Chapter Text
January 2021
The game against Tampa Bay had been nothing short of a disaster. Missed shots, empty follow-throughs, and lines that had the coordination of a kindergartener.
Not that Ilya Rozanov thought it would have been any different.
They were the Ottawa Centaurs, after all. The worst team in the NHL, for as long as anyone could remember.
Despite Ilya's best attempts at routing the team to a better place, no matter where they went, bad habits and poor players couldn't be changed overnight. He felt like a failure as a Captain, unable to coordinate them better. Maybe in a few years they'd have some kind of "oomph", but that was a far ways off.
So, of course his mood was awful. How could it not be? He'd gone from leading a Stanley Cup winning team to a team that would struggle against the best Junior teams.
Didn't Shane know that?
Why did he have to pick that day, of all days, to be such a bitch to him?
Lily: Had terrible game, you probably saw. How about we catch dinner when I land? Need to tell you all about their fuck ups.
Jane: How about I cook at home? I'd rather people not get the wrong idea with us at a bistro. What would you like? My treat.
"Wrong idea?"
A flash of heat flared behind Ilya's eyes.
Lily: What do you mean wrong idea? We have been dating for years. You're out as a gay man. I'm out as bisexual.
Jane: Please don't start this again. You know why we can't be dating each other in public.
Ilya bit hard on his tongue, resisting the urge to scream in the middle of the plane. Deep down, the resentment had started to grow in his heart. Over him giving up everything so they could be closer and Shane just pushing them further apart, year after year. All out of his stupid obsession with hockey and the "perception" of strangers that neither of them had ever met before.
Tonight, his shitty mood, wasn't helping things.
Lily: No, I don't know. This is bullshit. We can't go to dinner together now?! Why. Explain this to me. Treat me like I'm child, because I do not understand.
Jane: We've talked about this. It's not the right time. For either of us. Why do you have to bring this up so much? We're together. Isn't that enough? I'm out. You're out. Who has to know we're dating each other? That just makes everything so complicated. I don't want the press involved in our private lives and we don't want people thinking we're fixing games for each other.
The glow of Ilya's phone carved harsh light across his face in the dimmed cabin. Around him, half the Ottawa roster slept in their seats, headphones in, mouths slack. The plane hummed, creating a horrible white noise that irritated him further. Ilya's jaw ached from clenching back a yell.
He read the message again. His thumbs struck the screen with a reply like he wanted to crack it.
Lily: It's never the right time for you. When is the right time for world to know we love each other? When can I hold my boyfriend's hand in public? When can I kiss you outside the house without getting a flinch of fear? When can we be happy like Scott Hunter and Kip? Tell me. I mark on calendar. Then I stop bugging you about it.
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, and soon appeared again. Ilya stared at them, his knee bouncing against the seat in front of him until Luca shifted and grumbled at him. He forced himself still.
Jane: You know what's at stake. For both of us. Scott got lucky with Kip. We might not. Not everyone is chill with this stuff. Not even the Voyagers are all okay with me. They've been sending emails about "comfort levels" in showers. I don't even know if just being "out" is going to be safe for me forever and my career here.
Ilya exhaled through his nose. He forced himself to look outside the cabin window and try to calm himself. Unfortunately, the only thing he saw was thirty thousand feet of black nothing between him and the ground. Not even the moon deigned to show itself that night. Unmoved by the pitch black darkness, Ilya huffed and started attacking his phone's messaging app again.
Lily: I know what's at stake. I've known for a long time. I just don't care anymore. I'm tired of waiting. What is there to lose?
Jane: That's easy to say when you're not the captain of Montreal. I could lose everything.
Lily: Right. Because I have nothing to lose either. I'm the captain of Ottawa.
Jane: Like that's anything impressive?
Ilya's ears, face, and chest burned. "You motherfucker…" he grumbled, under his breath.
Ilya only became the captain of Ottawa, the team of fucking failures, to be closer to Shane. So they wouldn't have to only see each other 3 or 4 times a year, 5 if they were lucky, and instead live just a few hours away from each other. He'd given up being the Captain of Boston, and a multi-million dollar contract to become a free agent up in the boonies. For Shane.
