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Svetlana Verkova has a flight in five hours and instead of sleeping or packing or any of the other normal things people do before a 10 hour flight, she’s at a club.
A shitty club may she add because hockey players never choose good clubs.
It's just past midnight at the Prodigy, a flashy new establishment that's popped up in the last three years. It's one of the few places in town that hadn't pre-reserved its VIP section for the Voyagers so, of course, it's now the place crawling with Bears and Voyagers alike.
Something about the ability to fight, to fuck, to interact with anyone at anytime, Svetlana supposes.
She wouldn't know.
Tonight was supposed to be her curled up in her pajamas, watching hockey on television with shitty microwave popcorn at her new boytoy's place and maybe swinging 'round Ilya's hotel room for some fun if either of them were in the mood.
She hadn't been in the mood for a club, let alone a club where it looks like Ilya won't be going home with her anyways.
And yet, he’d scored a hat trick today, against the Voyagers. Ilya always drinks himself to absolute shit when he plays the Voyagers and Svetlana is many things, and one of those is responsible. Ilya Rozanov may be a pain in her ass (often in more ways than one at that) but she’s not going to leave him to get shit-faced alone with a team she still doesn’t trust.
She knows he's been with the Boston Bears since 2009 and that its now November of 2017. She knows Ilya's been with this team through highs and lows and injuries and Cups and everything else. Svetlana knows he's their captain for a reason.
That still doesn't mean she trusts them.
She views the Bears the same way she views Sasha: both are good for Ilya in the short term and the quick term, but she does not trust them with his heart.
Hell, Svetlana doesn't trust herself with Ilya's heart. She'll protect it all she can as his friend, but she worries.
Ilya Rozanov may be a massive asshole, but that doesn't delete the caring side to him.
(She remembers the first time Ilya Rozanov had gotten in a fight over her. She'd like to say that by now, she's totally forgotten what that man had said to her but she hasn't. Not because what the man said was sexual or because Ilya had over-reacted, but because he'd called her a slur and everyone had laughed.
It was 2006, before Ilya actually knew how to fight and he'd pouted about the way his knuckles had hurt for weeks. It'd also fucked up with wrist shot.)
So, when Ilya had called her, happy and prideful, she'd packed her bags, given them to the front desk and called an Uber to the Prodigy club.
Forty-five minutes later, she's starting to regret it.
Ilya had bought her a drink when she arrived, three drinks actually - two shots and a cocktail, but now he's gone and she's stuck with the WAGS and temporary girlfriends. They all fit the stereotype: skinny, blonde, white. Svetlana's more Russian than all of them put together, but that doesn't help her here.
She wishes, not for the first time, that Viktor was here. Viktor, her current-and-more-serious-than-any-of-her-others-in-the-past boyfriend, wouldn't leave her to the mercy of these American WAGS. In Canada at that.
Ilya had once called Canada a discount Russia, without the liqueur. Taking a sip of her ridiculously sweet cocktail (as she likes them), Svetlana agrees. She frankly doesn't understand why Ilya chosen to stay here (well, not here, in Ottawa but close enough) over the summer instead of coming back to Russia. Perhaps that's been why Svetlana had been so accommodating when Ilya had texted her his team schedule three weeks before it became public knowledge.
Svetlana knows Ilya doesn't owe her anything and neither does she, emotionally or physically. But fuck, she'll admit she'd gotten used to having him around even if it was only for three months instead of the months and years and hours stacked on top of each other that they used to. If Ilya didn't have an ego the size of his dick, she'd say she missed him.
Unfortunately, he does so she doesn't say a damn thing. Because of the above reason, she also won't say that she's worried about him. Outside of her and Sasha and their little gang, Ilya doesn't seem to have any other friends. And, as mentioned, he hadn't come home last summer and by how he dodged Svetlana's pushing earlier, it may not be in the cards this summer either.
Svetlana is one of the only, perhaps the only, person on earth who both knows what happened to Ilya's mother and who still cares for him, even if its in a much more platonic way than it once was. Ilya's unintentional isolation that she'd warned him about all the years ago in 2008 when he'd chosen the MHL over the KHL is a growing beast in the closet that will swallow them both alive if she can't stop it.
That being said, she's certainly not doing anything to combat it right now.
"So! Are you and Ilza like...a couple?" A woman tweets at her over massive eyelashes. Her hair is so horrifically blonde it makes Svetlana's eyes burn. She misses Russia.
"No we're not." Svetlana smiles at her. "Just childhood friends and I happened to be in the area so." She shrugs and the rest of the women nod in clear disappointment.
"What about you?" Svetlana asks. "Who are you here with?" The woman beams and just like that, Svetlana is irrelevant to the conversation.
She knows she's being unfair. It's not these womens fault they didn't grow up with her bully of a father who demanded she watch everything he did, watch Svetlana Mikhailovna, I will not repeat myself. They love their husbands and boyfriends, and clearly are just trying to welcome another one of them into the group.
It's just...looking at these women, Svetlana can not find it in herself to think any of them are worth a second of Ilya's time. Ilya as far as Svetlana knows has one obsession in life and that is hockey: if his partner is not as knowledgable about hockey as he is, Svetlana knows Ilya will be bored and Ilya would never married a person he was bored with.
