Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Original Male Character(s), Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Hanahaki Disease, Blow Jobs, Idiots in Love, Mild Descriptions of Vomit, Handwaving of both medicine and Canadian medical schools, Gingerale as a metaphor, Shane has good friends who love him, Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Anal Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Ilya Rozanov/Svetlana Vetrova

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-23 Completed: 2026-01-19 Words: 34,384 Chapters: 8/8

We Both Go Down Together

Summary

Hanahaki disease is not supposed to happen to actual people, sitting on actual stairwells with sweat cooling on their skin, with an actual game in two days that has a sponsorship contract riding on it. It’s not supposed to happen off-screen, without violins and an audience.
And it definitely isn’t supposed to happen to the first Asian-Canadian MVP of the National Hockey League.
Shane curls his fingers slowly around the petal, like if he hides it, if he doesn’t look at it, it might stop being real.

Or: the one where Shane is one of the lucky few humans in the world predisposed to Hanahaki disease. He copes with it as well as you might expect.

Notes

I am having so much fun :) This story is more or less completely mapped out. I have a few more scenes I want to write, so four chapters is the tentative estimate. It might go up. Text that has been lifted directly from the show are in italics.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

2009 - Shane Hollander’s Hotel Room. 

Shane neatly folds his clothes and sets them aside on the nightstand, slower than he needs to be, fingers betraying him with their care. He feels raw and exposed. 

Behind him, Rozanov shifts. Then comes the sound—a harsh cough, fist coming up to cover his mouth like he’s stifling laughter.

Shane glances over his shoulder. Rozanov is propped against the headboard, completely naked, eyes bright with something sharp and amused. Watching him. Always watching.

Shane narrows his eyes. “You making fun of me, Rozanov?”

“No. No, I would not dream of it, Hollander,” Rozanov says, voice smooth and innocent in a way that does not fool Shane. When he lowers his hand, the grin is there—wide, unrepentant, hungry. “Come. You are too far away.”

The space between them suddenly feels charged.

Shane hesitates just long enough to be self-conscious of it, then crosses the distance anyway. He climbs onto the bed, knees sinking into the mattress.  Rozanov’s hand finds his hip, steadying him, thumb pressing in. Then Rozanov leans forward and kisses him—slow at first, unhurried, like he’s got all the time in the world. For a wild moment Shane thinks he can smell lilac. But Shane chalks it up to cock-induced hysteria because when Rozanov kisses down the length of his body all he can smell is Armani cologne and sweat and boy boy boy. 

---

2013 - Shane Hollander’s Apartment.

At this point they’ve met up a few times. Texted a bit. It’s easy to pretend this thing with Rozanov is nothing. Easy to frame it as casual sex, stress relief, a pressure valve releasing just long enough to keep everything else from exploding. The schedule, the cameras, the expectations, the way it feels like his every move is being documented and dissected. And honestly, people do worse things to cope.

Is just a plan to fuck, Rozanov had said, in that blunt and unapologetic way of his. As if naming it that way stripped it of any power. Just two guys, letting off some steam. It didn’t have to be complicated. 

It’s just that Rozanov wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. Yeah he’d been a sarcastic asshole when he’d first shown up, razzing about his rental property and his many many pillows. But when they’d fucked he’d been weirdly considerate. Shane would almost call it… tender. 

So yeah. It’s easy. Right up until it isn’t.

Shane is sitting on the cold concrete steps of his building’s stairwell, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the heavy metal door Rozanov disappeared through moments ago. He can still hear the echo of it closing, the thud of it bouncing off his ribs. The stairs smell like old rubber mats and cheeky cigarettes. There’s a stain on one of them that looks suspiciously like vomit. Shane’s lips are still tingling from Rozanov’s soft kisses. 

His throat itches.

At first he doesn’t think anything of it. He swallows, clears his throat, drags a hand down his face. Then the tickle comes back sharper, insistent, like a splinter lodged somewhere he can’t quite reach. He coughs once. Twice. The sound bounces ugly and loud off the concrete walls.

On the third cough, something comes loose.

He bends forward instinctively, hand coming up to his mouth, and feels it there—soft, slick, unmistakably solid. His stomach drops. Slowly, like he’s afraid of what he’ll see if he moves too quick, Shane pulls his fingers away.

Resting on his palm is something small and pale, translucent at the edges. Wet. Delicate.

Shane stares at it, unblinking, brain scrambling for any explanation that doesn’t end in catastrophe. Something harmless. Something normal.

A petal. White. Slightly curled in on itself.

Jasmine?

“Oh,” he breathes, the word barely making it past his lips.

Oh fuck.

Hanahaki is one of those diseases people like to romanticize. The kind that gets turned into songs and sonnets, into novels with dramatic covers and bad Taylor Swift lyrics. Petals on the pillows of Jane Austen heroines. Bloody blossoms splashed prettily against white porcelain. ‘Oh my love is like a red, red rose…’

It’s not supposed to happen to actual people, sitting on actual stairwells with sweat cooling on their skin, with an actual game in two days that has a sponsorship contract riding on it. It’s not supposed to happen off-screen, without violins and an audience.

And it definitely isn’t supposed to happen to the first Asian-Canadian MVP of the National Hockey League. 

Shane curls his fingers slowly around the petal, like if he hides it, if he doesn’t look at it, it might stop being real. 

*

Shane stumbles back into his apartment in a daze, pulls out his phone, fingers hovering over a contact. 

Chad Header used to play goalie in the Under-10 league with Shane, back when their gear felt too tight and their skates were purchased too-large to ‘leave room for growing feet!’. Chad had been a wall even then—quick reflexes, fearless in goal. The kind of kid who didn’t flinch when a puck came hurtling toward his face. Coaches loved him. Parents gossipped about him in the stands. There’d been talk that he could go pro someday.

But hockey had never been Chad’s whole life the way it was Shane’s.

Where Shane lived and breathed the rink, Chad liked school. He liked knowing things. When they hit their late teens and everyone else was grinding and chasing dreams of the drafts, Chad quietly filled out university applications. He traded early morning ice times for lecture halls, then traded those for anatomy labs and twenty-hour study days. Somewhere along the way, “that hockey kid” turned into “future Dr. Header.” The unflappable spirit that made him so great in goal was what made him excellent in the emergency room. 

Now he was actually on his way there—residency lined up, white coat ceremonies. A life that was very different to the constant tour of cities and games that was Shane’s.

Chad was smart, and a good friend. And, frankly, he was indulgent whenever Shane called him. Which was usually once a month, like clockwork. Always a little awkward, always prefaced with a “this might be a dumb question, but—” followed by something wildly specific and only tangentially relevant to hockey injuries. Shin splints. Concussion protocols. Weird rashes from locker room showers. Chad never rushed him off the phone. Never laughed, even when Shane deserved it.

When Shane calls this time, sitting alone in his apartment with his knee bouncing and his throat still feeling wrong, Chad answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Cheddar,” Shane says, aiming for casual and landing somewhere just short of strained. “Uh. You know anything about Hanahaki?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Not long. Just long enough.

But Chad doesn’t sound alarmed when he answers. If anything, he sounds pleased—like Shane has just asked him about an obscure fun fact instead of something that’s currently wrapped around his heart like vines.

“Sure, I know some stuff. Like, it’s a lot more rare than the rom-coms would have you believe. Its something like less than 1% of the total population– otherwise people would be walking florists twenty-four sev’ and nothing would get done. Oh! Also, did you know that Hanahaki wasn’t even the one who did all the work on the disease? It was his assistant, Miyumi Tanaka, who did all the research. Hanahaki just took all of the credit and left her name off the publication. I heard the whole story on a podcast recently. Unbelievable!”

Shane presses his knuckles into his thigh, stares at the pale imprint they leave behind.

“Yeah. Unbelievable.”

Chad barrels on, unfazed, the way he always does when he’s warmed to a topic.

“Anyway, why are you asking? One of your teammates have it?”

The question lands heavier than it should. Shane’s pulse jumps, loud in his ears.

“No! No, uh, just. Intellectual curiosity I guess.”

The silence that follows stretches. Shane can practically hear Chad thinking on the other end, replaying the last thirty seconds, lining things up.

There’s an itch in Shane’s throat. It’s not the itch he feels when he’s about to hack up petals, but it’s almost worse. It’s the itch he feels when he’s about to cry. It’s enough to send a sharp stab of panic through his chest. He swallows hard.

“How do they even get in there” Shane blurts out suddenly, “like, how does it even work? Where do the petals even come from?”

There’s a soft electronic beep through the phone, followed by the low hum of Chad’s microwave whirring to life. Dinner. The normal life noises of someone who isn’t choking on flowers.

“Are you asking rhetorically or do you really want to know?”

Shane exhales slowly through his nose, eyes fixed on the floor.

“I really want to know.”

He hears the microwave door open, the clink of ceramic, Chad puttering around his kitchen because for him this really is just another Tuesday night.

“Okay so like, technically the body is making the petals itself. The human body basically has all of the ingredients needed to make these compounds– you know, the building blocks of all organic things are basically the same stuff. You know, ‘we are made of star-stuff’ and all that? Carl Sagan said that, I think.”

Shane lets his head fall back against the wall. The tile of his bathroom is cold, grounding.

He hears the scrape of a fork against a plate.

“It’s pretty cool. There was a recent journal article in the Lancet that proposes a connection between dopamine production in the brain with an autonomic response. It’s why they think its love that makes the petals happen.”

Shane sits there, phone pressed to his ear, picking at a loose thread in his shorts until it frays completely, while Chad calmly explains the biology of a disease that is quietly, impossibly, blooming inside him.

It's not love, Shane tells himself firmly once the call has ended. Its dopamine production and overeager autonomic system. It’ll pass with time.

And if he leaves behind a few more jasmine petals after thinking about Rozanov’s face earlier, well, there’s no one in the apartment besides Shane to see it.

---

2014 - Sochi Olympics. 

The Olympics pass in a blur. Days smear together—early mornings, too-bright lights, the constant low roar of a crowd that never seems to tire. Shane watches Russia get trashed by Latvia and feels a flicker of… something twist in his chest. He tells himself he’s worried in an abstract way only. Distant. Professional. If he’s been dreaming about the Olympics his entire life, he can’t imagine how brutal this must feel for Rozanov, losing like that on home turf, under flags and expectations and history.

He tries not to think about it too hard.

He’s wedged between Hunter and Vaughn in the stands, knees knocking every time Vaughn shifts, watching his buddy Joe finish his short program. The ice gleams under the lights, impossibly white, the classical music swelling as Joe lands an impossible jump. Shane claps, cheers at the right moments, lets himself be carried along by the rhythm of it. Just a friend supporting another friend.

Then he spots Rozanov in the wings.

His reaction is immediate and humiliating. Shane’s throat itches the second his eyes land on him, sharp and unmistakable, like his body has been waiting for permission to betray him all day. His stomach drops.

Okay. So much for time heals all theory.

“I’m um–” Shane jumps up, already starting to cough. “Bathroom!”

He barely waits for a response. He’s halfway down the aisle before the coughs turn rough, shoulders hunching as he fights to keep it contained. The men’s room hits him with the scent of piss and disinfectant. He makes it into a stall just in time, bending nearly in half as he hacks petals into the toilet bowl.

They’re small. Blue. Mixed in with mucus and saliva, they float cheerfully in the water.

Shane squints down at them, chest heaving. He doesn’t recognize these. If he’d known he’d be one of the lucky less-than-one percent of the population predisposed to Hanahaki, maybe he would’ve spent some time learning the different types of flower. Maybe he would’ve prepared.

But he didn’t.

And the little blue petals don’t mean anything to him.

He flushes the toilet quickly, erasing the evidence, and washes his hands in a rush, scrubbing harder than necessary. His reflection looks pale under the harsh lights. He straightens, swallows carefully, and forces his breathing back into something resembling normal.

He hopes Rozanov is still watching in the stands.

Shane finds him exactly in the same spot.

Up close, Rozanov looks carved out of marble—jaw tight, posture rigid, eyes fixed forward like he’s daring the world to say something to him. Shane hesitates for half a second, then steps into his line of sight.

Their conversation is short and tense.

Are you okay?
Please go.
You didn’t answer my text.
No, I didn't answer your boring text. Now will you go?

Each line is a deliberate shove. Its unmistakable dismissal.

So Shane goes.

He stalks back to his seat, jaw clenched, heart pounding harder than it should. Fuck Rozanov is such an asshole. If anything, this is proof—concrete, irrefutable—that Hanahaki is just a quirk of nature. A freak of biology. There is no cosmic attachment to this at all.

Just bad luck and chemistry.

*

Shane watches the clock on his phone tick toward midnight, counting the seconds the way he does at the end of a game. Ottawa is 8 hours behind. Midnight in Sochi means a reasonable 4pm there. Late enough to feel casual and not like he waited patiently until he knew Chad would be done with his ER shift.

When the minute flips over, he exhales and hits call.

Chad picks up on the second ring, voice already bright.

“Shane! What’s up? How is Russia, dude?”

Shane doesn’t say Hanahaki. He doesn’t even think it, not directly. He keeps his tone light, curious, like this is just another one of his monthly check-ins.

“Hey Cheddar. So, uh—random question. What do you know about black mold poisoning?”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Chad laughs, delighted.

“Oh man,” he says, and Shane can practically hear him straightening his posture. “Okay, first of all, excellent topic my guy.”

Chad launches into it with enthusiasm, giddy and morbid in that way only budding doctors can achieve. He talks about spores and respiratory systems, about chronic exposure and acute reactions, about how the symptoms can be subtle at first and then suddenly not subtle at all. He sounds thrilled, like Shane has just handed him a gift.

Shane leans back against the shitty Olympic village headboard, phone tucked between shoulder and ear, eyes closed. He hums at the right moments. Asks a follow-up here and there. Lets Chad run.

The words wash over him—inflammation, oxygen deprivation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—and Shane catalogues them carefully, filing them away.

No particular reason. 

Chapter End Notes

Comments and kind crits are always very welcome!

For folks playing along at home:
1.) Lilacs: first love
2.) Jasmine: sensuality and new beginnings
3.) Forget-me-nots: remembrance, affection, sincerity

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

2014 -  Major League Hockey Awards. 

As soon as they wrap on stage, Shane is already moving.

Not running—not quite—but walking with purpose, head down, pace measured just enough not to draw attention. The applause is still echoing behind him, lights still hot on his skin, adrenaline buzzing uselessly through his limbs. He nods at the right people, keeps his expression neutral, waits until he’s clear of the curtain before angling toward the bathrooms.

He slips inside and immediately checks—one glance under the stall. Empty. Thank God. 

Shane grips the edge of the sink, fingers a hard white against porcelain, head bowed as he drags in a careful breath.

Nothing.

No tickle. No warning prickle at the back of his throat. No tightening panic in his chest.

Good, Shane thinks viciously. Fuck that fucking Rozanov. Shane cannot be more grateful for Rozanov’s general assholery at the moment because at least it fixed his fucking petal problem. He straightens slightly, breath coming easier, brittle sense of victory curling in his gut.

Then the bathroom door opens.