"You don't even appreciate me, do you?" Ilya spat.
The dots came rolling back in, faster than ever.
Jane: That's not what I meant.
Lily: That's exactly what you meant. Fuck you.
He locked the phone and pressed it face-down against his thigh. The leather seat creaked as he shifted his weight. Outside, greying clouds scrolled past like dirty cotton, backlit by a moon he couldn't see. Three minutes before the next ping. He wondered how many times "Mr. Perfect" had to re-write his words before he was satisfied. He picked the phone back up.
Jane: Can we please talk about this in person? I'll drive to Ottawa this weekend. I want to see your face when we talk about stuff like this. I don't know how to reply to you when I can't see you.
Lily: So we can have the same conversation we had in June, March and last December at your Parents house? So we'll go nowhere again? Waste of my time. Don't bother coming.
Jane: No, so we can actually talk instead of doing whatever this text chain is.
Lily: I feel like this is only honest conversation we've ever had.
The plane jolted. Turbulence. Minor. Nobody stirred except the flight attendant, who grabbed the back of a headrest and held on until it passed. Ilya didn't notice any of it at all. A few people grumbled about being woken up.
Jane: That's not fair and you know it.
Lily: Fair. You want to talk about fair? I sit in a different arena every night and I cannot even say your name in passing or you bitch about it. I score a winning goal and the first person I want to call is the one person I have to pretend doesn't matter to me. I gave up my whole career for you, an you called that "not impressive". You want to tell me what's fair? What's fair is that I am the only one who gave up anything for us. You just take and take and give nothing in return.
A long pause before the bubbles started back up. Too long. Ilya watched the timestamp creep. One minute. Two. Then, before long, five.
Jane: Look, I'm sorry. I'm scared. All the time. I love you. Please know that I love you.
The words blurred. Ilya blinked away tears and they sharpened again, neat white text against the blue bubble, and he hated how small the words looked on his screen. How contained.
Love in a text message, sent from a dark bedroom in Montreal where Shane Hollander lay alone because being alone was safer than being known.
Lily: If you meant it, you'd say it where someone could hear. How do I know it's not just lie?
Jane: You're being cruel.
Lily: No. I'm being tired.
Jane: Maybe you're tired of me, then. Maybe get someone who's going at your pace and who doesn't have to deal with nagging all the time.
Ilya's stomach dropped.
Lily: Don't do that
Jane: Maybe that's what this is really about. Maybe you want us to be over with. Maybe you've met some guy on the Centaurs. I hear it's a fruit salad over there. You're awfully chummy with that Luca kid. Trading me in for a younger model already?
Ilya missed as the plane started to rattle all around him. All he could see was the fire in his reflection on the phone.
Lily: Fuck you. I would never cheat and you know that.
Jane: If this is too hard for you, to be with me, then just say it. Say you want us to be over. Go be with someone else. Go be out and open like you want. Nobody's stopping you.
His fingers hovered. The cabin rattled again, harder this time. The seatbelt sign chimed on, and the captain's voice crackled something about descent and weather. Ilya didn't hear any of it.
Lily: Maybe you're right. Maybe I am tired of hiding like something is wrong with us. Maybe I am tired of the man I love being ashamed of me. Ashamed of us.
Lily: Maybe I'm tired of being your secret
Lily: Maybe I really am done.
Lily: Maybe I wish I could do this all over again and not have knife plunged in heart day after day, year over year.
Lily: Sometimes, you are more painful than time I walked in on my mother dead on the ground.
Lily: At least with mother, I had closure and could grieve.
Lily: With you, I have nothing but pain.
Lily: I wish I never met you.
He hit send. The read receipt appeared instantly. Shane saw it. Ilya, immediately, clenched his chest as guilt rippled over him. He'd gone too far. He'd been too angry. Shane had been right, they shouldn't have done this over text. He immediately tried to type an apology.
At least, he tried to anyway.
The plane lurched sideways, like it was getting checked by the boards. Ilya's phone flew out of his hand and crashed against the wall on the opposite side of the plane.