A boring person, maybe, but never someone who bored him.
Whoever they end up being, they'll be in Svetlana's position: overqualified and yet uncomfortable with that knowledge. Svetlana sends a mini-prayer into the universe for that person in advance.
~~~
Forty-five more minutes later, Svetlana is another cocktail in and fully ready to admit she was being bitchy earlier. Turns out three of the wives had literally played ice hockey in their free time and so she's knee-deep in a heated conversation about Carolina when
"Is Rozanov leaving?" One of the wives asks, blinking, and Svetlana turns. Indeed, there's a guy—easily 6'3, almost too lanky, glasses—and a girl—typical fake Russian, short and tiny and a fake blonde, but with a strong grip on his sleeve—crowding Ilya at the bar, basically pulling him towards the exit.
She's got a strong enough to be almost ripping his shirt, Svetlana realizes as she stares.
The rest of the women are looking at her with clear apprehension and she shrugs.
"As long as he's happy." Svetlana says.
"True, true," Kane's wife Abigail agrees. "It's just...he looks super drunk."
Svetlana's eyebrows furrow.
Ilya Rozanov, despite how often he drinks, is not a heavy drinker. He never drinks to forget; he drinks to enjoy. Ilya may drink a lot by North American standards, but when he’s at a club, he only has enough to get a buzz on. In his youth, Ilya and her had had to collect Alexei from one too many clubs when he was drunk to view being blackout drunk in public as positive.
Ilya especially hasn’t been a heavy drinker since joining the Bears.
“Captain duties, Svetik.” He’d explained once. “I’m a responsible man now. Very boring. Like Hollander.”
And yet, Abigail is totally right. Ilya is waving on his feet, stumbling slightly as they extract him from the bar. The woman at his arm tugs him harder and Ilya trips directly into a table.
Ilya never gets drunk enough to the point where he would be breaking property at a bar.
(It reminds him too much of his father)
Svetlana feels herself drawn to her feet. Something isn’t right. Something isn't right and she knows it, and she's lost far too many good things to not trusting her instincts. Ilya leaving with a woman? Sure. Ilya even leaving with a man in public? It's happened before.
But blatantly leaving for a threesome, in public? In a bar that doesn't have a cell phone policy, so anyone could be taking photos. Don't make her laugh - Ilya of a sound mind would never.
And then it hits her:
Ilya's slight stumble.
The way he only had three drinks over the past two hours, barely enough to get him tipsy.
The way he's not even holding the girl or the guy's hand.
The way he's not even trying to kiss either of them.
The way he keeps pulling slightly against the girl's grip like he can't understand what's happening.
The way they're going out the back door. No taxis ever go to the back door.
Ilya's been fucking roofied.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, Нам пиздец, Нам пиздец...
"Security!" Svetlana yells, leaving the VIP area and roughly elbowing her way through the crowd, following where Ilya and those fuckers had been going. One of the men at the bar perks up obediently.
"Is everything okay, ma'a—"
"—I think my friend was roofied and he just left with strangers." Svetlana rushes out. "He has an early meeting tomorrow morning (lie), he never drinks (lie), and he was completely limp (lie), I don't think he's safe!" That at least was true and it seems that her panic has convinced him of that. His eyes sharpen.
"Where."
"They were heading out the back!"
Without a word, they both run. The alley behind Prodigy smells like sex and urine, sharp and sour. Its one flickering streetlamp projects mustard yellow light onto a graffitied wall, which against Ilya is fully slumped, head resting in the man's shoulder.
"Hey!" Svetlana yells and they both stumble, Ilya pulling himself back before hitting the wall, hard. The man looks between Ilya, then to his female partner in crime, then to Svetlana and the guard, eyes flicking like a wolf caught dragging out a newborn lamb. Then, like the cowardly animal he is, he turns tail and bolts it down the alley. The girl watches her partner leave, mouth dropping open in betrayal.
Svetlana can relate to that.
"I..." She quivers. She's got the slightest hint of a Russian accent. Bitch. There's nothing Svetlana hates more than Russians like her giving them all a bad fucking wrap. "He consented!" She continues. Her voice is shrill and snooty, hundreds leagues out of place here with the grime and shit of a back alley.
"He wanted it!"
"Yeah?" Svetlana says, watching as security helps Ilya stand. "What's his name, huh? Give me the details about how my boyfriend consented to you drugging him." They're not girlfriend-boyfriend; to be frank, Svetlana would rather pound sand than actually fully commit to dating Ilya Rozanov. That doesn't mean she's not going to use people's misconception to her advantage though.
"I....I..." The thing stammers out. Christ, she didn't even know who Ilya was?
Svetlana can't decide if that's a good thing, or if that makes it worse.
"Да пошла ты к черту, сука! Тебе чертовски повезло, что я не подаю на тебя в суд." Ilya would never consent to charges, not with the hockey world already slobbering at the mouth for the next story, but again. This bitch doesn't know that.