Shane freezes as Rozanov saunters in, unhurried, smug, infuriatingly familiar. The air shifts immediately—too charged, too full. Shane doesn’t turn around. He refuses to give him that. Shane hates the way Rozanov moves his body, all sinuous confidence. 

Silence stretches.

Shane is determined to keep it that way. 

Rozanov chuckles and hums out “well…” 

Shane can’t help but take the bait. 

“You haven’t answered a text from me in like 6 months!”

“If you want me to suck your dick on this dirty bathroom floor you will have to ask nicely.”

Shane turns despite himself. He shouldn’t. He knows better. But his body betrays him the same way it always does—moving closer before his brain can catch up, heat flaring low and treacherous. Rozanov’s grin is sharp, dangerous, like he’s already won something.

They talk. Too close. Too fast. A deal is struck—half dare, half promise—about what will happen if Shane wins MVP. It feels unreal, the way everything does around Rozanov.

Then Rozanov leaves, just like that, door swinging shut behind him.

The silence crashes back in.

Shane barely makes it back to the sink before he’s hacking violently, shoulders jerking as something wet and soft hits the porcelain. He spits again, breath ragged, staring down into the basin.

Purple petals, with fluttery edges and a long stamen in the center.

Shane laughs, sharp and hysterical, throat burning as he thinks, oh, I actually recognize these. 

Irises.

*

2014 -  Ilya Rozanov’s Hotel Room. 

I need.

What?

You know.

Tell me.

You. I need you.

Shane drags himself across the bed, hands fisting into Rozanov’s trousers. Sinks himself deeply onto Rozanov’s dick. He’s just starting to build a steady rhythm when he feels–

Something. 

Something beginning to creep up his throat. 

There is a flower attempting to inch up his esophagus right fucking now. Shane gags loudly, reflexively swallows around the cock and petals that are stuffed in his mouth. He drags himself off Rozanov’s cock to sputter and cough wetly, the bitter precum and sweet petals tasting strange on the back of his tongue. He swallows hard, whatever blossom that has come up sinking heavily back down his throat.

“Fuck that is hot, Hollander.” Rozanov’s grip on his hair tightens, just on the edge of too-much.

The words are low and syrupy. Shane’s breath stutters. Heat floods his face so fast it’s almost dizzying, a sharp, humiliating rush that he has absolutely no defense against.

Shane shoves his face into Rozanov’s stomach, praying that Rozanov mistakes it for shyness rather than what Shane is really doing, which is hiding the burning flush in his cheeks.

Rozanov’s skins warm beneath his forehead, faintly damp with sweat, the solid press of muscle and tickle of hair grounding him. He stays there, breathing shallow, listening to Rozanov’s heartbeat thrum under his ear. The hand in his hair doesn’t loosen. It feels like Rozanov has no intention of ever letting him go. Rozanov gives it a tug.

“Again?” 

Shane pulls back. Doesn’t look up. Cannot look up at Rozanov’s face right now. He simply sinks himself back down onto Rozanov’s cock and sucks hard, letting himself get lost in it. 

*

It’s awkward. After. Shane tries to ask him a little about Russia and his family but Rozanov will barely look at him. 

When Rozanov dismisses him this time he doesn’t even see him to the door. 

In the elevator Shane taps out a text. 

We didn’t even kiss. 

He deletes it. Leans his head against the cold metal of the elevator. It’s not exactly a surprise when he finds himself bent in half, hacking petals onto the pristine floor of this five star hotel elevator, but the force of it catches him off guard. Shane squints at the puddle of sick on the marble. Are those pink lily petals? Or maybe hibiscus?

Shane runs a soothing hand against his throat and makes a mental note to purchase a book of flower meanings soon 

Just in case. 

- 

Summer 2014 

There’s silence from Rozanov for a while. Long enough that it starts to feel deliberate. 

And then, out of nowhere, they’re texting again.

No explanation. No apology. Just familiar rhythm, sharp humor. A rubber band snapping back into place like it was never pulled at all. 

They’re having sex.

It’s… confusing. 

But Shane isn’t exactly about to question it too hard.

Time keeps moving. Seasons grind on. The Hanahaki thing—while still deeply fucked—is, at least on the surface, manageable. Days can go by without incident. Weeks. Months. The in-between times when Shane doesn’t have to face Rozanov directly. 

He drinks water. He exercises. He babysits Hayden’s wild pack of little girls. He poses in his underwear for Rolex and Kalvin Klein and Burberry. 

This is not a problem, Shane thinks to himself firmly. 

The Montreal Metros win the Cup.

The moment is blinding—all noise and lights and hands everywhere. When Shane hoists it over his head, his chest feels wide and open and full in a way that has nothing to do with flowers. His lungs work. His breath comes easy. He doesn’t cough. He doesn’t choke.

He doesn’t even think about it.

He doesn’t think about it when Rozanov leaves his apartment after their most recent hookup either—buttoning his shirt like this is just another Thursday, like he hasn’t wrecked Shane all over again.

It’s only after the door is firmly shut, alone, that Shane ends up on all fours, knees hitting the hard wood.

He gags violently, petals spilling out in wet, humiliating bursts. Plum blossoms this time—delicate and pale pink as they splash against the floor. Shane stares at them in detached disbelief, chest aching, throat raw.

Later, he scrubs his real wood floors with Lysol until the smell burns his nose to match his lungs.

Still, he tells himself this is not a problem.

-

2015 - Ottowa, Canada

After the Metros win The Cup again – two years in a row, Shane thinks smugly– he has a rare weekend off in Ottawa. Which means he’s killing time at Chad’s parents’ house, a squat suburban place that doesn’t look much different from when they were fourteen. Same scuffed baseboards. Same framed team photos lining the hallway, Chad frozen mid-save in goalie gear two sizes too big. The biggest difference is the framed photo of Cheddar at his white coat ceremony, smile gummy and wide for the camera. The basement smells faintly like dust and old carpet and the spaghetti Mrs. Header is cooking for dinner upstairs.

Chad lives here while he finishes his residency. Easier than trying to rent a flat and feed myself while working, like 80 hours a week.” He’d shrugged when Shane had asked, not a shred of shame to his words. Shane likes this about his rare visits to Cheddar. Nothing about these hangouts asks anything of him. No press. No expectations. Just low-stakes companionship.

They’re in the basement playing ping pong, the table wedged between a weight bench and a bookshelf of medical textbooks. The ball plonks lazily back and forth, plastic against wood, a steady rhythm Shane can sink into. It’s nice not having to make eye contact. Nice to talk without being watched.

“Hey Cheddar. Can I ask you another thing about Hanahaki?”

Chad returns the serve without looking up. “Yeah, sure.”

“They say that it gets more intense the longer the uh, disease goes on for.”

“Yep.”

The ball skims the net. Shane adjusts his grip.

“And like, when it gets to the end stages, it's always roses? And the roses can like, rip up your lungs?”

Chad nods. “Yeah it’s a pretty nasty way to go. You pass roses with thorns a few times and it basically lacerates your lungs and you drown in your own blood.”

Shane swallows, keeps playing.

“Why is that? Why roses? Like um, scientifically?”

Chad narrows his eyes at the ball, not breaking eye contact with it. “Okay well science can tell us stuff, but like there is still a lot we don’t know. The more I learn about the human body the more I learn that we honestly don’t know everything. Some people chalk that up to magic or god or whatever.”

He frowns, gears visibly turning.

“After you called me that one time I looked up that article again in the Lancet. The authors propose that it has something to do with a combination of dopamine–the love hormone, and cortisol–the stress hormone, making a fucked-up mixture in the brain that sends the nervous system into maximum overdrive.”

Shane serves too hard. The ball clatters off the table and rolls under the couch. Chad stares at where it vanished, then sighs and sets his paddle down. Shane mirrors him.

“Sorry,” Shane says, “it’s just that you’re overwhelming me with your advanced medical terminology.”

Chad snorts. “Fuck you, Hollander, I’m putting it into terms your little brain can handle. How many conkies have you had already?” He comes around the table and slings an arm around Shane’s neck, dragging him in for a noogie that’s affectionate but a little aggressive, like he’s trying to shake something loose. 

Shane laughs and shoves him away. “I hate it when you call concussions ‘conkies’, dude. It makes you sound twelve.”

“Gotta find your joy somewhere, man. Plus it makes the kids laugh.”

Shane leans back against the table, Chad mimicking his stance. 

“How are you finding the pediatric unit?”

“Good, yeah good.” Chad folds his arms across his chest, eyes drifting to the ceiling. “It’s nice when you can help. Less nice when you can’t.”

Shane doesn’t fill the silence. He waits.

Chad closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, like he’s gearing up to say something hard—but when he opens them again, it veers sideways.

“Hanahaki is one of those illnesses where there's a lot of research but honestly not a lot of answers. Like, why roses? Fuck, we really don’t know. For the people who believe its all purely science it's hard to explain that one. It’s why a lot of people put a lot of stock into the flower-language shit. Plus, it’s been around for a long time. It’s been documented for centuries, like, fuck, Pliny the Elder wrote about it in his work in like, fucking, ancient Greek times. ‘Cept he called it flos languorem and prescribed an enema with chicken blood and poppy seeds. Like, no thanks, I’m good.”

“Shit dude, not Pliny the Elder.” Shane can’t help it. The chirp slips out.

“Pliny the fucking Elder, dude.” Chad laughs, rubbing a hand over his short-cropped hair.

Once the laughter fades, his tone shifts again—quieter, more careful.

“People are fascinated with it because of its connection to love or whatever, but it’s not as cut and dry as people think it is. Some people hack up petals for years even while in happy relationships and others cough up roses almost immediately and die. There’s a lot of variability.”

The words settle heavy between them.

Chad nudges Shane’s foot with his own, not looking up. “This isn’t intellectual curiosity for you. Is it.”

Shane feels his muscles tighten automatically, shoulders pulling in. Chad must see it because he rushes to soften the blow.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, dude, I get it. You’re a private person or whatever. I guess I just want to say. Like.”

He falters, fingers worrying at the hem of his shirt.

“There are a lot of people who care. Like. About you. And stuff.”

Shane’s mind flickers through a catalogue of faces—his parents, strangers in the stands, the kids with dark hair and hopeful eyes who ask him to sign their jerseys like Shane matters. Because Shane makes them feel like they belong in this sport. 

“Yeah no, uh. I get that. I’m. I’m handling it.”

Chad reaches out and scrubs his knuckles into Shane’s skull again, friendly but bordering on too rough.

“Good. Now, pick up your paddle. We're going for best of 36.”

Shane snorts, grabs his paddle, and lines up for the serve.

*

2016 Boston, Ilya Rozanov’s Home. 

I should go. 

Or you could stay. 

Shane stammers out “yeah, yeah okay. I just have to– wash my face. Hold on.” He stumbles to Rozanov’s ensuite and turns the faucet on high. 

The petals burn on the way up. Shane refuses to even look at them, just flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and leaves the bathroom mechanically. 

When he crawls back into bed, Rozanov grabs him, tucking him into little spoon. He plants a soft kiss behind Shane’s ear and says. “Hollander. What is this cologne you are using now? You smell like my grandmother.” 

Shane tenses up before commanding himself to relax. “Fuck off, at least I don’t smell like cigarettes and body odor like you.” 

Rozanov nips Shane’s earlobe and whispers huskily, “You love it. It is natural musk. Like animal in the wild. You smell me and are overcome with lust. It makes you want to turn over and let me have you like a dog in heat.”

Shane feels his cheeks flushing against his will and he’s glad he’s facing away from Rozanov. “I don’t.” he says, pushing his hips back into Rozanov’s. 

“Do.” Teeth drag down the back of Shane’s neck. 

“Don’t.” Shane is rocking back and forth now. 

Rozanov doesn’t dignify that with a response, just sinks his teeth into the meat of Shane’s shoulder and matches his rhythm to Shane’s. 

-

Shane wakes up in Rozanov’s arms and he’s fine. 

He drinks the Gingerale that Rosanov has stocked in his fridge and he’s fine. 

He talks to Rozanov about away games and Ryan Price and sex with women and he’s fine. 

He listens to Rozanov spit Russian over the phone and he’s fine. 

He eats a fucking tuna melt and he’s fine. 

It’s all fine until Ilya throws an arm over Shane’s shoulders, tugs his head down, strokes his hair. 

Until Shane kisses his stomach, climbs into his lap. 

Until Ilya is spitting into his hand and Shane is jerking them both off, fast and hard, breathing into each other’s mouths. 

Until– 

Shane

Ilya

Shane grabs his borrowed shirt and tugs it over his head. The fabric snags for half a second, stretching across his vision, and panic spikes so hard it makes his ears ring. This is not fine, he thinks stupidly. This is not fine this is not fine this is not fine. The words loop uselessly, doing nothing to slow the heart that is trying to batter its way out of his ribs.

“I gotta go. Um. Team meeting. Now. I forgot. So. I have to go now. Immediately.” Shane says.

Rozanov’s face does something complicated. “Hollander.”

“Thank you. For the tuna melt.” Shane says, because he was raised to be polite even when he’s having a total mental breakdown. His chest is throbbing, a deep, bruised ache, his breaths coming short and shallow like he’s already started running. Every inhale feels wrong, too tight, like his lungs are being squeezed by something both foreign and alive.

“Hollander,” Ilya repeats, more firmly, reaching out a hand.

“I– I can’t,” Shane gasps, already retreating for the door. Panic has turned his limbs clumsy, his movements jerky, like a spooked animal. He can’t look back. If he looks back, he might stop, and stopping feels like it might actually kill him.

He makes it outside on sheer momentum, the morning air hitting his face too cold, too sharp. He stumbles down the driveway, vision blurring at the edges, throat burning. He’s dimly proud that by the time the petals come he’s made it all the way down Rozanov’s driveway and is shielded by the bushes.

He drops to his knees and hacks wet, choking coughs that wrench his whole body forward. Peony blossoms spill into the dirt, obscene in their fullness, pink and white smeared with saliva and gingerale and tuna fucking melt. Shane presses a shaking hand over his mouth, heart pounding, eyes stinging. 

And the worst part of this–all of this–is just how absolutely absurdly fucking dumb it is. 

Because it is, objectively, extremely stupid for Shane to be having a panic attack now—over the sudden, blinding realization that he is in love with a man. This man. After literal years of coughing up flowers about it. After the years of petals and spit, it was Rozanov saying Shane that made him finally admit that something has been growing inside him for a long, long time.  

Chapter End Notes

For folks playing along at home:
Irises: courage and hope
Pink Carnations: regret and sorrow
Plum blossoms: perseverance, beauty in adversity
Peonies: blissful and enduring union, weddings, romance.

Comments always welcome! If you have thoughts about what kinds of flowers Shane should yack up and/or ideas about scenarios pleeeease comment because I have one (1) person in my life I can talk Heated Rivalry with and I'm slowly going insane about it.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

If you saw the chapter number increase.... shhh no you didn't.

2016 October, Montreal 

-

Meeting Rose feels like the universe handing him a second chance. She’s funny and beautiful and shockingly easy to be around.

He likes that she listens when he talks about hockey—really listens. She asks smart questions, remembers stats, teases him about his intensity without ever making him feel ridiculous for it. She meets him where he is, and more surprisingly, seems happy to stay there with him.