Before the screams of the other passengers rose, Ilya saw the flash. A fiery burst erupted from the engine just outside his window, streaking the night sky with jagged lines of orange and red. Then came the monstrous bang of the wing getting detached from the plane, a sound that seemed to crack the air itself. Panic swept through the cabin, as another shearing sound of metal tearing from every direction at the plane's edges drowned out the noise from the Captain's intercom.
Oxygen masks tumbled from overhead. Passengers grabbed at them, eyes wide and mouths frantic as they wrestled to secure the lifelines to their faces, as if it would do any good in this situation. Chaos erupted in a chorus of shouts, cries, and desperate prayers.
Ilya's own breath came and went in short, sharp bursts. His name rippled through his mind. Maybe it was Luca, calling for help. Maybe Wyatt. For certain, it wasn't his own voice he heard. Hell, maybe it was Shane's, distorted and distant, trying to call him back.
Pressure built in his skull as they continued to plummet, a squeezing band around his temples that made his eyes feel like they'd pop any second. He unbuckled his belt with clumsy fingers, eyes darting to find his phone.
"I have to find it. I have to apologize. I have to tell him I love him. One last time." A few simple thoughts, probably the last ones he'd ever have in his life.
It was there, screen up, clattering against the aisle. Unmistakable. Shane's picture was the wallpaper. Shane was smiling, on the barbeque, making his 8 burgers because he couldn't ever use basic math to half a recipe. That had been a wonderful day at the cottage. Probably the best day of his long, painful life.
The world shifted beneath him, a dizzying tilt as each second brought the passengers and the plane closer to the ground.
He clambered to his feet amidst the chaos, grabbing onto seats for stability, legs unsteady as he moved against the other passengers screaming, parents holding their children and crying, his teammates with a thousand yard stare as they all realized what was happening.
Ilya didn't care. His gaze locked onto his phone.
A lurch forward, a stumble, and he had it back in his hands as he fell against the floor of the plane. The screen flared to life with his touch.
One message displayed, a reply to Ilya's last messages, with Shane's name above it like an anchor. A long message.
He swiped quick, fingers a blur, unlocking the phone with sweat-slick hands, but understanding the words, from the lack of oxygen, felt distant, like trying to grasp smoke. His vision tunneled, dark around the edges, the pressure clawing deeper, unrelenting. He couldn't read it. None of it.
Before he could type 8 simple letters, one last time he could finally say how he really felt…
Impact.
The world upended.
Ilya's phone slipped again, force wrenching it away once and for all before he could hit send.
Darkness rushed from the corners of his vision, as a burning pain coated his body and he felt himself get launched somewhere into the sky. Pain shot through his body as metal pierced through him, and the smell of jet fuel covered his senses.
Pain.
Burning.
Regret.
Those were the last things Ilya Rozanov felt before his death at the age of 30.
December 2008
Cold bit through Ilya's thick black jacket and the beanie covering his head. Wind whipped across his face, breaking him free of the daze clouding his mind. His lungs pulled in air, real air, frigid and clean, mixed with the familiar flavor of tobacco, and he coughed, the cigarette between his fingers nearly tumbling to the pavement.
Ilya blinked.
He wasn't on the plane. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't bleeding. He wasn't burning.
"Wait. I'm alive?" Ilya thought.
No, that wasn't possible. He'd felt the impact. He'd felt his body breaking. The fire that consumed him. The end. Him and all the other souls on that plane.
Yet, his body felt alive enough: the burn of cold on his cheeks, the rough texture of a back door his shoulder blades, the weight of his boots on solid ground.
He straightened himself, and something felt wrong immediately. He was off-balance. Too light, like he'd skipped leg and arm day for 10 years straight.
Ilya looked down.
His hands were smaller. Leaner. The fingers gripping the cigarette looked like they belonged to someone else, someone younger, someone who hadn't spent a decade gripping hockey sticks and lifting weights.
"What the fuck…"
His voice cracked. Not the deep rasp he'd grown used to, but something higher. Unsteady.
Panic spiked through his chest. He patted himself down, jacket, jeans, work out sneakers he hadn't worn in years. Everything was big on him.
The street around him sharpened into focus. Low buildings. A faded banner strung between lampposts that read:
Welcome to the 2008 World Junior Championship.