Her lower lip trembles for a second before she too flees, leaving Svetlana with a roofied Ilya Rozanov. Up close it's even more obvious. Ilya's eyes are blown and glassy, not keeping focus for a second. The sharp intensity behind them is gone. He's having a hard time keeping his focus on her at all. His confident demeanor has collapsed in on itself; his shoulders are hunched and his legs twist inside, adding to his unsteadiness.
"Svetulya," Ilya mutters, tilting his head back til his skull thunks on the wall. It's like he's unsure what's real, which Svetlana realizes with a twist, he may not.
"Hey Ilyukha." Svetlana repeats.
"Svetulya." Ilya repeats. "I feel...хуево." And then he throws up, right onto his shoes.
~~~
They chuck Ilya and Svetlana in the far back, at a private table that on other nights must be used for hookups or strippers or something. It is private though, with carpet not tile that smells slightly of weed and curtains Svetlana pulls immediately. She's certain the WAGS are probably talking about Ilya's secret Russian girlfriend staking her claim or whatever, but it's not her concern now.
She's got bigger problems.
Ilya's thrown up once already, though once Svetlana had actually been able to clean him up, it had actually been mostly just spit and mucus lodged free from hitting the wall, Svetlana's pretty sure. Either way, he's stumbling like a baby deer by the time they reach the table and Svetlana eventually bullies him into laying sideways so she can try and figure out a place to put him.
A far easier feat said than done considering Ilya's like 106 kilograms and basically deadweight right now.
The owner had said stay as long as you need, but frankly, Svetlana doesn't trust that. Ilya could technically stay anywhere but he's clearly vulnerable right now and letting him loose in the city where he just destroyed their hockey team seems like a recipe for permanent damage. Svetlana also knows she can't miss her flight. She's already checked out of her hotel so she can't just return him there, and all the hotels that would take her Russian cards at this hour are the shitty hotels that would leak that info. Her best bet is trying to get Ilya back to his hotel. He'll be alone but she can like prop him on his side or something. She doesn't want his teammates seeing him like this.
"Ily—Ilya." Svetlana stresses, pushing him back so he continues laying horizontally. "Stay down, I don't want you puking all over yourself. What's your hotel?"
Ilya blinks lethargically up at her.
"Don't have one."
"Yes you do." Svetlana sighs, tucking some curls behind his ear. Ilya leans into it. The lights bouncing off his face are making her almost woozy. If this were an actual establishment instead of a warehouse with smoke and lasers, she'd be able to get a towel for his eyes. "Which is it? What's your room number?"
Ilya shakes his head. "No hotel. Staying with, how you say...Черт, я ненавижу английский язык...with Jane. No hotel reservation made — team knows." He sighs as he says Jane's name, sighs like the lead in a romance movie. The Ilya Rozanov Svetlana knows would never sigh, especially not like that. But you don't know him well anymore, a small voice in her head whispers. Not since he went to America. She banishes it from her head. She can be angsty later.
Fine. So Ilya doesn't know or doesn't have a hotel, but this Jane was apparently waiting for him. That Jane. Years and years of texting Jane. Jane "we are nothing serious or anything" Jane. Well fuck whatever Ilya had said to her: if Ilya trusts Jane enough to make plans with her before he arrived, then clearly they must be close.
Or, at least, Svetlana hopes Ilya made plans. It wouldn't be unlike Ilya to just hope Jane could drop what she's doing for him, but that'd make it infinitely more embarrassing for her. Damn Ilya and his massive fucking ego.
(Though, to be fair, she also dropped what she was doing to visit Ilya when she found Ilya had arrived in Moscow a week early years ago so perhaps she's also to blame for feeding his ego.)
Either way though, this Jane Doe of a Jane is the best option presented to Svetlana and Ilya seems to be getting worse by the minute based on the fact he's now hiding his face in her top. She sneaks her head down and tugs Ilya's phone from his pocket, typing in the standard password he's had since he was a kid: 5503. May 5th, 2003.
Ilya Rozanov is many things, and one of the surprising ones, Svetlana has learned, is that he is quite tragic.
She types in the password twice before she realizes it's wrong.
"Блять." Svetlana mutters, pulling on her bottom lip with her teeth. "Ilya, дурак, what is your password?"
"Hm?"
"Your new password. It's not 5503." Ilya groans.
"2-4-8-1. Much Better."
Svetlana isn't sure why it is better, but whatever.
"Lana." Ilya whines, pulling at her sleeves. "I want Jane."
"I know." Svetlana replies, pulling her arms loose so she can actually scroll. "I'm calling her hold on."
"Don't call her. She's shy."
"Shy?" Svetlana parrots before leaning over to look Ilya in the eye. "Ilyusha, I'm debating calling an ambulance for you - don't tell me how to get you help."
"No ambulances." Ilya replies immediately. "I'm fine." You can't stand, Svetlana doesn't bother replying. She checks the time again.
It's 1:45. She's now got barely enough time to get through security considering the drive. Fuck.
At first, Svetlana flicks through instagram and finds nothing but dms and dick pics. She then searches through contacts but gives up when she sees she's still in the Alina Toronto, Alina Raleigh, and Alina Calgary #2 As category after three minutes of scrolling. She'll never find this Jane this way.
“Jesus, you man-whore.” Svetlana mutters, abandoning contacts to look through his messages.