Kissing her is… nice. Warm. Always just a tiny bit sticky from her lipgloss. There’s no spark racing under his skin, no electric pull that sens his pulse tripping. It’s not perfect or exciting. But it feels workable. Sensible. And, crucially, when he looks at her, his chest stays quiet. No pressure. No heat. No warning tickle in the back of his throat. 

-

2016 October, Montreal, Caché nightclub

Shane lets Rose drag him to the club because that’s what you do when you’re trying to be a good boyfriend. He’s exhausted down to the bone, but he tells himself it’s fine. He can handle one night out. Rose wants to dance, so he dances. Her hands are warm on his shoulders, her smile bright and unguarded. It’s not a hardship to move with her, to let the music carry him along beside someone beautiful and fun.

Until.

Rozanov. 

Because of course Rozanov is here.

The world narrows violently when they lock eyes, everything else blurring at the edges like a camera losing focus. All the careful unraveling Shane’s done over the past few months—every rationalization, every deep breath, every deliberate step away—snaps apart in an instant. Rozanov doesn’t look away. He holds Shane’s gaze while nipping at the ear of some woman pressed against him, possessive and casual and devastating all at once.

Shane’s lungs seize.

Shane cannot breathe.

He literally cannot breathe.

“B-Bathroom!” Shane gasps, the word tearing out of him half-formed. He doesn’t wait for Rose’s response. He barrels through the crowd, shoving past bodies and lights and sound, bursting out the emergency exit like he’s escaping flames.

The alley is filthy and narrow and smells like piss and garbage. Shane drops to his knees, palms scraping against damp concrete. His chest is locked tight. Air won’t go in. It won’t go out. Panic claws up his spine, sharp and animal. His vision spots and tunnels. He retches, gagging uselessly at first, then realizes with cold horror that whatever’s blocking him isn’t coming up on its own.

He has to reach inside himself. Shaking, he jams his fingers down his throat, nails scraping tender flesh.

Tiny chamomile buds spill out onto the alley floor, slick with saliva and blood, scattering across the grime, beautiful and disgusting all at once. His throat burns, raw and torn, his body convulsing as more follow. He sobs between gasps, terror crashing through him in waves.

“Holy shit!”

Shane whips around at the sound of Rose’s voice. She’s there, wide-eyed and horrified. She’d followed him. “Oh my god, Shane!”

Shame hits him just as hard as the fear. He wants the ground to split open. He wants an earthquake, a sinkhole, anything to swallow him whole and erase this moment from existence.

“Oh Shane, honey.”

Rose crouches in front of him without hesitation, her strappy heels clicking in the alley filth. She reaches out and strokes his sweaty forehead, gentle and steady. Shane braces himself, heart hammering, waiting for the obvious question.

It never comes.

“Let’s get you home, big guy.”

-

2016 October, Montreal, 1 Day Later

Hayden and J.J. catch Shane after latest game he’s fucked up, cornering him before he can make a clean escape to the showers. The locker room is half-empty, the familiar post-game noises washing over him—tape ripping, showers starting up, the low murmur of reporters out in the hall. Shane’s gear feels heavy on his body, sweat cooling unpleasantly against his skin.

Hayden blocks the aisle with his broad shoulders, casual but unmistakably deliberate. J.J. lingers to the side, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s bracing for impact.

“Captain. We need to talk. Man to man.”

Shane’s first instinct is irritation, hot and defensive, flaring before he can stop it.

“What is this– what is going on?”

“It’s an intervention, man” J.J. says seriously.

Hayden’s head snaps toward him, eyes sharp.

“It’s not an intervention” Hayden says, shooting J.J. a hard look. “We’re just worried about you.”

That word—worried—lands wrong. Shane laughs once, short and humorless, already folding in on himself.

“We think Rose Landry is sucking your hockey skills out of your dick!”

“Dude!” Hayden says

A few heads turn down the row of lockers. Someone snorts. Shane feels heat crawl up his neck, equal parts anger and embarrassment.

“Okay what the fuck! You guys, I’m just like– Having a few off days. It’s fine.” Shane crosses his arms over his chest.

He can feel it immediately—the way that small movement compresses his lungs more than it should. The faint pressure behind his ribs, like something swollen and stubborn refusing to give him a full breath. He forces air in through his nose, keeps his face neutral.

Hayden’s mouth opens, then closes. J.J.’s joking expression falters, just a little, like he’s maybe realizing this isn’t coming out the way he meant it to.

They’re not subtle about it, Shane thinks. They don’t know how to be. Hockey players aren’t built for delicate conversations. Concern always comes out a little sideways—through crude jokes, bad timing, blocking exits in locker rooms. 

Shane doesn’t know what he wants to say. He doesn’t know how tell them that his chest burns after first period now, that his legs feel heavy too early in the game. He doesn’t tell them about this thing in his lungs, the way breathing feels like dragging air through something grasping and alive.

He doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he keeps his arms crossed, jaw set, eyes sharp and defensive. His phone buzzes. Shane takes it out of his pocket, grateful for the diversion. 

From Rose Landry: Can we talk about yesterday?

Shane turns his back on Hayden and J.J. heading towards the exit. He’d been so, inexpressibly grateful when Rose had dropped him at his apartment last night, brewed him a cup of herbal tea, and left without asking a single question. It looks like the reprieve is over and Shane can’t even be mad about it. 

From Shane Hollander: Yes. Where and when. 

*

They sit down at a restaurant tucked into a quiet corner, half-hidden behind a tall plant and a low partition that makes the rest of the room feel far away. It should feel intimate. It should feel safe. Shane smiles at Rose across the table, but the expression sits awkwardly on his face, stiff and unfamiliar, like he’s using the wrong muscles for it. It makes his cheeks ache.

Rose reaches across the table and takes Shane’s hand where it rests near the edge. Her thumb brushes his knuckles, grounding, warm. Shane feels a flicker of something sharp and hopeful spark in his chest—not love, not relief exactly, but the fragile hope that this means she’s willing to overlook his failure. That whatever happened at the club doesn’t have to spell the end.

The waiter arrives, cheerful and efficient, and asks for their drink orders. Rose asks for a negroni without hesitation. Shane opens his mouth to ask what’s on tap, already defaulting to the easy choice, but Rose cuts in smoothly.

“He’ll have a ginger ale.”

Her eyes meet Shane’s, earnest and steady. “That’s what he wants.”

The waiter nods and leaves.

Silence settles over the table, thick and expectant. The hum of the restaurant fades into background noise, plates clinking and voices blurring together. Rose doesn’t let go of his hand.

“It is, isn't it? Ginger ale is what you really want?”

Shane blinks, thrown. He feels strangely off balance, like he’s missed a step somewhere. “Um. Yeah? I guess? I like it, and they have it most places. It doesn’t mess with my diet and ginger is good for the digestive system.”

Rose blinks at him. She nods slowly, like she’s reached some sort of conclusion. “Yeah, okay, no metaphors.”

She inhales deeply through her nose, steadying herself, then looks at him straight on. “You have Hanahaki disease.”

Shane’s entire body locks up. Okay so they're doing this right now. He swallows hard around the golf-ball in his throat and nods once, stiff and silent. “It doesn't have to mean anything.”

“I think it does.”

“It doesn’t.” Shane’s voice comes out faster, thinner, desperation creeping in despite himself. “Look, I like you. You’re pretty and smart and fun to be around. This doesn’t have to change anything.”

“You like me, Shane, but you don’t love me.” Rose says, simply.

The words feel surgically precise, cutting straight through every excuse he’s been clinging to.

“What was your long game here Shane?”

He doesn’t have an answer. He never really did. He hadn’t planned beyond the next breath, the next day without coughing, the next night where his chest stayed quiet. He’d hoped—stupidly, selfishly—that being with Rose would rewire something in him. Like a software patch overriding buggy code. That if he stayed long enough, tried hard enough, the feelings for Rozanov would be erased. That eventually the petals would stop falling.

The disease has a lot of variance, Cheddar had said.

Shane stares at the table, at their still-joined hands.

Rose frowns, the expression careful rather than angry, like she’s handling something fragile. “You like me Shane and that’s— that’s wonderful because you’re wonderful. But I- I’m upset with you because I don’t want a partner who just likes me. I want a partner who loves me.”

The words land heavy and deserved. Guilt blooms hot in Shane’s chest, spreading outward until it makes his ears ring. He hadn’t let himself look at this from Rose’s side before now—not really. That was the ugliest part. He’d had tunnel vision, obsessing over fixing himself, over quieting his lungs and calming his body, over making the problem go away. Rose had been kind and brilliant and easy to love, and he’d told himself that liking her was enough. That if it was going to be anyone, of course it would be her.

That logic feels unkind. Selfish in ways he hadn’t wanted to examine. He swallows and drops his gaze, voice barely audible. “You deserve that Rose.”

Rose smiles, but it wobbles. She squeezes his hand once, steadying herself before asking the question she’s clearly been bracing for. “Can you tell me who the petals are for?”

Shane shakes his head immediately.

Rose’s grip tightens around his hand, anchoring him to the table, to the moment. “Is it for another woman?”

The truth scrapes the inside of his mouth, sharp and painful, like chewing glass. But Rose is incredible, and she deserves honesty—especially after he’s dragged her into this mess. Whatever his failures are, they aren’t hers. Sometimes you can have the best team playing their best and still lose the game. Shane shakes his head no, slowly, deliberately.

“Is it for a man?”

The question hits like a sucker punch after the whistle. Shane’s breath stutters, and he nods, quick and jerky.

Rose leans forward to catch his eyes, her voice soft but unwavering. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.”

It doesn’t feel fine. Not at all. If he can’t be straight for Rose fucking Landry—beautiful, perfect, funny—then what does that say about him? The thought hits fast and vicious. Maybe he can’t be straight for anyone. 

The realization is blinding if he stares at it too long.

“Shane, I swear to you on Wayne Gretzky’s grave it’s going to be fine.” Rose says firmly.

The absurdity of it breaks through the glass just enough. Shane lets out a startled huff. “Wayne Gretzky isn’t dead.”

Rose smiles triumphantly. “I know, but it made you laugh so I win.” 

And despite everything—the ache, the guilt, the fear—Shane snorts again.

Their smiles fall as the silence grows somber again. Rose says, “I know it must feel fucking awful right now and I can’t say everything is going to work out perfectly, but, Shane.” She tangles their fingers together. “It’s going to work out somehow. And I promise I’ll be there to help you through it. Okay?” 

Rose is a goddess. The thought hits him sudden and aching. Why couldn’t he just fall in love with Rose. Why couldn’t the wanting be enough.

“Okay.” He whispers, because it’s all he has.

The waiter returns and sets their drinks down carefully, “Sorry to keep you waiting, the bar is extremely backed up.”

Rose offers him an easy smile. “No worries.”

This conversation with Rose feels like a release. He probes at what he’s feeling, tentative and curious, like a tongue pressing at the raw gap left by a recently lost tooth. Tender, sore, strange. Admitting that he likes men feels more like purging than any time he’s retched up blossoms in the past 9 years. It’s awful coming up, but once it was out he felt a lot better. 

They wait for her cab outside the restaurant, Rose hopping from foot to foot to keep warm, breath puffing white in the night air. Suddenly she gasps dramatically. “Shane! Oh my god! Hanihaki!”

Shane tilts his head, wary.

“No, Shane, hani-hockey— like! HOCKEY.”

The realization clicks.

“Oh my god, Rose, shit!”

“It’s—“ Rose is giggling too hard to finish her sentence.

“—that’s just—”

“—because you—“

Shane groans and tips his head back, staring up at the sky like he’s asking it for patience. “It’s a good thing you already broke up with me because I think after that I would have to dump you.”

“Nah, I don’t think you would’ve.”

The words slip neatly between his ribs and hit something delicate. Shane frowns before he can stop himself.

Rose notices instantly. Her smile falters, then she steps closer. “No no, none of that.” She reaches up and presses her fingers into the corners of his mouth, physically forcing them upward. “You deserve love. Like true love with singing birds and all. That’s not us and that’s okay. Do you know why?”

Shane shakes his head.

“Because we’re friends now. Best friends, maybe. And I’m really happy to be Shane Hollander’s best friend.”

Rose kisses him on the lips and hops off to the cab that’s just pulled up. and it doesn’t feel like a goodbye. It feels like a beginning. And Shane is, weirdly, looking forward to it. 

-

2016 November, Montreal, Shane’s Apartment

Rose Landry is a tempest, and once she has something in her sights, god help any obstacles in her path. Shane Hollander’s Best Friend turns out to be less of a title and more of a full-time position. She texts Shane constantly—check-ins, dumb memes, mirror selfies in head-to-toe blue makeup. She schedules facetimes with swift efficiency, blocking off time in both their calendars and calling exactly when she said she would.

Rose applies herself with the same intensity she uses to prepare monologues.  

And when she’s filming in Montreal, she makes it a point to visit. 

Rose enters Shane’s apartment (wow, great view!) and she makes herself at home immediately. Her high-top Converse are chucked by the front door, jacket draped over a chair where it absolutely does not belong. She’d made it a point to invite herself over when Shane had revealed to her over text that he’d never seen Dirty Dancing. By the time Shane has eased himself next to her onto the couch, she’s already queued it up. 

“When we met you told me you’ve seen a million movies! I can’t believe you haven’t seen Dirty goddamn Dancing, Shane! It’s a medical necessity that you watch this film.” 

“If I call Cheddar do you think he’ll agree, in his professional opinion?”

“Listen, everything I’ve heard about Chad leads me to believe he’d absolutely be on my side. Now shut it, Hollander, you’re sitting through my chick flick.” 

The apartment is dim and quiet except for the glow of the TV and the low hum of the gas fireplace. Shane and Rose stretch out, a bottle of red wine passing lazily back and forth between them. 

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” 

Oh god. Shane feels his throat tighten and his vision blurs. He sniffs, blinks hard. Eventually he gives into the impulse to rest his head against Rose’s shoulder, the weight of it settling there like it belongs. At least this way she can’t see his eyes turn red. 

But he clearly isn’t successful in being subtle because Rose says, “Oh bae, are you in your feels right now?”

He huffs a weak laugh, scrubs at his face with the heel of his hand.

“I’m not! It's just a good movie, you know? These are two people from two very different worlds who, like, come together, and beat the odds.”

Rose smiles softly and runs her fingers through his hair, slow and soothing, like she’s done it a thousand times before. She hums under her breath, indulgent and fond.

“Okay. red-wine-drunk is a weepy-drunk for you. Good to know.”

“I’m not weepy.”

“Of course you’re not.”

“I’m not! I haven’t legit-cried in years.” 

Rose tilts her head, one perfect eyebrow arching. “That’s not the flex you think it is, babe.”

Shane exhales, something like a laugh, something like a sigh, and lets himself stay there—chest warm from the wine, heart a little bruised—just a little longer. It’s nice being here. It’s nice being held by Rose, in a hug without momentum. A hug that isn’t a precursor to anything else.

Rose lets the movie keep playing, the sounds washing over them while Shane stays tucked against her shoulder. She doesn’t push him away or make a joke this time. Her hand stays in his hair, thumb tracing slow, absent-minded circles near his temple.

