haven't you heard of U-Hauling?” JJ says, chuckling. At least for the moment he’s laughing at Hayden, not Shane. Shane has not heard of U-Hauling. It’s not like they can move in together, what with living in different cities for hockey, so he’s not sure why JJ is bringing it up.
“That’s lesbians, bro!” Hayden says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Apparently JJ’s statement makes sense to him, so Shane hopes they’ll explain it at some point.
JJ laughs way too hard for whatever the joke is. “How the fuck do you know it’s lesbians?”
“I’ve been doing some reading!” Hayden says defensively. “You know, so I can support Shane!”
Whatever this is about, Shane can admit that that’s sweet of him. Well, it is until Hayden follows up with, “Come on, JJ! You can’t be on board with this. I mean, Rozanov’s an asshole!”
“No, he’s not,” says Shane. He’s trying hard to stay calm and to keep his voice level, but he’s so frustrated that Hayden feels so certain of Ilya’s poor character based on nothing but chirps and a few soundbites that he’s not even willing to hear Shane out.
“Dude! He’s such a dick to you on the ice.”
“No, he’s not, actually. Have you ever seen him foul me? He’s literally just playing normal hockey. And he’s always smiling at me during face-offs —”
Hayden has been opening and closing his mouth for a long moment, like he wants to jump in with examples of Ilya Rozanov’s egregious misconduct but can’t actually come up with any. Now he smacks his hand down on the table with an air of triumph and says, “Yeah, to get under your skin! Like an asshole!”
Somehow, Shane manages to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands out of frustration. “Or he just, y’know, likes me. And so he smiles when he sees me. I know him a lot better than you do. I’m telling you that he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s not actually an asshole, and you think you know better than me because… what? He’s chirped you one too many times? Tripped you occasionally?”
Hayden actually looks abashed at that, and doesn’t respond. JJ, meanwhile, seems uninterested in their bickering.
“So, you and Rozanov — how long have you been ‘complicated’?” He smirks. “Longer than Hayden knew Jackie?”
“Fuck off, dude,” Hayden grumbles.
“Years,” Shane says, which makes JJ whistle in amazement. “I mean, we don’t usually get to see each other that often because of our schedules, but we text a lot. He’s saved as Lily in my phone.” He knows Hayden will know what that means. Maybe that will finally get through to him.
“He’s Boston Lily?” Hayden says. If he raises his eyebrows any higher, Shane thinks they might migrate off his face entirely. “But that’s been going on for years.”
“Yeah, like I said.”
“Wait. Fuck. Oh my god. Boston Lily.” Hayden looks like he’s had his whole world rocked. He leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.
“How many years?” JJ asks, ignoring Hayden.
“I’ve known him longer than I’ve known either of you.”
“Wow-lâ (*WOW*),” JJ says emphatically, his eyes huge. “But it’s not just for immigration, right? Because of the photos et, tsé, la Russie (and, y'know, Russia). I’m no expert but I can see why he would want a PR card.”
“No, Shane’s in love with him,” says Hayden, and he sounds exhausted. “I’ve seen him staring at his phone with gooey eyes way too much for him not to be in love. Fuck. And you just had to fall in love with Ilya Rozanov?”
“Nah, I didn’t have to, I just decided to make my life really difficult and complicated because I thought it would be fun.” Sarcasm isn’t Shane’s favourite way to communicate, but it’s that or start shouting, at this point.
“Sorry, man,” Hayden says, and he actually does look pretty sorry. “I’m being a dick.”
“The team’s not gonna like it,” JJ points out. “I mean, I’m not sure I like it, but if it really is what you want, then I’m happy for you. But the team… maybe not.”
Shane just shrugs. “Well, they can all keep in mind that I've kicked the Raiders' asses repeatedly, and I plan to keep doing that. You’ve all seen it doesn’t affect how I play against him.”
“I guess,” Hayden says, as if he didn’t remember how Shane had won every face-off against Rozanov when they last played Boston. He’d congratulated Shane at the time, but apparently the fact that they were fucking erased it.
“So you are telling the team? What about the public?” JJ asks.
“We haven’t discussed it yet,” Shane says. “Do you think it’s even possible to keep it a secret?”
“I think it’s risky,” JJ says, his brow furrowed in thought. “The team would probably react much worse if it gets leaked and they find out you’ve been fucking married to a Boston Raider in secret.”