Then, there's a notification chirp and
Jane <3: Still not coming over? Its late Rozanov.
Svetlana lets out a breath of relief. So Jane did know that Ilya was meant to go home with her – hell, she'd even sent the location of a house a few miles from here. Abandoning all decorum, she opens the chat. It's sparely texted in by Ilya's standards but there had clearly been some sort of plan based on the fact Jane had last texted right before the game. Before she can snoop further, Svetlana flicks up the keyboard.
Ilya: Hi, this is Svetlana Verkova, one of Ilya’s friends. Not to freak you out, but i think someone spiked his drug hes fine but needs a safe place to sleep tonight bc im going to the airport and all his teammate are gone. he says he was going to stay with you
Ilya: can you pick him up we’re here
Ilya: {Click here to see ILYA ROZANOV’S location!}
Svetlana sees the read receipt pop up immediately, then watches the green text bubble appear, then vanish, appear again, vanish again. Ice starts to creep into Svetlana's heart. What if this Jane says no? What then? Would they allow her to check in a mostly unconscious Ilya Rozanov into a hotel? She only has her Russian cards on her and those get flagged sometimes, surely Ilya wouldn't be mad if
Jane <3: I'm on my way. Please stay there.
Jane <3: Is he alright?
Jane <3: Do I need to bring him a change of clothes, or anything?
Perfect grammar, Svetlana notes with a smile. So, as Svetlana suspected, Jane's not one of the pretty club girl types Ilya usually goes for. This Jane probably has short nails with small designs, maybe a pretty smile. Not the kind of things you would be able to notice under a club's lights, but the kind of thing that always catches Ilya's eye.
He's more of a romantic than he'll ever admit.
Ilya: A change of clothes would be great
Ilya: he threw up a little then these two people tried to drag him away so his shirt is kinda gross
Svetlana hits send, then pauses. Re-reads it.
Хуй, she's a dumbass. If anyone sent that to her about Ilya (about Viktor), she'd crash her fucking car.
Ilya: DONT WORRY
Ilya: Nothing happened, security stopped it
Ilya: he's just wanting you andb I want him safe
"Svetlana." Ilya interrupts. "I want Jane."
"I know, Ilyukha, your Jane is coming soon." Svetlana mutters, putting the phone down and running a hand through Ilya's hair again. "Your knight is coming very soon."
~~~
In the ten minutes it takes Jane to get to the Prodigy, Svetlana has learned more about Jane than she had known in six years and yet somehow all the information gives nothing away. Ilya's words started slurring halfway through, sliding back and forth and in-between languages, but Svetlana gets the picture: Jane is short, Jane has freckles, and Jane is beloved.
"And when she skates, so pretty, Lana. So so handsome. And just for me. And for team and for trophies, but really, I think for me. To beat me, but still for me." Handsome. Perhaps without meaning to, Ilya's slipped between feminine and masculine adjectives when describing Jane. He said she has long hair, then described it ending at her neck. He said she's delicate, but then stated that she's strong enough to pull Ilya around in bed. He talked about her giving the best blowjobs, but also how much he wanted her to 'be brave and fuck him' when she's ready.
Perhaps this is the pure spectrum of Ilya's love, Svetlana muses, checking her watch; maybe when Ilya loves someone with all his little queer heart, the person becomes androgynous. Beautiful and powerful and perfect in the way only they could be in Ilya's eyes. Years ago, this talk would have made Svetlana jealous—now it makes her slightly sad.
What an amazing person her friend has found, and yet she still knows nothing about them outside of the fact she's been in the picture for years.
Poor Jane Doe.
Svetlana owes her a drink if not purely for the smile she puts on Ilya's face.
Just when she's about to get slightly worried Jane's not coming at all, she gets a text.
Jane <3: Just parked. Sorry. Roads were icy. Where are you?
Ilya: inside tell the bouncer youre jane and youre here for ilya
Ilya: im like 99 percent sure the bouncer was the one who helped me earlier
Jane <3: Oh, I think I see you.
Svetlana pulls the curtains slightly and looks out: there's no clear fish out of water like she expected to see immediately. Instead, there's only the last stragglers dancing and someone desperately trying to push their way through the crowd.
Svetlana...knows that person, or at least, she knows their duplicate.
They're coming this way.
There's no one, if this is who she thinks that person is, that person would be coming her way.
God is clearly a joker however because then, barely a second later, Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Voyagers and arch-rival to one Ilya Rozanov, barges into their little corner, phone (at maximum brightness too Svetlana's brain notes) in one hand and a bag in the other. His eyes are wild and he freezes upon seeing her, true deer in the headlights. Svetlana would have stood to confront him, but she's got a massive hockey player in her lap, and Shane clearly notices, his eyes drifting down.
Then, Shane's face turns even paler.