After a minute, she speaks, casual but deliberate.

“You know,” she says, “you could cry. If you wanted to.”

Shane scoffs softly, more reflex than feeling. “I know that.”

“Mmm.” Rose hums, unconvinced. “You know it, or you know it?”

He doesn’t answer right away. His jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly.

Rose shifts just enough to look at him. She’s good at this– coming at the issue straight on but without force. Blunt but not unkind. 

“I just mean,” she continues, voice light, “you grew up in locker rooms. In a sport where you’re praised for playing through pain and told to walk it off when you’re, like, actively bleeding. It makes sense if crying feels like… I don’t know? Failing some kind of test?”

Shane swallows. The TV flickers across his face, all soft light and shadow.

“It’s not like that,” he says automatically. “I just don’t see the point. It doesn’t accomplish anything and I always have a headache after.”

Rose nods, like she’s expected that answer. “Yeah. I get that.” She squeezes his shoulder gently. “But sometimes crying isn’t about fixing anything. Sometimes it’s just about letting your body do what it needs to do without you muscling it into submission, big guy.”

Shane turns her words over and over in his mind. He stays where he is, breathing slow, letting the credits run and Rose’s hand in his hair—thinking, maybe for the first time, about what it would mean to stop holding himself so tightly.

Shane is grateful when Rose says after a length, “Anyway, I told you this movie is fire. Patrick Swayze? C’mon.” Rose is letting the thread go gently. And in this moment Shane appreciates their new relationship more than anything else. 

-

2016 December, Shane’s Apartment. 

“I appreciate you stopping by, man.”

Shane hovers awkwardly in the doorway, arms folded like he doesn’t know what to do with them. The apartment feels too quiet, every sound echoing off the walls.

Chad shrugs, toeing off his shoes by the door. “Like I said, the medical conference was here so I was in the neighborhood. It’s no problem.”

It feels like a problem. Chad isn’t smiling. He isn’t cracking jokes or scanning the room for snacks. That alone sets Shane’s nerves jangling.

Shane shifts his weight from foot to foot, heart ticking up. “Um. Do you um. Want a beer or something?”

Chad frowns. The look is all business, sharp and worried, and it makes Shane’s stomach sink. “Let’s just get this done first.”

Shane nods immediately. He always does when Chad sounds like that.

They move through the motions in tense silence. Chad has him sit on the couch, cool leather sticking slightly to the back of Shane’s thighs. The stethoscope is cold against his skin. Chad listens too long, jaw clenched. He peers down Shane’s throat with the otoscope, his brow furrowing deeper with every second. Shane stares at the ceiling and tries not to cough.

Chad finally straightens with a heavy sigh. “Okay look. You know that everything I say to you is off the record. I can’t actually give you any advice because, legally, I’m not your doctor.”

“Yes” Shane nods solemnly.

“Okay,” Chad says. “Well then. I diagnose you with dumb fucking idiot disease—sadly it’s incurable.”

Shane bristles immediately, heat flaring. “Not funny, Cheddar.”

“Of course it’s not funny!” Chad explodes, the restraint snapping. “It’s fucking crazy. You told me last year that you were handling it!”

“I–I am!”

“This doesn’t look like handling it, buddy.” Chad visibly reins himself in, shoulders lifting as he takes a breath, forcing his voice lower. “I thought you said that you understood that people care about you.”

“I do! Fuck, Cheddar, I don’t need you to remind me how much is riding on me. The contracts, the fans, my fucking parents!”

“That’s not what I meant, dipshit. God, you are so thick sometimes.” Chad pinches the bridge of his nose, a familiar gesture Shane’s seen a thousand times—what Chad does when he’s trying not to cry. “I meant that your friends care about you. That I care about you. And you’ve been letting yourself shred to pieces. Literally! What the fuck, Hollander?”

Shane opens his mouth, then closes it again. His chest feels tight, not with petals this time, but something worse. He stares at the floor, words failing him completely. He doesn’t have a single defense ready. “Oh.” 

Chad exhales slowly, the anger burning itself down into embers. He drops onto the armchair across from Shane instead of pacing, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. 

“I’m not trying to scare you,” Chad says, quieter now. “And I’m not mad because you’re– sick. Or whatever. I’m mad because you’re pretending this isn’t connected to something you already know the answer to.”

Shane finally looks up. His eyes are glassy, red-rimmed. “It’s not that easy,” he mutters. “It’s– It’s complicated.”

Chad snorts softly. “Yeah. Okay. All the same. This thing?” He gestures vaguely toward Shane’s chest. “It feeds on avoidance. Stress. Suppression. You can’t simply strong arm your body through it.” Chad leans forward. “Buddy. I am saying this as your friend.” He waits until Shane meets his eyes. “Bottling everything up is making it worse.”

Shane screws his eyes tight. He’s not letting tears fall, he refuses. 

“You don’t have to have a big dramatic moment with whoever it is,” Chad continues, gentler now, a little clumsy but earnest. “You don’t have to fix everything in all at once. But you have to be honest— About how you feel. Because if you don’t?” He hesitates, then says it anyway. “Your body is already telling you it can’t keep doing this.”

Shane sits with that for a long moment, breathing shallow but steady. Then he nods once, sharp and decisive.

“…Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay. I hear you.”

Chad lets out a breath he’s clearly been holding and reaches out, scrubbing his knuckles briefly into Shane’s hair—brotherly and familiar. “Good. That’s all I needed.”

Shane huffs out something that might almost be a laugh. “Jesus, Cheddar, is that how you talk to the kids at the hospital.”

Chad’s mouth quirks, relief flashing there for just a second before he lunges forward. He hooks an arm around Shane’s neck and drags him into a headlock. “Oh no way,” he says cheerfully, “I use bigger vocabulary with the kids, they can handle it unlike you.”

*

Chapter End Notes

If you've never watched Dirty Dancing while mildly tipsy and emotionally compromised I HIGHLY recommend it. As I was writing this chapter I suddenly remembered that this is a period piece. Cue the millennial slang.

Comments/crits/thoughts always a delight. Thank you for going on this journey with me. More Ilya next chapter <3

Chamomile: Tenderness and beauty; the national flower of Russia :)

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

This chapter is where we begin to diverge from TV canon-- mostly because in my brain I merged the all-star game and the boston-montreal game. By the time I realized I was in too deep. You may have noticed that the chapter count went up again-- that's because I've lost control of the narrative. It's also because I am apparently incapable of brevity.

A few minor TWs going into this chapter that I felt were small enough not to merit tagging:
1.) TW for microaggressions from an extremely earnest and well-meaning senior citizen
2.) TW for a child with cancer-- she is sick in this chapter but I swear to you she is going to be just fine. Everyone in this story gets a happy ending.

2016 December, MLH Charity Drive.

The Stonebrook Senior Center is an unremarkable building—low, beige, the kind of place you could drive past a hundred times without ever noticing. Shane can’t help wondering why this, of all places, was chosen for the League’s Christmas charity drive. Every season or so, MLH rolls out a handful of players for volunteer work, a carefully packaged display of goodwill and philanthropy meant to play well on highlight reels and morning shows.

Its a little bit bullshit, Shane thinks, especially while he’s being filmed chatting with seniors, painfully aware of where the cameras are at all times. He smiles on cue, laughs at the right moments, nods earnestly when prompted. It’s farcical—performative kindness complete with a lighting crew. Still, once the cameras finally pack up and leave, the air in the room shifts. The pressure dissipates. Some of the players trickle out, relieved to be done, but a few linger, staying seated, keeping their conversations going without an audience.

Rozanov is one of the ones who stays. Because of course he is. It’s the first time Shane has seen him off the ice since that day at his Boston apartment. He looks beautiful, dressed in all black with his curls slicked back neatly. 

Shane watches him across the room, speaking with a woman in a wheelchair. She has snowy white hair arranged in neat pincurls, her hands folded over a crocheted blanket. Rozanov is crouched on his haunches in front of her so they’re eye to eye, his posture intent and unguarded. He listens the way he always does– with his whole body. Nods, quiet murmurs of acknowledgment, the kind of focus Shane knows first-hand that makes it feel like nothing else exists.

Shane is surprised when the woman reaches up and cups Rozanov’s face in her hand.

Even more surprised when Rozanov lets her.

She says something softly, smiling at him with such a tenderness it feels too private to witness. Shane can’t hear the words—they’re too far away, the room too full of low conversation—but whatever she says makes Rozanov’s eyes go shiny, red-rimmed and glassy. He looks down at the floor for a second, breath hitching, then carefully adjusts the blanket on her lap like it’s the most important task in the world. When he replies, it’s in a voice so low Shane can barely tell he’s speaking at all.

Something tightens painfully in Shane’s chest.

He needs to get out. Now. 

Shane bolts for the exit, barely making it outside before he’s doubled over, coughing petals into the bushes along the side of the building. The cold air burns his lungs, sharp and grounding, but it doesn’t stop the flowers– camellias, he notes absently– from coming. When it finally passes, he wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and straightens—only to spot an old man a few feet away, leaning against the brick wall, calmly smoking a cigarette.

The man laughs, the sound easy and friendly, like he’s laughing with Shane instead of at him.  “You got it bad huh?”

Shane’s first instinct is panic. His head snaps up and he scans the empty parking lot, heart skidding, half-expecting a camera crew or a teammate who might have seen him folded over the shrubs. The lot is quiet, the sky already dimming into early winter dusk, the air smelling faintly of cigarette smoke.

“Oh don’t worry,” the man says, adjusting his flat cap with a conspiratorial air. “I get it. A buddy of mine had that a long time ago. ‘Course they used to call it Sailor’s Disease back in those days.”

He flicks his cigarette away and grinds it out under his shoe, then sticks out his hand. His grip is firm, handshake enthusiastic to the point of rattling Shane’s arm. He introduces himself as Gary. He claps Shane on the back—hard, affectionate. “You visiting family or are you one of those hockey boys?”

Shane’s mouth twitches into a smile against his will. “Hockey boy.” 

Gary nods. “I prefer soccer myself, but to each their own.” Gary rubs his hands together, breathing into them. “It’s cold as shit out here, kid. Let’s go back inside and play some chess. You know how to play chess or do you only know how to play hockey?

Shane’s adrenaline buzz is beginning to wear off, leaving behind a swirling nausea. He shrugs and follows Gary. 

Inside, the senior center is quieter now. They settle at an empty table where a chessboard is already set up, the pieces worn smooth from years of use. They sit in silence for a moment, the faint hum over overlapping conversations from others filling the space between them.

“You know I served in Korea,” Gary says suddenly. “I was in the signal corps. Great people, Koreans.”

Shane blinks. “…okay.”

“Anyway,” Gary continues, “Tell me about this gal of yours that has you spitting up daisies.”

Shane’s stomach twists. God, he should have expected this. “Um…”

“Or guy!” Gary adds brightly. “Could be a guy. I’m progressive. My granddaughter is one of those lesbians. Calls herself ‘Acorn’.” He shakes his head, chuckling. 

Shane swallows. His gaze flicks, traitorous, across the room to where Rozanov stands talking to a different resident near the piano. He looks back at the board. “I, uh, appreciate you asking, sir, but um. I um. I don’t really want to talk about– them.”

Gary hums thoughtfully. “Them? Oh I see! It’s a they-them is it?”

Shane moves a knight, the clack of the piece sounds unnaturally loud. Gary immediately takes it with a pawn.

“It’s ok kid, no need to be bashful,” Gary says. “My granddaughter has pronouns. Is yours a girl-they-them or a boy-they-them?”

Shane grabs a rook, the move hurried and poorly considered. Gary pauses, eyebrows lifting.

“You sure you wanna make that move, bud?”

Shane looks from the board to Gary, pulse racing. “Oh! Um.”

Gary chuckles, shaking his head, but there’s no mocking in it. “You know what your problem is? You’re overthinking it. You seem like someone who thinks too much.”

Shane stares down at the board, at the pieces frozen mid-game. He’s not sure he’s ever been accused of planning ahead too much before.

“What people don’t know about chess is that you can’t overthink it,” Gary says, with the confidence of a man delivering a universal truth.

“Um…” Shane squints at the board, then at Gary.

“Chess is like jazz,” Gary continues solemnly. “It’s about the moves you don’t make. Romance is like that too.”

That does it. Shane is now certain this old man is full of shit.

Before he can respond, another resident ambles over, peering down at the table. “Shane, was it? You’re an awfully good sport for playing with Gary.” The woman elbows Gary playfully, “This guy’s the worst in the whole center and nobody will play with him anymore.” She pauses, takes in the board, and her face collapses into genuine horror. “Oh my god. You’re losing to Gary?”

Shane feels his soul attempt to leave his body. 

He’s spared only briefly, because a different woman swoops in almost immediately. “My my, aren’t you handsome,” she says, patting his arm. “I have a grand-niece you might like! Hang on, hang on—I have a photograph here…”

She digs through her purse with alarming determination.

And just like that, Shane is surrounded. Questions, commentary, unsolicited life advice. Hands on his shoulders, compliments about his hair, speculation about his love life. It’s sweet in theory, but in practice it’s loud and close and too much, and Shane can feel his pulse starting to stutter in his throat.

Desperate, he scans the room for rescue—anyone, a teammate, a staff member, a small trash fire—and instead accidentally locks eyes with Rozanov.

For half a second, something soft and vulnerable crosses Rozanov’s face.

Then he turns on his heel and bolts for the exit.

Shane’s chest sinks, heavy and hot all at once. He knows, rationally, that this is his fault. That he’s the one who’s been hiding, avoiding, choking on things unsaid. Shane ran first, afterall.

But it still hurts. In a juvenile, deeply unfair way, it still hurts. 

*

Hey I was just–

Delete delete delete

So the other day at the senior center was interesting–

Delete delete delete

I miss you–

Delete delete delete

* 

2017, January, Montreal.

From Shane Hollander: Hey. I need a drink. Any chance you are free to go out tonight?
From Rose Landry: Free? For you? Always :)
From Shane Hollander: Great.

Shane and Rose go out with the vague intention of one drink, which almost immediately becomes many. They start at the bar, elbows touching, glasses sweating onto the polished wood as they talk over each other in the easy back-and-forth they’ve developed. The night swells around them—music louder, laughter looser, strangers closer. The air feels electric in the way that only a night out with hundreds of sweaty people can feel like.

At some point, without either of them consciously deciding it, they stop ordering the gentle stuff. Tequila appears. Then more tequila. The edges of the night soften, colors bleeding together. Shane becomes dimly aware that the staff is clearing a small stage at the far end of the bar. 

Open-mic karaoke. Shane and Rose lock eyes and burst into laughter.

After that, the timeline fractures. Shane knows there was singing. He suspects there was cheering. He has a strong sense that Rose was excellent at something involving dramatic hand gestures and hip thrusts. The next thing he’s fully aware of, he’s sinking backward onto Rose Landry’s hotel bed, the mattress swallowing him whole.

When did he lose a shoe?

Rose collapses beside him, giggling, breathless. She reaches under her top and, in one smooth practiced motion, whips her bra off without actually removing the shirt. She chucks it at his face.

“That’s a cool trick.” Shane says, genuinely impressed, catching her lacey bra and tossing it across the room without looking. Rose will find it in the morning. Probably. 