Shane’s inclined to agree, but he’s a little worried that if they tell their teams, it’ll get to the press sooner than later. He’s not sure whether Ilya would be okay with that. He’s had more than enough privacy taken away from him by the press already. He nods in acquiescence, but doesn’t say anything.
“Well, I’m sure you guys can figure it out.” JJ’s smile is warm and genuine. “We have your backs, eh? If the team wants to say bullshit, they will have to go through us first! Right, Hayd?”
“Right,” Hayden says immediately, and Shane’s a little surprised by how hard the relief hits him. He almost feels bad for not being sure that Hayden would say yes. Then Hayden leans over the table and puts a hand on Shane’s forearm, shaking him a little. “You’re my best friend, man. I’ve got your back. I’ll even… learn to like Rozanov for you.” It sounds like he thinks this will cost him monumental effort, but it does sound like he means it. “Whatever you need.”
“Thanks, guys,” Shane says. He feels like he’s just come off an extra-long shift, exhaustion weighing his body down, but at least he’s got them in his corner now.
Okay, so Ilya doesn’t have zero other options.
He’s managed to talk to a few immigration lawyers in Boston, in between road games and other obligations, and none of them have said that his case is completely hopeless and he’s going to be put on a plane back to Moscow unless he marries Shane Hollander. He can apply for a green card in the US. They even suggest it might be fast-tracked to an extent because of how high-profile an athlete he is. Sure, they usually drop that idea and don’t bring it up again once they find out about his family’s connections back home, but… well, it counts for something, that he’s one of the best players in the MLH.
If he gets traded to a Canadian team, though, or put on waivers and then picked up by a Canadian team, it’ll basically void his application. Maybe his agent can help him get some kind of guarantee from the Raiders. Or negotiate an imminent trade to a US-based team in a different division. Maybe a team out West would want him, and then he’s out of the Eastern Conference entirely, making him far less of a threat to Boston’s continued success. And he’d only have to deal with Shane Hollander and his adorable freckles and his perfect smile twice a year, so Shane would definitely get over his temporary insanity, and maybe Ilya could finally get over him.
Anyway, the point is that a green card isn’t completely off the table. It’s maybe kind of risky (once they hear about his family, the lawyers apparently aren’t able to give him a very definite timeline, or even any firm answers about whether his application would definitely be approved before his visa runs out) but it’s a real option.
So is Svetlana. Probably. When he’d asked her if he could marry her for a spousal green card, she’d sighed and said, “That’s one of the saddest things you’ve ever said to me.” Which isn’t a no. He wouldn’t stay married to her forever — they could amicably divorce a few years after he got his green card, enough that it wouldn’t be suspicious. If he goes through with marrying Hollander, it’ll be another fucking scandal when Shane eventually asks for a divorce.
He’s distantly aware that he should probably tell Shane he’s doing all this. But he’s been waiting for some sign that Shane’s coming to his senses, so that he doesn’t have to shoot him down when he’s smiling at him like that over FaceTime, or do it over text. It’s not like he wants to hurt Shane — in fact, this is in large part about not hurting Shane. But Ilya is a coward, and keeps putting off arranging a meeting in person when one of them has consecutive off days so they could fly up or down.
He drags his feet too long. Shane beats him to the punch.
“You’ve got a couple days off next week, right?” is the first thing Shane says to him when he answers his latest call, and Ilya feels a distinct twinge of anxiety before he answers in the affirmative.
“Great! I do too, and it looks like they finally overlap, so I was thinking maybe you could come up here and we could like… do some planning?”
“Yeah,” Ilya says, hoping Shane can’t hear how much he doesn’t want to do that. “Sure. I have practice on the 12th, but if I fly up the morning of the 13th and then leave the morning of the 14th to get back for afternoon practice, that will be enough time, yes?”
“Sounds perfect,” Shane says. Ilya can hear him smiling, which is almost as bad for him as seeing it. “Send me your flight details, I’ll pick you up from the airport.”
Ilya tries his best to sound normal as he says, “Looking forward to it,” and hangs up. He feels sick. It’s the right thing to do, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to hurt Shane. He tries to tell himself that it’s better for him to get hurt now in the short term than it would be to let this all go ahead and hurt him in the long term, but that doesn’t make him feel any better.