Ilya knew, immediately, where he was. The familiar back alley. The smell. The date. The banner.
Regina.
"No. Is not possible."
Ilya's breath came faster. He fumbled for his phone, yanking it from his pocket with clumsy fingers. An old model, still in full Russian. The screen lit up when he flipped it open.
Wait.
A flip phone. Ancient.
The wallpaper showed a blurry photo he'd taken with the piss poor camera, a picture of a picture, of his mother, her arm slung around his shoulders, both of them grinning when he was still a boy and he was playing in his first game.
He turned the phone, angling the screen to catch his reflection in the black glass. Ilya gasped.
In the reflection, he saw himself like he used to be at eighteen. Right before he got drafted to Boston. First pick. Right after Russia crushed the World Junior Championship.
Gone was the ghost of the man he'd become. This Ilya had a soft jaw. No scars. Eyes wide and bright, not yet worn down by years of contract negotiations, media scrutiny over trading to Ottawa, and sleepless nights spent wondering if he and Shane Hollander would ever be together.
Shane.
The name hit like a punch to the ribs. Ilya staggered back against the wall, the cigarette almost slipping from his fingers.
This wasn't heaven. It couldn't be. Heaven wouldn't feel this cold, this real, this cruel. No, this was real life. Right? Or was this hell? Was he being punished? He felt like he deserved it, after his dying message probably…
"Uh… Ilya Rozanov?"
The voice came from his left. Soft, naive, and unmistakable.
Ilya's head snapped up.
Shane Hollander stood three feet away, hands shoved into the pockets of his oversized jacket that dwarfed his Team Canada white hoodie. His black hair was hidden beneath a dull green beanie. Barely an adult, just like Ilya. The face was more terrified than he remembered, smooth and serious, brown eyes narrowed in that same disapproving way they'd show a thousand times over the next decade.
"Shane… " Ilya muttered, in disbelief. He wanted to hug him, wanted to break down and cry and apologize for all the terrible things they'd fought about. "You're here. Shane, you're… You're here."
"You okay, man? You look, uh… A little choked up." Shane asked, shirking away from Ilya, unsure of how to deal with his display of emotion.
"Oh."
This Shane didn't know him. Not yet. Not the way Ilya knew him.
"I mean…" Ilya struggled to keep his hold on reality. What the hell was happening right now? Why had he died? Why had the plane crashed? Why was he here now, of all places? Was the other people on the plane back wandering around in 2008?
"Sorry, sorry. Uh, English. Not so good." Ilya lied, hoping it made any kind of sense.
"It's fine, man. Oh, uh… I don't know if you know this, but smoking's not allowed within fifty feet of the arena," Shane continued, nodding toward the building behind Ilya. "Rules."
Ilya stared. His throat closed up, every word he'd ever spoken to Shane Hollander, every argument, every confession, every desperate I love you, said either in passing or in the midst of their passionate lovemaking clogged his airway until he couldn't breathe. "Right. Right. Smoking." He put out the cigarette and threw in in the snow nearby. "Bad habit. Should stop. You're right"
Shane's brow furrowed. "You okay?"
Shane's gaze dropped to the cigarette smoldering in the snow, then back to Ilya's face. "Uh, anyway… You're an awesome player to watch. I wanted to introduce myself. Just wanted to meet you and wish you good luck in the tournament."
Ilya nodded, because what else could he do? He shook Shane's hand, awkwardly. He forgot how anxious his love could be in these early days. Back when…
"We were rivals."
Ilya stiffened, tried to think back to the first time they'd ever met, and cleared his throat. "Uh… Good luck to you too. You are… Nice. That's appreciated. Though Team Russia is going is probably going to win. Team Canada struggles with their guardsmen. Goalie is nursing injury that you all lie about. You'll play hard, try to outscore to make up for it, but… We will win. In final."
Shane paused, slack-jawed as he turned around, and scoffed. "Yeah, yeah, that's… Not happening." Then he shook his head. "How did you… Never mind. Good luck Rozanov."
"Good luck Shane," Ilya said, catching himself. "I mean Hollander. Good luck Hollander."
Ilya watched him go, heart hammering so hard it hurt.
"What the fuck is happening."