“Thanks.” Rose rolls onto her side. “So. You gonna tell me why we had to get obliterated tonight? You seemed sad.”

The question lands heavy in his stomach, mixing nauseatingly with the tequila. Shane bites his lip, staring up at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts.

“That. Um. That guy. The one I said I had been with before.”

Rose nods, patient, encouraging.

“I sort’ve fucked things up with him and it makes me want to a die on the inside. A little bit.”

Rose nods again.

Shane cracks an eye open to look at her.

They stare at each other for a moment

“Is that all?” Rose says, frowning.

Shane grunts and throws an arm across his eyes, mortified. “I fucked everything up, Rose! Also the other day an old man was, like, super weird to me? And he told me that chess wasn’t about logic. I think he was trying to give me relationship advice?”

Rose wrinkles her nose.

Shane nods frantically. “Right?!”

Rose says, “Okay, Romeo, so how do you un-fuck things with this guy?”

Shane exhales hard, rubbing his eyes until little bursts of light explode behind his lids. “I don’t know.”

Rose says, “I think you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Shane! Hollander!” Rose gets up onto her knees on the bed, grabs a pillow and whacks Shane in the skull. “You know what you have to do. Say it.”

Shane groans, rolling onto his side. The tequila buzz is slowly starting to ebb. “No.”

Rose tosses the pillow aside and grabs Shane’s face with both hands, squishing his cheeks together until his lips pout involuntarily. “Shane, you are literally so funny and so smart and so cool and so brave. I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. Prepare yourself.” She takes a deep breath and says, “You have to tell him how you feel. And you have to ask for what you want.”

Shane grips Rose’s wrists and gently pries them away, says softly, “Gross.”

Rose laughs and says, “I know honey, but adulting is gross.”

They fall quiet after that, the room dim and peaceful. Both of them lie there fully clothed, shoes abandoned, the emotional hangover settling in. Shane is just on the edge of sleep when the thought finally crystallizes into something solid.

“I’m going to do it. I’m gonna to try to un-fuck it.”

*

The next morning, Shane wakes up with a pounding head and a dry mouth. His phone is buzzing on the nightstand. Three missed calls from his mother. Several texts from the guys. His mom’s message is short and ominous: call me.

His stomach sinks.

He opens Hayden’s text first.

From Hayden Pike: “Hahaha epic”

There’s a link to a YouTube video underneath it. Dread pools thick and cold in his gut as he clicks it open.

Oh my god.

*

“Mom, I—”

Yuna’s voice comes through the phone tight and controlled, even and steady. That almost makes it worse. “Shane, I don’t understand,” She says quietly. “This isn’t like you. Do you know how this looks? With all the attention you have on your right now before the Toronto game?” 

There’s a palpable silence before she says, “We raised you to think before you act. To be responsible. To protect yourself and your image. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

Every word is heavy, layered with expectation and fear and love all corded together. Shane can feel it pressing down on his sternum, that familiar sense that he’s failing the invisible test he’s been taking his whole life.

Rose stirs beside him, groaning like a corpse resurrected. She stumbles out of bed and disappears into the bathroom, retching loudly. The sound hits Shane’s on a reflexive level—his throat tightens, his stomach rolls, his gag reflex flaring in miserable sympathy. Of course his mother hears it. Of course she does.

“You’re hungover,” Yuna says, voice sharp now, brittle with hurt. “I hope you are feeling the consequences of your actions. What were you thinking, Shane?”

“I was thinking I didn’t want to think, Mom!” Shane squeezes his eyes shut, the room spinning even without the tequila. “I’m—I’m so, so sorry. I’ll… I’ll put out a statement or—or make an apology video or something.” 

Rose reappears, ginger hair defying gravity, face pale. “What hppn’d?” she squints at him. “Somebody died?”

Worse, Shane thinks distantly. Worse than that. I made myself look stupid. I disappointed my parents. My fans. Everyone who ever believed I was something important. The weight of it all presses down until it’s hard to tell where the hangover ends and the dread begins. His mother’s disappointment is another impossible thing he doesn’t know how to carry.

After he hangs up on his mom he tries his best to explain it all to Rose.

Rose takes it in stride, plants her hands on her hips, stance sturdy. She crouches in front of Shane where he’s folded in on himself on the edge of the bed, knees tucked to his chest, hoodie pulled over his head like that might make him disappear. Her voice stays even, warm. A little croaky from singing her heart out the night before. “This is not the end of the world. So you let loose a little. Big deal. You’re a man, not a robot.”

Shane curls tighter, shoulders hunched.

Rose scoots closer, nudging his knee with hers. “Say it. Say I’m a man, not a robot.”

He exhales through his nose, miserable. “I’m a man. Not. A robot.”

Rose nods solemnly. “Good. Besides, it’s important to disappoint your parents now-and-then. Healthy, even.”

Shane frowns, chewing on that. The idea slots into his brain cock-eyed—foreign, slightly heretical. Disappoint Yuna? On purpose? Disappoint both his parents and survive it? He doesn’t know what to do with that idea yet.

Eventually, Rose corrals him into sitting upright, hands him a glass of water, finger-combs his hair into place. She shoves her phone into his hand. They film the apology video together, Shane stiff and self-conscious at first, Rose perched just off-camera like a benevolent AD. She feeds him lines, redirects him when he starts to spiral, makes him redo a take when he apologizes too much.

“No admitting fault,” she reminds him gently. “We’re going for– accountability for very minor property damage. And, like. Responsible drinking vibes. That’s it.”

By the end, Shane is exhausted but steadier, the worst of the panic wrung out of him. The video uploads. The world does not end. Rose gives him a satisfied nod. 

“Okay lover boy. Now that we’ve fixed that, what’s your plan to fix things with your guy?”

* 

A few weeks later, Shane Hollander’s Apartment. 2017

Shane is still chewing on the idea of unfucking things with Rozanov when he makes his now bi-weekly call to Cheddar. He folds laundry while the phone rings. Socks paired, shirts smoothed, jeans stacked. Shane flicks the phone to speaker, tossing it haphazardly next to his pile of clothes.

At last, a click. 

“Hey Cheddar.” Shane says. 

“Hey buddy.”

The familiar jangle of keys filters through the line, metallic and sharp. Chad must be clocking out, finally escaping the fluorescent purgatory of the hospital. Shane imagines him tired in that bone-deep way that doesn’t go away with sleep.

“Hayden told me that every time he drinks cough syrup he sneezes. Is that anything?” Shane says, offering an easy in. He keeps folding, but his hands slow when Chad doesn’t immediately bite.

“Uhh, probably not. Could just be a sneezing disorder. Some of those have a genetic component…” Chad trails off.

The silence that follows is heavier than it should be. Shane stills completely, a sock dangling from his fingers.

“You okay, Chad?”

Chad laughs, but it’s wrong—too sharp, no warmth in it. Shane hears the car beep as it unlocks, the rustle and thump of Chad collapsing into the driver’s seat. “Not really. Look, I– I’m sorry. I’ve been debating asking you about this but. I was wondering— if you could possibly do me a favor. Or really, my patient.”

Shane sets the socks aside. He reaches for the phone and takes it off speaker, pressing it to his ear. He’s not sure why—he’s alone in the apartment afterall—but something about Chad’s voice makes this feel important, and important conversations shouldn’t be on speakerphone. He wedges the phone between his shoulder and jaw.

“Yeah— of course. Like, if I can do it, then probably yes. Yeah.”

Chad exhales, long and shaky, like he’s been holding his breath for days. “Do you, maybe, know how to contact Ilya Rozanov’s agent?”

Shane frowns. “Um…”

“There’s a kid here who’s pretty sick and Rozanov is her favorite person in the entire world. And I know he’s got a reputation for being kind of a dick but—”

“He’s not,” Shane says immediately, instinctively, the words tumbling out before he can stop them. “He’s not actually. Not really.”

There’s a pause. Then Chad continues, softer now. “Yeah, well, I figured even if he was a huge bastard most people wouldn’t say no to a kid who’s—” His throat makes a strange clicking sound. 

Something tightens in Shane’s chest. He nods even though Chad can’t see him, jaw setting with quiet resolve. “I will try to figure something out.”

And he will. Because whatever mess he’s made of his own heart, his lungs, his life– whatever fear he’s been circling for months, some things are still bigger than that. More important. 

*

Shane paces the apartment for longer than he’d ever admit to out loud. Up the stairs, then back down again. He finds things to do just to keep his hands busy—replacing his fresh laundry into his dresser/ Shane washes dishes that were already clean. He scrubs the bathroom sink until it gleams, wipes down the mirror, rearranges the toiletries. Anything to burn off the nervous energy buzzing under his skin.

All the while, he imagines how the conversation with Rozanov might go. Rehearses openings. Rehearses apologies. Rehearses casual, then contrite, then confident. He tries on a few versions of himself—each one equally awful until he gives up. Shane checks the clock for the third time in five minutes and decides it’s late enough that Rozanov is probably home, but not so late that he’d be an asshole for calling. Fuck it. 

Shane takes a steadying breath and makes the call.

It rings. 

And rings. 

Rings long enough that his skin starts to feel too tight, long enough that he’s already rehearsing what he’ll say when it goes to voicemail. Then—

“What.”

“Hi–! Uh. Rozanov. Hi. It’s me. Um. Shane Hollander?” Shane says, immediately slapping himself on the forehead.

A pause. “Yes, I know this, Hollander. I have caller ID. What do you want.”

Shane winces. This conversation has already veered sideways, but there’s no graceful way to recover, so he just keeps going. “I know that, I’m like, probably the last person you want to hear from right now. And I have no right to ask you for anything but. I really, really need a favor. Well I say me but it’s not me exactly? It’s a favor for a friend?”

It’s dead air on the line. Shane pulls the phone away from his ear to check the screen– nope the call is still connected. 

“For Rose Landry.” Rozanov says, tone brittle. 

Shane lets out a slightly hysterical laugh, the sound too loud in his own ears. “No, not for Rose although, yes, she’s just a friend, we didn’t exactly work out. No um, it’s for a friend of mine from when I was a kid— he’s a pediatric doctor now and he has a patient who—”

Rozanov cuts him off, voice still uncomfortably flat. “Pediatric.”

“Child. Children’s cancer ward.” Shane says, the words flattening as they leave his mouth.

“Okay.” Rozanov says.

Relief flashes hot and sudden through Shane’s chest. “Right, so there’s this kid—”

“—You are deaf, now? I said okay. Just text details.”

And then the line goes dead. No goodbye. Just the triple chirp of disconnection in his ear.

Shane lowers the phone slowly, staring at it for a moment before letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

That could have gone better. But, hell, it could have gone worse.

*

Children’s Hospital of Ottawa

It takes some doing, a lot of texts passed back and forth through intermediaries and assistants but eventually they manage to work the scheduling out. Amira’s parents are thrilled. That part at least feels uncomplicated. It helps Shane steady himself when his nerves start to spiral– there’s a bigger picture here that he has to keep in sight.

On the appointed day, Shane gets a visitor’s pass at the hospital reception and heads up to the cancer ward. As soon as the doors open, Shane’s nose is hit with the sharp tingling of antiseptic. He meets Chad at the nurses’ station. It’s still jarring, seeing him like this: Thomas the Tank Engine scrubs, cartoon trains chugging cheerfully across his chest, an ID badge clipped neatly to his pocket. (“The hospital acronym is literally CHOO. As in choo-choo? C’mon Shane give me a break.”)

Shane snorts, but the laughter feels a little forced. He still has a hard time reconciling the frat-boy idiot he grew up with and this careful, competent doctor. They’re the same person, of course. But his brain keeps slipping. It’s hard to make the images blur together, like two edges of a magic-eye painting that refuse to meet.

They’re chatting with the nurses—about the hockey season, about how excited Amira is going to be—when Rozanov arrives.

He’s on time. Shane had gotten here early, nerves making him restless. Rozanov’s hands are full of wrapped presents, colorful paper and sloppy bows that look like maybe he inexpertly wrapped himself. He looks… thinner, maybe. Paler. There’s a faint hollowness under his eyes that Shane doesn’t remember, or maybe never let himself notice before. The sight hits Shane square in the chest, knocking the air out of him in a way that has nothing to do with flowers.

Rozanov stops short when he sees Shane.

“Oh. You are here too.”

The words are neutral, but his face is shuttered. Shane swallows thickly, his mouth suddenly dry. He can feel Chad’s gaze flicking between them, curious, alert. Shane can practically hear the gears turning.

“Yeah– I thought– I mean. Here I am.” Shane says, folding his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits.

“Here you are.” Rozanov repeats.

Shane’s brain scrambles for a response, for anything that will defrost the ice between them.

Before he can dig himself deeper, Chad—absolute angel, bless him—steps in, hand outstretched, all professional warmth. “I’m Dr. Header, but you can call me Chad. Thank you again for agreeing to do this on such short notice.”

“It is no trouble.” Rozanov lies.

The words are smooth, automatic. Chad smiles and doesn't call him on it. He gestures for them to follow and leads them down the hallway, the floors gleaming under harsh fluorescent lights. 

Chad lifts a finger to his lips, shushing them, and positions Shane and Rozanov a few doors away. He slips into Amira’s room alone, the door clicking shut behind him.

The silence between Shane and Rozanov stretches, thick and uncomfortable. Shane rocks slightly on his heels, acutely aware of how close they’re standing, of the faint smell of Armani cologne, and something else he can’t quite put his finger on clinging to Rozanov’s black jacket. A nurse passes by with a cart, the soft squeak of its wheels echoing too loudly in the quiet. He clears his throat.

“Do you want me to hold one of those?”

Rozanov’s grip on his presents tightens, knuckles whitening just a bit. “No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Shane lets his hands fall uselessly back to his sides, heat creeping up his neck. He stares at a cartoon fish painted on the wall and wills his heart rate to slow.

The door opens. Chad steps out, followed by a man Shane assumes is Amira’s dad. Omar looks like he’s in his late thirties, exhaustion etched around his eyes, gray threading through dark hair at the temples. He shakes Shane’s hand firmly, gratitude radiating off him, and then turns to Rozanov.

Rozanov extends his hand to shake—and is immediately pulled into a slapping hug. The gifts crumple between them with a soft crunch. Rozanov stiffens in surprise, then awkwardly pats the man’s back.

“We couldn’t believe it when Dr. Header told us you were coming. We’re so grateful. Merjem and I, we–” Omar steps back, blinking hard. “We don’t know how to thank you.”

Rozanov looks uncomfortable, ears pinking, shoulders drawn in. “It's no trouble. Your daughter has good taste in hockey players.”

Omar laughs, the sound a little wet around the edges. “We used to live in Boston. We took her to the Boston-Toronto match in 2012 and she was hooked after. Specifically, the one where you–”

Rozanov huffs out a surprised laugh. “--I beat the shit out of Luc Fornier.”

When Ilya smiles—really smiles—it splits his face wide and Shane can see the points of his canines, where his front teeth are just a smidge shorter. Shane has tasted the back of those teeth. The sight hits him like a punch to the gut.

The tickle knocks at the back of Shane’s throat, sudden and insistent. He swallows hard, once, twice, forcing it down, forcing himself to breathe evenly. This is not happening right now. Shane will not let it.