"Ilya." Shane Hollander breathes and without a second of pause, he moves closer, like a magnet simply unable to resist the natural forces of the world. The closer he gets, the more Svetlana's ideas of him are shattered. Shane Hollander in the public eye is an impeccable dresser; his shirts always match his shoes which always match his hair. In public, he has ramrod straight posture and pose. When he speaks to reporters, he looks them right in the eyes and never rambles. He's serious: he rarely laughs nor relaxes. He's never been taught in a scandal outside of his relationship with Rose Landry a few years ago. The perfect captain, the perfect boyfriend as Rose described him, even after they broke up. He was once investigated for tax invasion and not only it was found that he was overpaying, they also found that he donates monthly to six different charities across Canada. In public, he's so perfect he became charming in Svetlana's eyes despite Ilya's complaints that 'he's too boring to be your favorite, Svetik!' He's every PR manager's wet dream.
This Shane Hollander is not that.
This Shane Hollander has got on three different shades of blue, like he assumed that them being the same color meant they would work together. They don't. His left shoe is untied and all his accessories—the jewelry, the hairstyling, the sponsored shoes—are missing; instead he's got on cracked glasses and tennis shoes so grayed Svetlana isn't sure their original color. He's naturally leaning forward as if he could take and hold Ilya in his eyes. Up close, Svetlana can see how his nail-beds are chewed and there's a stain on the collar of his shirt. He's breathing too fast to be natural. His left hand is shaking. He looks so much more fragile than Svetlana knows he is.
This Shane Hollander looks like he ran through the snow itself to get here, paparazzi be damned.
He might have.
For Ilya.
"Shane Hollander?" Svetlana says skeptically. Shane won't meet her eyes, seemingly single-eyed focused on Ilya, whose basically asleep in her lap.
"Yes, I—I'm here on behalf of Jane." He's got a very robotic way of speaking Svetlana notes. It sounds nothing like the calm and smooth way he talks to reporters nor the boyishness that the microphones sometimes pick up around the stadium in the heat of the game. He sounds like he's rehearsed what he's going to say. It's horrifically...flat. "She was worried about going by herself, especially if Ilya was, you know, super heavy or something. So. I'm here. Yeah."
In terms of lies, its not the most unbelievable she's ever heard. If Shane Hollander wasn't such a bad liar, Svetlana may have even believed it. Upon hearing his voice though, Ilya tenses then peaks up in Svetlana's lap, tries to twist himself around. Thankfully, she and Shane have the same reaction:
"Ilya! Lie down-"
"Sit down, asshole, holy shit-"
They exchange glances for a second.
Svetlana internally declares a truce.
Ilya pouts.
"You both are ganging up on me." He mumbles and Svetlana watches as Shane's eyes sharpen at the sound of Ilya's voice (or rather, at how wrong it sounds). His jaw clenches. "Fuck. Shane, I want...home." At the sound of his name, Shane, Svetlana notices with no small amount of surprise, drops to his knees right on the club floor and sneaks a hand right to Ilya's pulse, using the other to hold Ilya's head back when Ilya, like a cat chasing sunlight, attempts to curl into his hand.
"Stay, Ilya." Shane mutters, keeping his hand steady. His jaw is still tight but his eyes have melted into his sockets, liquid warmth unbefitting of the time and place. "I uh...looked up some things on Google, you're gonna be fine. Okay?" He awkwardly twists to look at Svetlana again, then back at Ilya, like checking the mirrors in a car. "You're just gonna feel really fucked up for a while."
"You were not here." Ilya mutters, staring at Shane. His eyes are dark, intense in the way they were the first time she had worn in his Boston jersey before hooking up. The memories of the sex from that night are still more than enough for her to (occasionally) miss Rozanov's body if nothing else. He'd taken her right on the dining room table, the animal. "Why?"
Shane blinks. "I was, uh." He looks up at her then back to Ilya like he can't stand to not be looking at him for a second. His ears blush scarlet red. "I was getting prepared Ilya. Dinner and all."
"My favorite meal." Ilya agrees, except he's eye-fucking Shane so hard Svetlana wants to faint. "Shane, I am learning French. слушай, oui?" He clears his throat and Shane nods bemused but encouragingly. His hand has switched positions with Svetlana's except his hand looks natural there.
"Shane Hollander," Ilya slurs. He's got a very particular sort of twinkle in his face and Shane's eyes widen right in time for Ilya to continue, "Je veux te baiser la gor—"
"—Shut up!" Shane whispers harshly. "Oh my god, Ilya, you can't fucking—"
"—I can fucking." Ilya interrupts. "I am very good at it."
"Fuck off." Shane mutters. "Ego like that, you probably make your partner do all the work." Despite the objectively mean words, Shane's tone is light, soft. For a second, it's like there's just them in the room. And then Shane glances up and everything breaks. Svetlana almost wants to apologize for being there.
"I, uh, I can take him. Do you know what he was given, or when?"
Svetlana shakes her head. "I've no idea. Like fifteen minutes ago, I saw two people try to drag him outside, but I do know it's getting worse. He's kinda lost his grasp on his English."
"Yeah, I noticed." Shane replies, moving to scratch under Ilya's ear. Ilya, in reply, lets out a pornography-worthy moan and Shane's entire face turns redder than a spotlight. He doesn't stop though.
It's 2:10. Svetlana's genuinely at risk of missing her flight at this point.
"Look," She says, pulling Shane's attention off of Ilya. He looks at her with a convoluted mix of fear and panic in his eyes, like she's about to tell him to leave. "I genuinely want to trust you, but you're a stranger and I couldn't stand myself if I sent Ilya home with a stranger with bad intentions. Do you have like...any proof that you and Ilya are friends and know each other outside of the Irina foundation? Can I text Jane or something?"