“I am very much looking forward to meeting your daughter.” Ilya says.

“Then let’s not keep her waiting anymore.” Omar says warmly. He turns and opens the door, slipping inside first. “Ami-baby, there are some people here who want to meet you.”

A slight, brown-skinned girl lies propped up in the hospital bed, half-swallowed by white pillows and a tangle of machines that hum softly around her. Her mother sits close at her side, one hand resting protectively on Amira’s blanket..

Amira turns her head at the sound of the door. Her gaze skims past Shane—barely registers him at all—and then locks onto Ilya with laser focus.

“Holy shit!”

“Amira!” Merjem says, aghast, hand flying to her mouth.

Ilya steps forward without hesitation, gently nudging Shane out of the way as he deposits the stack of wrapped presents at the foot of the bed. He approaches Amira, extending his hand with solemnity. “It is a pleasure to meet you, little sister.” He shakes her tiny hand with exaggerated seriousness, as if sealing a contract.

Amira stares, glassy-eyed, looking back and forth between her hand in Ilya’s and his face, her mouth falling open. “This is really happening?”

Shane hovers near the door, instantly and completely irrelevant, which suits him just fine. He leans against the wall and watches as the next hour disappears.

Amira talks rapidly, words tripping over themselves. Ilya listens intently, nodding gravely. She gushes about her favorite games, her favorite goals, the exact moment she decided he was her favorite player in the entire world– she makes him recount his fight with Luc Fornier twice.

(“And that’s when his blood went everywhere!”

“Yes, broken noses bleed a lot.”)

She sings the Boston fight song, off-key and proud, then pauses, eyes bright, and politely requests Ilya to sing it too. He does. Four times in a row. Then once more in halting, hastily translated Russian when she asks him to.

Shane is proud he only has to leave the room once to spit up tulips in the bathroom. When he slips back in, he’s certain no one even noticed his absence.  

Shane watches Ilya laugh. Watches him lean in close so he can hear when she whispers him a secret. Watches the way his intensity is tangled with reverence. The machines keep humming. Time keeps moving. But for right now the world is a tiny, warm pocket. 

After a while, Amira’s attention drifts, her gaze snagging on the colorful pile at the foot of her bed. She squints, like she’s not sure she’s allowed to bring it up.

“Are those for me?” She asks shyly.

Ilya’s expression softens immediately. He passes her the first box, which Merjem helps Amira unwrap. She carefully unfolds a Boston Raiders shirt. 

“Is soft. Good for sleeping.” Ilya says, rubbing his nose.

Amira lets out a small, delighted noise and immediately turns to her mom, tugging at the collar of her hospital gown until Merjem helps her pull the shirt on over it. They’re careful not to dislodge any of the tubes that connect her to the profusion of machines. The shirt hangs loose on her, swallowing her thin frame. 

The next gift is a lap-sized hockey table. Shane helps set it up while Ilya explains the rules, glad to finally be of some use. Amira hunches forward, jaw set, utterly ruthless. She trash-talks ceaselessly, slapping the puck across the tiny rink while Ilya pretends to be outraged every time she scores. Shane laughs behind his hand, watching Ilya lose on purpose with theatrical despair.

Eventually, though, Amira’s movements slow. Her eyelids flutter, growing heavy, her chin dipping toward her chest. Merjem gently smooths her hair back as Ilya straightens, glancing toward the door.

Ilya is just beginning to step away when Amira’s small hand shoots out and catches the sleeve of his jacket.

“Will you be here when I wake up?”

For a split second, Shane sees it all play out across Ilya’s face—the mental calculations, the schedule flipping through his head, the obligations stacking up. And then, just as clearly, Shane sees the moment Ilya decides.

“Yes I will. Go to sleep.”

Amira smiles, instantly soothed, her grip loosening as sleep claims her. Ilya stays right where he is until her breathing evens out.

*

By the time they finally say their goodbyes to the family, it’s been hours. The light outside has shifted, blue-black crowding up against a dusty rose horizon. Shane lingers longer than he means to, chatting with Chad, shaking Omar’s hand again, murmuring something soft to Merjem. 

When he finally steps outside, Ilya is gone.

Shane’s stomach clenches hard enough to make him dizzy. He’d wanted to catch him—say something, anything, to open the door back up between them. He’s scanning the parking lot, the cold air biting at his lungs, when he spots a lone figure near the far edge, a pinprick of orange flaring in the dusk.

Shane doesn’t remember deciding to move. He just does. He’s crossed the asphalt in long, furious strides and reaches Ilya before his brain can catch up with his body. He slaps the cigarette out of Ilya’s mouth.

“Are you fucking kidding me! Are you fucking kidding me right now?! After you just spent an entire day with a little girl with cancer?”

His chest heaves, breath coming fast and shallow, like he’s just done several dashing drills. His hands are shaking; he curls them into fists to hide it.

Ilya stares at him. His cheek is already blooming red. Slowly, deliberately, Ilya bends down and retrieves the cigarette from the ground. He holds it loosely between his fingers, not bringing it to his lips again, but not dropping it either.

The space between them hums, the smoke curling uselessly into the dark.

“You have no right.” Ilya says. Shane suddenly notices that Ilya’s hands are shaking too. 

“I-I don’t have a right.” Shane admits. The fight drains out of him all at once, leaving him raw and unsteady. “I’m– fuck, sorry I’m fucking this all up. Can we please talk somewhere? Privately?”

The parking lot is too open, too exposed. A car drives past at the far end, headlights briefly flashing them in LED white.

Ilya doesn’t answer. He looks away, jaw tight, staring at nothing. Seconds stretch long enough that Shane’s hope starts to wither.

Then, deliberately, Ilya lets the cigarette slip from his fingers. He grinds it into the asphalt beneath his boot, twists until the ember dies completely.

“Okay.”

*

They’re barely inside Ilya’s hotel room when Shane is pinned against the door, the dull thud of it closing behind him swallowed by the rush of blood in his ears. Ilya’s hands are hot and familiar, raking up under Shane’s shirt like this is the foregone conclusion.

“Hey, hey, hey– wait!”

The words come out breathless but urgent. Ilya freezes instantly, as if a switch has been flipped. He steps back, hands lifting in a show of surrender, head cocked to the side. The posture is painfully familiar—the exact pose he takes when a ref is chewing him out on the ice—and it knocks something loose in Shane’s chest, affectionate and aching all at once.

“I have something to say. About last time.”

“Forget it,” Ilya says.

“I don’t want to forget it. I think I owe you an apology, and an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Hollander.”

“I do.” Shane pushes off the door and crosses the room. He sits on the edge of Ilya’s hotel bed, hands braced on his thighs like he might float away otherwise. “It’s. Okay. So. I think I’m– gay?”

Ilya blinks. “You are telling me or you are asking me? If you are asking me then I think answer is obvious, no?”

“Don’t be a dick.” Shane snaps, heat flaring in his cheeks. “I meant. I meant that I’m like. Fully gay. Not like you–no girls.”

Ilya exhales and drags a hand through his hair, dislodging some of the curls from where they were neatly gelled back.“Okay. Great. Good for you. We can fuck now?” He leans back against the door, arms folding over his chest, expression guarded.

“Ilya, please.” Shane says, the words tearing out of him. Whatever expression his face is making must give him away, because Ilya closes his eyes briefly, then sighs. He crosses the room and sits beside Shane on the bed, close enough to feel his heat, far enough to keep a careful distance.

“I’m sorry about last time. It’s just that it felt like– like we were more than just fucking, you know? And it made me realize–” Shane trails off, fear rising as the words get heavier, more dangerous. He can’t help remembering the feeling of the peonies coming up his throat that day in Boston, the way the force of it had doubled him over in the bushes.

Ilya’s attention is absolute, listening with his whole body. “Realize?” He prompts, quietly.

“It made me realize how much I like you. How much I want us to be an ‘us’.” Shane swallows, throat tight. “Do you–? I mean. I feel like. Maybe you want that too?”

Ilya leans back and stares at the ceiling, jaw flexing, something shuttered sliding into place behind his eyes. “It’s not possible.”

“Not what I asked.”

“It’s bad idea.” 

“Also not what I asked.” Shane lets the words hang between them. He hesitates, then another thought hits him full-force, stealing the air from his lungs. “I mean. You could just say it, if– if you don’t like me back. It would be okay”

It absolutely would not be okay. The idea compresses his chest so tightly he can barely think around it. The possibility of Ilya not wanting him back makes Shane’s body want to collapse in on itself. Makes something small and helpless curl at the center of him.

“I do like you.” Ilya says immediately. “Of course I like you.”

“Oh.” Shane blinks, the word sounding soft and stupid. “Well. That’s good.”

Ilya holds his gaze for a long second, something raw flickering there, before his eyes drop to his hands in his lap. “I could never go home. To Russia.” He says it plainly, but the words are sharp-edged.

“I know Russia, like, in general isn’t super accepting. But, um, what about your family specifically?”

“Sveta would understand,” Ilya says. “But my brother? My father?” He shakes his head once. “They are both police and father is– Not right. He is sick.”

“Cancer?” The word slips out before Shane can stop it, his mind flashing to Amira.

“Dementia.”

Ilya turns his face away completely, shoulders going rigid. Shane doesn’t understand why at first—until he hears the sharp, broken sniff. Oh. He’s crying. And he doesn’t want Shane to see it.

“Hey–” Shane whispers. He reaches out, tries to guide Ilya’s face back, but Ilya resists, stubborn set to his jaw. “Hey.” Shane shifts without thinking, swinging a leg over Ilya’s lap, closing the space and anchoring them together. He cups Ilya’s face and kisses the dampness from each eyelid, gentle and reverent, then presses a soft, wet kiss to his mouth. “It’s okay. You can– you can cry.”

Ilya breaks then, the tension finally giving way. He folds forward into Shane as Shane gathers him close, rocking them slowly, steadily, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Shane briefly considers telling Ilya everything. Right here, right now—while they’re still close, while the air hasn’t quite settled after everything they’ve admitted. While he’s cradling Ilya’s head and rocking gently in his lap. 

Ilya’s breath is warm in his ear.

But Shane has already crossed a line tonight. He’s said the part he’s been circling for what feels like forever—that this isn’t just sex for him anymore, that somewhere along the way Ilya stopped being just some convenient outlet. That confession alone feels enormous, like stepping onto lake ice and trusting it not to splinter and swallow him down whole.

But this—this would be enormous. He doesn’t know how to even breach it. Oh by the way, I love you so much my body is literally trying to kill itself about it.

Shane can picture it in high definition– the way the moment would derail, how everything they’ve just built would get swallowed by Ilya’s panic.

So he keeps the petals to himself. Because some truths are too big to drop all at once, and Shane is terrified that if he says it now, it will crush whatever fragile, promising bud they’ve just started to grow between them.

Instead, he stays where he is. Holding and being held in return. 

Chapter End Notes

Camellias - affection and admiration
Tulips - renewal, profound bonds, generosity

Thank you everyone who has left kudos-- its wild to me that people even read my stuff let alone like it? And thank you especially to everyone who commented so far it really means a lot to me :')

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

I upped the rating on this fic to explicit because I normally write pretty light sex scenes that are mostly fade to black but. um. I felt something that could have been the holy spirit move through me while I was writing this week. So. We've got my first ever fully-explicit scene in this chapter?

February, Boston, 2017 

And for the next few weeks, things are…  good. Great, even. Not perfect—but lighter. Steadier. like the earth beneath Shane’s feet is finally solid. Admitting he liked Ilya, saying it out loud, and having Ilya admit it in return settles the flowers in his chest in a way nothing else has until this point. Shane can tell that they’re still there, still dangerous, but they’re quieter now. Dormant. 

Returning to Ilya’s place in Boston feels a little like revisiting a crime scene. The memory of him bolting—heart in his throat, lungs on fire—lingers uncomfortably. Shane refuses to let it get the better of him. He breathes deeply through his nose a few times before knocking, centering himself, then steps back with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, posture deliberate and calm.

The door opens, and there is Ilya barefoot, in soft gray sweatpants and a shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach, curls loose and unruly like he hasn’t bothered with gel at all. 

Shane’s mouth quirks into something bright and mischievous. “Hello, sir, I’m with Greenpeace and we were wondering if you would be interested in signing our petition?”

Ilya’s face splits into a delighted grin before he schools it into a scowl. “I don’t know. What is in it for me?”

Shane closes the distance, shuffling forward and placing both hands on Ilya’s strong chest, pushing him back over the threshold with a confidence that feels new and thrilling.

“Woah, excuse me? You cannot just come into my house, Mr. Stranger-I-definitely-do-not-know?” 

“Please, sir, I really need your signature. I’ll do anything.”

Ilya grabs Shane’s chin and tilts it up. His touch is searing—thumb warm at his jaw, fingers firm enough to make it impossible to look anywhere else. A shiver of anticipation shoots up Shane’s spine, sharp and electric, settling low in his gut.

“Anything? Tell me what you would do.”

“I– I would–” Shane stammers. On the flight here, on the drive from the airport, he’d turned this moment in his mind over and over until it was worn smooth like a river stone. Imagined the safety of Ilya’s arms. Now that he’s here, with Ilya’s breath so close and his eyes dark and intent, the possibilities crowd in all at once. His mind goes blank with the surge of wanting.

Ilya’s eyes search his, patient but assessing, like he’s reading something Shane hasn’t quite learned how to say out loud yet. Whatever conclusion he comes to, he reaches it alone—because he steps back. 

Ilya snaps his fingers, sharp and decisive.

They’re both surprised by the speed at which Shane’s knees hit the ground.

“Good.” Ilya says. His fingers draw a hot circle around Shane’s lips before pressing inside. Shane swirls his tongue around them, laving at the space between Ilya’s knuckles. Ilya presses deeper until Shane can’t handle it, gags once against his will. 

Ilya withdraws his fingers with a wet pop and crouches down. “It’s so hot when you do that– you take me until your body is on the verge of collapse.” 

Heat blooms in Shane’s cheeks. He doesn’t realize his gaze has dropped to the floor until Ilya’s huge hand is gripping his chin again, forcing him to look into his eyes. “It is, Shane. I like how hard you try to be good for me. You like that too, don’t you?” 

Shane nods helplessly. He does. Shane knows that he can get in his own head, spin himself in tighter and tighter circles. He likes it when the world narrows down to two twin pinpoints– Shane and Ilya, Ilya and Shane. He likes not having to think beyond the next moment, where the pleasure burns away the rulebook he is always flipping through in his head. 

“Good. Now open.” 

Shane opens his mouth wide, eyes following Ilya as he stands back up and shoves his hand into his sweatpants. He’s already starting to drool by the time Ilya’s cock springs free, red and throbbing and proud. 

Ilya slaps it against Shane’s tongue once, twice, three times before sliding in decisively, pushing into the wet warmth of Shane’s throat. Shane hums around it happily before bobbing his head in earnest. He works himself into a steady rhythm and is just reaching for his own aching dick when Ilya taps his cheek insistently. 

“Ah, ah! No touching until I say.” 

Shane whimpers, hand immediately shooting away from where he wants it most. He crosses his hands behind his back to remove the temptation. 

Ilya fucks himself into Shane’s mouth a few more times before deliberately drawing himself away. Shane must make a disappointed noise because Ilya clicks his tongue and says, “don’t complain— I’m not done with you. Up, up, let’s get out of the fucking door.”

Shane makes to stand and immediately fumbles—his legs wobble, useless and jelly-soft from kneeling so long. Before he can tip forward, Ilya is there, hands sliding under Shane’s armpits and hauling him upright with easy strength. Shane stumbles into him, steadying, breath huffing out in a laugh. He wonders if he will ever stop feeling that thrilling spark of heat every time Ilya manhandles him like this. He strongly suspects the answer is no.

Ilya kisses Shane, filthy and open mouthed, pulls back just enough to say, “What do you want?” His breath is warm in Shane’s mouth. This time the answer comes quickly to Shane. “In me, in me, in me, in m–” he cuts off into a moan as Ilya’s hand finds his dick, presses against it hard through his pants. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, herding them toward the couch like an eager sheepdog. The sight of it sends a sudden spike of anxiety through Shane— that couch, the scene of the crime, of everything unraveling. He knows it’s irrational, knows it’s just furniture, but his body doesn’t care about logic. Shane absolutely does not want to be on that fucking couch. 

“N-no,” Shane says breathlessly, the word tumbling out before he can second-guess it. “I want—”

Ilya cocks his head, all momentum stilling at once. His hands hover awkwardly, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes sharp, searching Shane’s face.

“Kitchen.” Shane blushes furiously, heat flooding his cheeks and down his neck. 

Ilya’s smile is playful and boyish, showing those pointed teeth that Shane likes so much. “You want me to bend you over the kitchen counter and fuck you like some kind of slut.” He says smugly, “Say it. Say you want that.” 

Shane lifts his chin defiantly. “I’m not going to beg.” 

Ilya’s grin turns wolfish. “I think you are. I think you are going to beg.” He walks them into the kitchen, backing Shane up until his thighs hit the counter. He hoists Shane up and settles between his legs. “Is this where you wanted it?” 

Shane bites his lip and nods. 

Ilya makes quick work of Shane’s jacket and shirt, stooping to untie Shane’s shoelaces. He gently pulls them off, then Shane’s socks, pressing a reverent kiss to each newly exposed ankle. Shane’s heart gives a happy lurch at the tenderness of the motion. 

Ilya straightens and starts to reach for Shane’s waistband when Shane grips Ilya’s wrists, quick as a flash. “You should know–” Shane’s face feels on fire, he can’t even imagine how red he must be right now. 

Ilya pauses, expression flickering. He darts in to press a quick kiss to Shane’s lips. “Tell me.” 

“I did– something.” 

“Something.” Ilya repeats slowly. 

Shane is burning red hot. Admitting what he’s done is almost as embarrassing as actually doing it. “I– well. On the plane. I um. I maybe–um.” Oh sweet Jesus, he can’t make his mouth form the words. “Oh, fuck it!” Shane drops Ilya’s wrists and wiggles out of his pants and underwear in one movement. He flips himself and bends over the counter so Ilya can see his ass on full display. 

‘You want to turn over and let me have you like a dog in heat’ Ilya once said. The thought sends a spike of humiliation and arousal straight to his dick.

At this angle there’s no way Ilya can’t see the bright red object that is stuck in his ass. 

Ilya says something in Russian and then suddenly his hands are kneading the globes of Shane’s cheeks. “That is. Something.” 

“Oh fuck y—“ 

Shane’s complaint is cut short by Ilya grabbing the plug and giving it an experimental pull. The sensation drags an unexpected moan out of Shane.

“When did you do this?” 

“Ah-ah— the—ah plane!” Shane is having trouble forming sounds in his mouth as Ilya begins to fuck the plug in and out of him in slow bursts. 

“You opened up yourself in a plane bathroom? Put this inside yourself?” He sounds delighted. 

“Yes!” Shane gasps.

“And who were you thinking about when you were doing it?” 

Honestly, the entire process of putting the plug in had been ridiculous. The airplane bathroom was barely big enough to turn around in let alone maneuver at an awkward angle. And everything about it was uncomfortable—by the time he’d made it back to his seat he was flushed and sweating, painfully aware of his own body and feeling completely absurd for having attempted it at all.

The worst part came on descent. As the plane hit turbulence on its way into Boston, each jolt sent an impossible volt of electricity straight up his groin, humiliating and impossible to ignore. Shane had never been so relieved to feel a plane touch down in his life. He’d gone through customs with a half-chub and prayed to any god listening that no one noticed.

But he’d wanted this—for Ilya. Wanted to do something declarative, something that could hold all of it at once: thank you, I’m sorry, I want you. And yes, selfishly, he also wanted this moment too—the look on Ilya’s face, pupils blown wide, that flash of awe that said Shane had surprised him. Thrilled him. 

Ilya’s hand stills abruptly, “I asked you a question, Shane.” Ilya says in a low, urgent voice. “Who were you thinking about while you put your fingers into yourself? Who were you thinking about when you put this thing inside you?” 

Shane whimpers and tries to push his hips back onto the plug but Ilya has his arm firmly pinning him down. 

“Who?” 

“Fuck—! You! Always you.” Shane pants, sweaty and frantic. He tries to buck his hips again but Ilya is too strong.

“So nice of you to come prepared.” Ilya fucks the plug back in, slowly, slowly, letting it catch on Shane’s rim before popping it back out again. 

Shane can’t help the tears that spring to his eyes. It’s too much. It’s not enough. 

Ilya bites Shane’s shoulder, teeth sinking in just hard enough to make Shane gasp, and Shane clings to the sensation like an anchor. He wants it to bruise, wants the ache to bloom dark and unmistakable by morning. He wants something visible, something irrefutable—that this is real, that he is chosen, that he belongs to this beautiful man who is tearing him apart and holding him together all at once. 

“Ilya! Ilya, please.” 

“See? I said that you would beg. You do it very pretty.” 

The compliment sends heat to Shane’s cheeks and to his groin. He’s not sure how much more of this he can take. “Ilya I need—“ 

“I know what you need.” Ilya says. 

And Shane knows that he does. 

Ilya slides the plug out and tosses it uncaringly over his shoulder. Shane is about to open his mouth to say how gross that is but Ilya is already sinking into the tight heat of Shane’s body. 

The next few moments are sensations only. Feelings of yes and right and good and home home home. 

Their bodies entwined at last feels like a homecoming.

Ilya’s pace begins to stutter and Shane can feel him begin to pull out. 

“Mmph— stay–!” is all Shane can get out before he’s coming hard into the side of Ilya's designer marble counters. 

It’s only a few breaths before Ilya is finishing too and Shane feels the wet heat of Ilya filling him up. 

Ilya collapses on top of Shane, the impact knocking the air from his lungs and pinning him harder into the cool edge of the counter. And for a long moment they’re just a tangle of limbs and heat, breathing each other in, suspended in the aftermath.

“I can’t breathe Ilya.”

With a grudging, heavily put-upon sigh, Ilya peels himself off of Shane. He steadies Shane by the forearms, helps him back into a standing position like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and presses a kiss to his sweaty brow— affectionate in a way that feels almost devastating.

Shane smiles when he catches the expression on Ilya’s face. He can’t quite name it. Tenderness, maybe. Incredulity. Something like wonder? Whatever it is, it makes the petals in his lungs flutter, restless and alive, like they’re recognizing who they are for.

“Shane.” Ilya says. 

“Yes?” 

Ilya pauses, clearly gathering his thoughts. Shane knows sometimes Ilya has to think longer to put what he wants to say into English so he waits patiently. 

Except.

Just as Ilya opens his mouth to speak Shane can feel some of Ilya’s spend start to leak out of him. Shane winces and blushes furiously. “Sorry.” 

Ilya just laughs, easy and unbothered, waving him off like it’s nothing at all. “Always apologies. Why? I’m not sorry. Plus it’s my mess.” 

Shane slaps at where Ilya’s hands have started to wander below his waist again. “Not until we’ve showered.” 

“Okay.” Ilya says, smile tugging at his lips. “Deal.”

*

So they shower. Steam fogs the glass as water pounds steadily from Ilya’s deeply stupid rain showerhead. Shane shampoos Ilya’s curls, fingers careful as he detangles snarls. As gently as he can Shane massages into Ilya’s scalp, coaxing tension out of his lover in small circles. Ilya closes his eyes, tipping forward into the touch like he trusts it completely, like he’s been waiting all day for it. And after, when Ilya enters him again right there under the hot spray of the water, it is impossibly tender. Slow. It’s a tethering of a ship safe to harbor. Shane presses his forehead to Ilya’s collarbone and lets himself imagine a world where he doesn’t just have this some of the time.

When they are—at long length—finally clean, they kiss their way out of the bathroom, leaving wet footprints on the floor. They collapse onto Ilya’s bed in a tangled, satiated heap, still warm, still a little damp. It’s nice to just lie together without needing to hurry, without bracing themselves for the next thing. The moment stretches, generous and sleepy. Shane presses a soft kiss to Ilya’s chest, right next to his crucifix, and when Ilya speaks his chest vibrates under Shane’s cheek. It’s a low rumble that sends a quiet, private thrill straight through him.

“I cannot believe you did karaoke with Rose Landry and not with me. I win at karaoke every time.”

Shane lifts his head off Ilya’s chest, squinting at him in disbelief. “You can’t win at karaoke that’s not how it works”

“Uhh– maybe you cannot but for me? I win.” Ilya says, with a hint of a pout.

Shane snorts, the sound muffled as he drops his head back down, cheek warm against Ilya’s bare skin. “You’re ridiculous. Anyway, that was not a good night. I was– I was sad. About you. And it made me act stupid.”

A hand slides through Shane’s hair, slow and unhurried, before Ilya presses a kiss to the crown of his head. “Was not stupid. I saw the video. It was cute.” Then he mumbles directly into Shane’s hair, “I was sad about you too.”

The admission settles between them. Shane exhales, long and relieved. “I’m glad we’re not sad anymore.”

There’s a pause that lasts a beat too long—then Ilya says, “me too.”

*

March 2017

The warm bubble they’ve created bursts when Ilya’s father passes. Suddenly Ilya is gone to Russia and Shane has to figure out how best to help from thousands of miles away. 

When Shane offers to let Ilya tell him everything he’s feeling, he isn’t really expecting Ilya to take him up on it. He just hates hearing Ilya suffering, and he thinks that if the roles were reversed, that’s what he would want. 

And yet, he’s thrown when Ilya says okay. 

So Shane listens intently while Ilya speaks rapid-fire Russian, the words tumbling over each other in a tidal wave that feels barely contained. He lets the cadence wash over him, closing his eyes. 

It’s special to him that Ilya is choosing to fill the silence rather than retreating or deflecting. That he’s saying something, even if Shane can’t translate a single word. It matters that Ilya is speaking.

Halfway through, Ilya’s deep voice falters. Shane feels his own heart breaking along with Ilya’s. He doesn’t have to speak Russian to understand this. Pain is a universal language.

“I wish you would teach me some Russian.” Shane says once Ilya has finished. 

Ilya exhales a short, surprised laugh, the sound still a little wet, still a little unsteady.

“Oh yes? What would you like to learn? ‘Fuck me harder’?”

The flirt is familiar ground. It’s safe ground. Shane smiles faintly, but he doesn’t follow Ilya there.

“What about: I wish you were here right now.”

Ilya’s response isn’t immediate. Instead there’s an abrupt sound and then– the line goes completely silent. There’s no background noise, nothing. Almost like maybe Ilya has put his phone on mute. Shane leans forward instinctively, concern already rising—

—but then Ilya speaks again, the Russian spilling out in a single sentence, softer this time. Slower. Measured.

“Okay. Really, I am done now.” Ilya says after a pause.

The call ends not long after. Shane sits there for a moment longer, phone warm in his hand, heart cracked open wide. 

He barely has time to turn his head before he’s heaving, stems of whatever is coming up scraping the inside of his mouth. Shane squints down at the slick stalk of lavender heaped in a bloody puddle on the hotel stairs. 

So much for having the flowers under control. 

Fuck. 

*

2017 Boston vs. Montreal 

To Shane’s horror, it happens again, and this time it's during a game.

His skates carve up the ice in jagged lines. J.J. sells a fakeout, dipping back just enough to pull the defense with him before he slips the puck back to Shane. Shane’s body moves on instinct. The shot snaps off his stick like a gunshot. The crowd ignites into noise, the stands a sea of red and blue. 

Shane is still grinning when Ilya comes at him, all momentum and boyish glee, hauling him into a fake scrum. They collide chest to chest, gloves tangling, shoving and suppressing laughter as if they’ve forgotten there are rules at all. Teammates swarm to pry them apart while Ilya grins too wide, laughter trapped behind his mouthguard. It’s ridiculous. It’s stupid. It’s exactly the kind of excuse Ilya would use just to get his hands on Shane.

Then—there’s a tickle in Shane’s throat.

Not sharp. Not urgent. Just enough to register, like a warning tap on the shoulder.

Shane huffs out a breath that could pass for a laugh and tilts his head, playing it like he’s catching air after the goal. His glove comes up to his mouth in a motion that could mean anything—wiping sweat, adjusting his mouthguard. He coughs once, carefully, into his hand.

He doesn’t look.

Inside, his pulse is screaming. Please. Please let nobody have seen. Please let the cameras be anywhere else. They all break apart, line up, the game surges forward again—but Shane can’t stop thinking about what’s cradled in his glove, warm and wet and damning.

He knows he has to focus. Get back in it. Skate. Breathe.

Shane risks the quickest glance backward at Ilya—just a flick of his eyes—and then the world goes black, sound collapsing into a high, hollow ring as his ears fill with static.

Lights out. 

-

Hospital. 2016. Post-Hit.

Things are a blur for a while after he comes-to. He gets poked and prodded by a number of very nice doctors and nurses. After a few hours, he sweet talks his way into getting his cellphone. 

His fingers feel enormous and clumsy as he taps the screen, taps Ilya’s name. 

Shane’s heartbeat leaps when he finally hears Ilya’s voice pick up. He sounds wrecked. “Shane. Oh my god, Shane.” 

Shane smiles at the ceiling, snuggling deeper into his pillows. “Il-ee-yah. Hiiiii!” The world has been fuzzy and distant since the hit—edges softened, time looping strangely—but Ilya’s deep voice snaps Shane into focus like gravity reasserting itself. “Why aren’t you here? I wish you were here.” 

Ilya’s voice is deep and rough, scraped raw around the edges. “You scared me.” He says, and it’s almost painful to listen to, like he’s been gargling with rocks. 

Shane runs a hand through his greasy bangs. “M’sorry.” 

Ilya’s rough voice sounds strained. “You have nothing to apologize for but–” He exhales noisily, “You shouldn’t be on your phone. Don’t– don’t go on your phone for a while. Or watch the news. I– Shane, something happened out there. On the ice. To me.  And I want you to find out from me, in-person. Can you do that?”

Shane hums vaguely, eyes still closed, blissed out and boneless. “Oh no worries, man. The nurse only agreed a 10-minute phone call because I asked reeeeally nicely. So, no more phone time for me. On account of the conky.”