Shane's face goes through like a thousand expressions at once, but it's not him who replies.
"Shane has Jane's phone." Ilya mumbles from the sofa. "Because he is, you told me Shane, my mon coptain?"
"Coptain?" Svetlana repeats, Captain?
"Copain. Cousin." Shane butts in. "Jane's my cousin so I just took her phone because it already had the address pulled up. I don't know Montreal that well." Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Voyagers who lives in Montreal and spreads his summers in Montreal and grew up in Ottawa which is two hours away from Montreal, doesn't know Montreal well. Okay. Sure.
"So then do you like...have any photos or anything if I can't call Jane?" Svetlana tries again. Shane blinks, then the smallest smile appears. He crawls onto his face like he's fighting it every second of the way.
"Yeah, of course." Shane answers. "I should have thought of that. Sorry. I...here." He turns his phone over in his hand, deliberately not giving it to her. It's a collection of five or six photos all lined up in his camera roll.
He must have made an album just for this. He was prepared. Svetlana thinks before he sees how much Shane's other hand is fidgeting with his pants. Or he was nervous. Ilya's fully migrated to just staring up at Shane, eyes full of what Svetlana can only describe as stars. That frankly is enough for her to lower her guard but not all the way. She still needs more proof.
She looks at the photos and...huh.
"I believe you." She eventually says, nodding to Shane as he takes his phone back. "Alright lets get Prince Charming here changed and in the car. I will say though, if one damn thing happens to him, if there's one fucking mark on him that wasn't there before, I'll make hockey fucking impossible for you."
Svetlana could give much better threats, but she remembers how much Ilya had said that Shane's obsessed with hockey. Given how Shane blanches just at the idea of not being able to play, clearly she made the right threat.
~~~
Shane Hollander, despite how fragile he appears, is able to lift Ilya right up into his arms princess style. As much as Ilya slurs that he wants Shane to carry him properly whatever that means, Shane carries him respectfully, under the knees and middle of his back. That doesn't stop Ilya from shoving his face into the crook of Shane's neck though. It's the second time that night that Ilya's rested his face against a man's shoulder, but the environments are so different Svetlana didn't make that connection until much later.
They don't end up changing Ilya's shirt though. In Shane's opinion, Ilya's too out of it to properly consent to it and he doesn't want to cross any lines. Svetlana approves.
Outside, the air is wet and cold and miserable. Despite the snow and frost, it's sprinkling, little freezing droplets splattering all around them. Ilya, despite growing up in Moscow, hates the cold. As kids, she and Sasha and Ivan and Dmitri would always fill Ilya's skates with snow whenever they wanted him to play with them because Ilya would always insist of drying out his skates instead of just scooping out the snow so then he'd have no skating excuses. The tradition stopped in their teen years, when Ilya was pushing himself so much, the snow's dampness helped sooth his blisters so he started doing it himself. Svetlana imagines Ilya curled up in the Prodigy's back alley, bleary trying to protect himself from the rain after those fuckers had done what they wanted with him. She swallows her bile and nightmares, and instead watches as Shane covers Ilya's head with the bag, fidgeting with it so it covers as much of Ilya as possible.
She wonders.
Shane's car is practical, ugly, and clearly loved based on the sticker residue left on the windows; it lights something warm in Svetlana's heart. She knows exactly how useless her sports cars are in this kind of weather, as loath as she is to admit it. Shane sets Ilya down in the backseat, diagonal from him. He thanks her for weighting, eyes again no where near hers, and offers to call her an Uber. She politely turns him down and reminds him that she has Ilya on Find My Friends.
"One wrong turn, and I'll call police." Svetlana repeats, taking a photo of his license plate for good measure. Shane gives her a look over, but it's not in any sort of sexual or even romantic way. It's the same kind of way Svetlana's used to seeing hockey players stare down a player they admire after they're scored. Hidden deep respect.
She hugs Ilya and tells him to get back safe, reminds Shane to tell Ilya to text her when he's sober. Right before they leave, as Shane's circling around to get in the front, Svetlana grabs Ilya's phone and calls it. Accepts the call.
She may trust Shane Hollander as a person, but that doesn't mean she's going to let them drive off into the distance with no insurance.
~~~
At first, there's nothing and Svetlana feels stupid for her micro-spy job: just Shane checking Ilya's seatbelt again after Svetlana leaves, and the sounds of the GPS and the night. Ilya is half-snoring at this point. And then, after seven minutes of driving, just when Svetlana's gotten into her own Uber, it's like a switch is flipped—the world goes from silence to
"Fuck, Ilya, oh my god." Shane breathes. Out of the club environment, it's striking how much more alive his voice sounds. He sounds like a person again. "I was about to have a heart attack in there. Jesus Christ."
There's the sound of the blinker, then the phone thump of a turn. Then the engine cuts. Svetlana blinks, sits up from her slouch. They can't be there already, can they?
"Shane?" Ilya's voice calls. "Shane, are we there?"
"No." Shane replies. It's trembling, just the slightest bit. "I just...I just need a second. That was a lot. Shit, Ilya, some...some fucking asshole actually..." Shane trails off. There's a few pauses, then rustling.
"How do you feel?" Shane asks. Ilya does a raspberry.
"Bad. What is word, spinny? Very spinny and nauseous, but good now you are here."
"Dizzy." Shane replies. "You're feeling dizzy."
"да. Like when drunk but worse." There's another pause, then.
"Shane." Ilya says. Clearly he's seen something. "Hey, Shane. Sweetheart. Look at me, nothing—"
"—No, it's not nothing! Something could have happened!" Shane snaps, but it's not the anger in his tone that floors Svetlana. It's the fear. Fear as much if not so much more visceral and miserable and irate than Svetlana's own voice had sounded earlier. Shane sounds like someone is pulling his heart out of his chest by the veins, shredding each clinging blood vessel as it tries to keep itself alive. He sounds past the verge of tears. He sounds like he's watched his love die.
"Something could have happened, Ilya!" Shane repeats. "You, you could have been beaten, or, or raped, or actively kidnapped and blackmailed and I had my fingers up my ass, pissed you were taking so long to show up! You were being, no you are hurt! And I was just sulking like a fucking child because you beat me and, and—"
"—You were preparing yourself for me?" Ilya croons. "Oh you have been—"
"—fuck off, you asshole!" Shane snaps. There's a quiver right in the depth of his vowels that brings a frog to Svetlana's throat. She shouldn't be listening to this. She knows it. She can't stop. "The whole point is it didn't even fucking matter what I was doing because some bastard thought that could just, just take you, take you from your celebrations and your friends and your team and us, and now you're drugged! If Svetlana hadn't noticed, I..."
Shane makes a rough gagging sound that makes Svetlana wince across the phone. It sounded like a mix of a panic attack and vomit.
"Shane." Ilya says. His voice has still changed, still too pitched and wavy but stronger in itself. "Shane, маленькое солнышко, breathe for me yes? In, out. I'm okay. Svetlana, she did notice. She is, how you say it english, fire woman?"
"Fire woman?" Shane repeats, sniffling slightly. He was crying, Svetlana realizes. She's slightly saddened she was right.
"да, is joke. Saying actually is Nekrasov woman. In english, I think...Wonder woman?" Svetlana can feel herself flush despite herself. Fuck you, Ilya Rozanov, for saying such nice things. "She is strong woman, confident, bold. She is one of my oldest friends. She not let me be hurt."
"I know. You told me about her." Shane confirms. Svetlana blinks. Perhaps because Ilya's told her so little of his hockey life, she had never considered the fact people from said life would know about her at all. "She's like you." He continues. Ilya hums in agreement.
"Similar, yes. Only I'm better at hockey. And sex." Okay, actually fuck you, Ilya. There's a longer pause, rustling sounds again like someone is adjusting, then
"No, Ily-Ilya, stop." That's Shane again, a mix of laughter and firmness in his tone. "Ilya. Listen: tu sais que je suis fou de toi, mais...pas ce soir. Not today. I know you might feel clear-headed but I don't feel it. We can cuddle when we get home, okay?"
There's a pause.
"But you're sexy when you try to boss me around."
"No." There's another pause. "Maybe in the morning when you're sober."
"Okay." That's Ilya again and Svetlana can almost hear the smile through the screen. "You keeping your promise to Svetlana, very good friend."
"You're an ass. I should leave on the side of this road." Despite Shane's threats, Svetlana can hear the car turning back on.
"But you lovvvee me." Ilya pulls out and Svetlana waits for the rebuttal, the fuck you or you wish or anything.
Instead
"Да," Shane says in frankly horrific Russian. "я очень люблю его, моего никчемного парня. Это просто как проклятие."
Ily hums. "Close. я очень люблю своего никчемного парня. And Это просто проклятие sounds better."
"Fucker."
Да, я очень люблю своего никчемного парня. Это просто проклятие.
Yes, I love my shitty boyfriend a lot. It's a curse.
Shitty boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
Holy fucking shit.
Svetlana hangs up the call and bites her knuckles to keep from screaming.
~~~
Svetlana is a good friend.
She wasn't meant to have heard that or seen that or have any knowledge of that so she says nothing about it or Jane or anything else, not even to her notes app.
She goes through security, boards her plane, texts Ilya to drink some water, and happily embraces the unconnected life of airplane travel. The best part of being in the air is it gives her time to properly sit and sort through her thoughts.
Because of this, by the time they're flying over Germany, Svetlana is already in acceptance.
Is it...unorthodox for Ilya to be into someone like Shane Hollander? At first, one might think yes. Shane is, as Ilya has told her since forever, boring. He is obsessed with hockey. He's rarely left North America except when he went with his mother to visit family in Asia. He's serious and stubborn and boring and straight.
Except.
Clearly he's not straight first of all. His sexuality is none of Svetlana's business, but regardless of what it is, there is a part of it that makes him love Ilya and that's all Svetlana needs.
And yes, Shane Hollander is boring but isn't the problem with Ilya that he's not boring enough? Ilya would be going to club in his sixties if he never found anyone nice to settle down with so perhaps some nice boring Shane Hollander is exactly what Ilya needs when his libido and knee both give out. Put Ilya and Shane together and you'll get someone with half a routine and half a social life.
And Shane knows hockey, hell he knows hockey better than Ilya himself. Shane, as Ilya's WAG, would never have to sit at that table bored out of his mind—he'll be on the ice as Ilya. Hockey wise, interest wise, they fit each other perfectly.
And stubborn. Well. Ilya is stubborn, she is stubborn, even Sasha is stubborn! Russians are stubborn—it is how they survive winter. Russians are all stubborn and yet there are so many nice married couples. Canada has cold winters too, and there are many nice Canadian couples. Therefor Shane and Ilya will just be stubborn together as all the Russians and Canadians before them have.
Nine hours into the flight, the other realization hits her.
"Блядь, так вот почему он всё прошлое лето был в Канаде!" She says out loud, almost elbowing her neighbor in the gut, but how could she not react like that?
Shane Hollander, boring Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyagers, is why Ilya did not return to Russia for the summer. Shane fucking Hollander.
Ilya chose Shane Hollander over you, a tiny pathetic voice in her mind tries to say, but it dies instantly when the larger reality hits: In choosing to stay in Canada, Ilya Rozanov had made a decision, a long term decision mind you, for his love life. Not only that, but he'd made an arguably selfish decision.
For Shane.
Svetlana has watched Ilya bend over backwards for his family for decades. Sometimes in understandable cases like passing on sweets as a kid because his mother didn't want to get out of bed, and sometimes in cruel cases like sending thousands and thousands of dollars to his brother even though they both knew he'd spend it in a week.
Hell, Ilya had even bent over backwards for her and for their friends through returning to Russia every summer despite the fact for the past two years, everyone could tell his heart had been somewhere else.
And now, he'd put this love of his first.
Before his family, before his friends, before his country too (because Russia would not allow a gay athlete, no matter how many gold medals or cups they won).
If Shane can make Ilya do this, feel so completely satisfied and full of love that he doesn't need nostalgia and hometown comfort, who is Svetlana to worry about his loneliness? Who is Svetlana to doubt their relationship?
She remembers seeing Shane in such a mess on the Prodigy floor, stroking Ilya's hair like there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
Yeah.
She's happy for them and with them. Shane Hollander is already so careful with himself and his life; perhaps she is just projecting here, but if there were anyone to keep Ilya safe in their heart forever, it would be someone like Shane, someone already so careful about what they allow in in the first place.
When she finally lands, she lets the Moscow chill warm her from the inside out before she finally unlocks her phone and reads through all her messages. There are the basic ones from Papa, from Sasha, from Tatiana. There are two unexpected ones. She opens Ilya's first.
Ilya: Thank you for last night
Ilya: Really, Jane wants me to empathize how much of a good friend you were to me even if you left me with strange captain on side of the road
Strange captain my ass, Svetlana thinks before sending back a middle finger, then a heart. He's still doing the Jane thing, maybe in the hopes Svetlana was drunker than she actually was. Well, Svetlana always wanted to be an actress and nows her chance. She then flips to the other new message, from an unsaved number
+1 6133213537: Hi Svetlana, this is Shane, texting on Jane's number. I just wanted to thank you again for last night; you really saved Ilya from a bad situation and we both really appreciate it.
We being 'Jane' and Shane, or Ilya and Shane, Svetlana wonders. Now that she knows the truth, she's shocked she even bought any part of the Jane story for a second. She scrolls down, then her jaw drops.
+1 6133213537: Ilya told me not to, but I feel too bad. Please don't bring it up.
+1 6133213537: {+1 6133213537 has sent you money over Contact! Click HERE to see now!}
+1 6133213537: Please don't spread any details of this around.
Svetlana is almost offended Shane Hollander would believe she's the kind of woman to need hush money, that she's the kind of friend who would happily gossip about something serious like that in the first place. It certainly wasn't Ilya's fault for fucks sake. But then she remembers the split second of pure panic in Shane's eyes when they made eye contact, how he had torn into Prodigy in a tear before freezing under her gaze. She remembers how scared Shane had sounded in that car, not only at what happened with Ilya...but potentially with what had happened with her. How he knew she was Ilya's close friend, already knew of her.
He's terrified, Svetlana realizes, constantly terrified. And this was his way of taking back control.
Therefor Svetlana accepts the money (plus she's curious and a material girl at heart) and doesn't waste a second before opening Contact.
10.000 Canadian dollars stares back at her, no matter how many times she rubs her eyes.
Shane fucking Hollander.
"He's Ilya's sugar daddy." She mutters to herself before pulling back up Shane's contact.
+7 495 8552-812603: Hi Jane! Not at all a problem - my lips are totally sealed :)
+7 495 8552-812603: that being said, if i send you back some of that Contact money, could you if ilya allows it use it to press charges on the two people who spiked Ilya's drink i think thier faces should be in clear view of the back alley cameras 😇
+7 495 8552-812603: using money for good 😙
+1 6133213537: Sounds like a plan.
Smiling, she snaps it shut, but only after she saves Shane's number in her phone as Ilya's Jane.
Just for fun.