The silence on the other end of the line is pronounced.

“The what?” Ilya sounds worried. Shane doesn’t like that Ilya sounds worried.

“The conky.” Shane sighs, burrowing deeper into his pillows. The bed feels incredible. Shane’s cheeks feel tingly. “It’s what Cheddar calls concussions.”

“Your doctor is named Cheddar?”

“I mean he’s a doctor but he’s not MY doctor. Actually he’s my peewee goalie. You met him, remember? Cheddar. Ched-dar. Chad. Header. Gettit? That was his nickname. Kids are awful but it could’ve been worse. M’buddy Dave was called ‘Shit-Shorts’ for years on account of him shitting his shorts once at summer training camp.” 

Shane steams ahead, delighted with his own train of thought. “‘Course we used to say Chad was in the wrong sport. Should’ve been doing soccer. ‘Cause then he could be like ‘hey look it’s me, Header doing a header.’ Can’t do a header in hockey or you’ll end up with a conky.” Shane chuckles softly. “Like me.”

Ilya doesn’t laugh.

“Shane. I think you need more rest.”

Shane opens his eyes just long enough to beam happily at the ceiling, the seriousness sliding off his back like water off a duck. Ducks are cute. Little duckies.

“Okaaay.”

It suddenly occurs to Shane that Ilya Rozanov is holding his phone with his hand. That hand was small once, Shane realizes. It was once tiny and sticky and chubby. The same hand Ilya once used to caress his face, the same one he’s holding his phone with, he’s used to sign countless autographs, clutch hockey sticks, stroke his cock. There is something warm growing in Shane’s chest. And he doesn’t need a diagnosis to know what it is. Doesn’t need Hanahaki or any other doctor to define it for him. 

I love you. He thinks. It’s so simple.

“Ilya. Have’y’ever seen Dirty Dancing?” Shane says.

Shane waits for Ilya to say something—then the door handle clicks.

“I gotta go, th’doctor’s back. Okay bye-bye, love you.” Shane says, and then hangs up the phone. His hand drops back to the blankets, suddenly heavy from holding up his phone for so long. There’s no more Ilya in his ear and it feels abruptly wrong wrong wrong. 

Dr. Reyes is kind as she makes small talk and checks Shane’s chart. Shane watches her do it vaguely, chest hollow without Ilya in his ear.

“How are you feeling, Shane?”

Shane turns his head toward Dr. Reyes and smiles politely, very proud of how calm he feels.

“I’m going to throw up on this blanket.” He says. 

She spins toward him, alarm flashing across her face.

“What?!”

Shane is, after all, a man who is true to his word. Shane promptly hacks into his lap.

The pain detonates instantly—white-hot, ripping through his chest like he’s coughing up shattered glass. His body convulses hard enough to jolt him upright, wrenching his broken collar bone. His breath tears out of him in sharp, broken pulls. Even through the thick haze of painkillers, it’s devastating. He can’t imagine how unbearable this would be if he were fully lucid.

Something wet and heavy lands in his lap, red splashing all over white sheets. 

Roses. Thorns attached. There’s blood dribbling over his lips.

Fuck.

Dr. Reyes is already moving, voice sharp as she calls for assistance, hands steady. Shane, detached and curious in the way only the heavily medicated can be, pokes at the slimy blossom pooled in his lap.

The petals are impossibly soft. Dark red, deepened further by blood and saliva. They cling to his fingers when he touches them, beautiful in a way that makes the back of his brain itch.

Huh, Shane thinks dimly. That’s new. And promptly passes out.

*

When Yuna and David finally make it to Montreal United Hospital, Shane’s good drugs are already starting to wear off. He’s sitting stiffly upright in bed, the only position that doesn’t send his shoulder into agony. One hand is clenching his sheets tightly, the other holds his–Ilya’s?--rose. He wouldn’t let the nurses take it from him. 

The first few minutes of the reunion consists of Yuna clucking over his injuries and his dad patting him gently on the head. But Shane knows the reprieve is over when Yuna bursts out, “What the heck is going on Shane, the doctors told me you are throwing roses.”

Shane opens his mouth to reply, already braced to explain, to soften it, to make it sound less than what it is—but nothing comes out. The words catch somewhere behind his teeth. His eyes burn, filling too fast, too hot. He blinks hard, jaw tight, refusing to give in to it. 

Yuna’s gaze sharpens. She looks over at David. Something passes between them because David says, “on it,” already backing toward the door. The door clicks shut behind him, leaving the room unbearably quiet.

“You’re in love?” Yuna tries again, softer. 

Shane’s throat burns. He pictures Ilya’s smile, canines pointed and long. The way he’s constantly checking in, phone glued to his hand. Those god damn cans of ginger ale stored in a neat row in Ilya’s fridge. Shane lifts up the rose in his hand and shrugs his shoulders helplessly– as if to say, well, isn’t this proof enough?

“It’s not Rose Landry, is it?”

Shane shakes his head no. 

“A different woman?”

Shane swallows hard. Then shakes his head again. 

The silence that follows is jarring. Yune exhales loudly and says, “Oh.” 

Then she steps closer, runs a soothing hand through his hair, the way she used to when he was little. It makes him feel 10 years old.

“How–How long?”

“A few years.” Even those few words scrape against his tender throat.

“Oh.” Yuna says again, and this time it sounds like she is redoing some calculations in her head. 

Shane needs to justify himself– to make this make sense to her. Speaking is agony but he has to explain. “I know– I know it’s not what you wanted for me, or what you pictured when you imagined my future. I just. I just need you to know that I tried my best, I really, really did.” 

When he looks up and sees the tears welling in his mother’s eyes, his heart stutters painfully. He can’t remember the last time he saw her cry—maybe Grandpa’s funeral, back in 2007, when her grief had made her appear fragile for the first and only time. Panic floods him. This is his fault. He did this. This is why he didn’t want to tell her. 

“I’m sorry, mom,” he rushes out, voice cracking despite himself. “I’m really sorry.”

Yuna’s face crumples. “No, no. I’m sorry. I think somewhere along the way I taught you the wrong things. Made you feel like you couldn’t let me know this part of you. But I’m– I’m always on your side baby. No matter what happens. I’m always, always, on your side.”

She reaches for him, her grip strong and sure, and closes her hand around his like she’s anchoring him to the earth. Shane squeezes back. “I’m not going to lie– It’s not exactly what I pictured when I thought of your future, but. The most important part of that image for me was that you were happy. Moms just want their children to be happy.” 

The tears Shane’s been holding back finally spill, hot and embarrassing and unstoppable, sliding down his cheeks and dripping off his jaw.

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you too.”

They sit like that for a while, hands clasped, tears quietly falling, listening to the sounds of the hospital carrying on around them.

Eventually Yuna straightens, drawing in a determined breath. She swipes the tears from her own cheeks, then leans over to gently brush her thumb under Shane’s eyes, clearing the tracks he’s left behind.

“Okay, no more of this. We’re done now. Crying doesn’t fix anything.” 

They inhale together, slow and deliberate, and exhale in sync. Shane’s chest loosens just a fraction.

Then Yuna tilts her head, practical and calm, “Let’s figure this out together. Step one. Who is the person you’re throwing petals for?”

Shane’s breath catches. 

Yuna notices immediately. She reaches up, tracing a soothing line along one of his eyebrows with her fingertip.

“There is no wrong answer here.”

This is actually the harder part than admitting he likes men. Shane drags in a shaking, gulping breath. He screws up his courage and then plunges in. 

“Ilya Rozanov.” 

“Boston?!” Yuna says, stricken

“Mom.” 

“There are plenty of attractive gay men in Montreal!” 

“Mom!”

“I mean, you can barely walk ten feet in the city without tripping over one.” 

“Mom!”

Yuna presses her lips together, tapping one finger against them as she thinks. Shane knows that look extremely well—it’s the same expression she wears before sweet-talking someone into a seven-figure sponsorship. She is calculating something.

“We can talk about the Rozanov part later. Your dad will be back soon and we can discuss it in a few days once your head is feeling better.” 

“Where’d he go, anyway?”

“I sent him for ice cream.” 

“You did?” Shane is too tired to parse how she did that without saying a single word to his dad. His body finally betrays him, exhaustion pulling his eyelids shut. For what feels like just a moment, everything goes soft and dark.

When he blinks awake again, David is there at his bedside, offering him a paper cup sweating condensation.

Shane squints at it, disoriented, then up at his dad. He must have dozed off.

“It’s lemon sorbet. For that throat. I called Cheddar– he said absolutely no dairy but that sorbet would feel good. He’s going to try to come out and visit you while you’re here.” 

Shane carefully shifts to take the cup from his dad without tweaking his shoulder. “Did mom–?”

“She filled me in.” David grunts as he lowers himself into the chair next to the bed.

Shane dips the spoon into the sorbet, which is already half melted. He smooshes some of it against the side of the cup. “And you…” 

David clears his throat. “I’m proud of you, kid. And I love you. Now eat your sorbet.” 

Shane smiles and takes a bite. 

-

As the days pass, Shane starts to feel less floaty and more hurty.

The fog of painkillers thins out, leaving him alone with the ache in his collarbone, the stiffness in his neck, the dull headache that never quite leaves. His teammates visit in twos and threes, bringing bad jokes, unsanctioned protein bars, and the careful, sidelong looks of people who have something they want to ask but are holding back. Shane gets the feeling he’s missing something, thinks about bringing it up, but the pain in his head is distracting. They come, they keep things light, and then they leave.

It’s the in-between stretches that feel endless. Shane isn’t used to just… sitting. Doing nothing. 

It doesn’t help that his mom is here now, management mode fully activated. His phone has been confiscated under the threat of “rest” and “healing” and “you literally have a concussion, Shane, get real.” Shane can’t sneak a glance without her noticing. He misses Ilya with an aching, persistent throb that sits right behind his sternum. He can’t remember the last time they’d gone this long without talking—without at least a call, a picture of something mundane or flirty, hell, a simple check-in text.

A small, irrational part of him is hurt that Ilya hasn’t come to visit. It would have been hard, sure, but Ilya is usually very good at hard things. He could have slipped in. Worn a hat and sunglasses. Or he could have just come as himself– just another MLH player showing concern. The thought gnaws at Shane.

He’s worked himself into a proper stew when he hears it. The faint sound of a hockey show seeps in from somewhere down the hall, tinny through a phone speaker. Shane only half listens at first, until his name cuts through the haze and snaps his attention into place.

“Shane Hollander is about to make us break our rule about not discussing hits on this podcast. This time we have to discuss it because– The slow-motion replay of this is fucking unreal. Kyle, can you play the video?” 

There’s a silence as presumably they watch Shane get lit up like Christmas. 

“He– he’s clearly looking backwards as he enters the neutral zone! It’s so fucking clear on the replay. That is–that’s fucking unreal, dude. What was he thinking?! What was he looking at?! One hundred percent this injury is his fault. If I was the general manager of the Montreal Metros I would trade his ass.” 

Shane stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched. It’s not like they’re not saying anything untrue. Shane knows that this is all his fault. He hadn’t been focused. 

“That’s insane–” “--fucking crazy dude” The guys start speaking over each other in a rush. 

“--fucked himself and the Metros out of the playoffs–”

“--How would you even–” 

“--trade his ass out of the division–” 

“--trade Shane Hollander? Trade him?! The captain and two-time cup-winning champion? Yeah. Okay. You know what? I’d like to hear you explain, in fucking French, to the Montreal fans why you did that.” 

Shane sinks deeper into his sheets, wishing a hole would open up underneath him and swallow him into the earth. The voices keep going, arguing in circles about recovery times and contracts and trading him to St. Louis.

“And we can’t end the episode without talking about the Rozanov of it all.” 

Shane’s stomach clenches. What does Ilya have to do with anything? 

“What’s up with him puking up roses on the ice? Shit I haven’t seen that much blood on the ice since–” 

“Magnus Lindgren in ‘98, yeah, we know.” 

“People have been intensely speculating who those roses are for.” 

“I mean, we know who they’re for, c'mon. He pukes ‘em up minutes after Hollander hits the ice. That’s pretty gay.” 

“Coincidence.” 

“It’s a pretty gay coincidence.” 

And suddenly Shane can’t hear anything besides the ringing in his ears. 

Chapter End Notes

Lavender - Devotion
Larkspur - Humor, gaiety, lightheartedness
Rose - True and passionate love

The show that someone is listening to in the hospital is based on an episode of the What Chaos podcast in which the hosts earnestly debate the merits of trading Shane after his injury.

Thank you to everyone who has read and left kudos!! Comments are always read and deeply appreciated.

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

One more chapter she said, you know, like a liar.

Please heed the updated tags! This chapter is a lot.

2003, Moscow, Russia. 

Ilya is only a few weeks short of his twelfth birthday when he finds his mother bent over the bathroom sink, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly, like she’s just run up too many stairs. The light above the mirror is harsh, turning her honey blonde hair almost blue.

At first he thinks she’s crying.

“Mama?”

He hurries forward, barefoot on the cold floor, reaching for her back the way she does for him when he’s sick. But before he can touch her, Irina straightens with a sharp inhale and wipes at her mouth. Something pink smears across her lips, sticking there with saliva before she swipes it away again. Petals settle in the basin, stark against the white porcelain.

Ilya freezes.

“What is that, mama?”

Irina’s hands tremble as she braces herself on the edge of the counter. Up close, Ilya can see how wan she has become lately—how her skin looks thinner somehow, how the dark circles under her eyes have deepened into bruises. She looks tired.

She exhales, steadying herself, and turns to him.

“Come here, Ilyushenka.”

He steps forward and is gathered instantly into her arms, her hug too tight, too firm, like she’s afraid he might slip through her fingers. Her palms flatten against his back, counting his vertebrae, a tapping rhythm. Ilya presses his cheek to her stomach and feels her heartbeat racing.

“I didn’t think flowers happened to married people.” He says into her belly. Flowers were for people in stories who hadn’t had their happy endings yet. Everyone knew that.

Irina lowers her head, resting her cheek against his hair, her breath warm against his scalp. For a second she doesn’t answer, just holds him. 

Then she breathes in.

“Ah. Love is not so easy. Your father…” She hesitates, rubbing her cheek gently into Ilya’s soft curls, the way she did when he was little and scared of thunderstorms. “I married your father and I loved him. He is that man still. And sometimes he is not. Does that make sense?”

Ilya pulls back just enough to shake his head. No. It doesn’t. Irina makes Papa sound like two people sharing the same body. 

Irina tightens her arms again. Ilya breathes in her familiar smell—soap, the faint vanilla of her perfume. But there is something beneath it all, something wrong: a sweet, rotten floral note that makes his nose wrinkle.

“I hope it never makes sense to you, little bear.”

She presses a kiss into his hair, lingering there, like she’s memorizing him.

Months later, when Ilya finds her crumpled on this same bathroom floor, pills and petals scattered like fresh snow around her, he will remember this moment—her arms around him, her voice steady despite the shaking—and it will burn in his chest. 

2009 - Shane Hollander’s Hotel Room. 

From the moment  Ilya Rozanov first laid eyes on Shane Hollander at world juniors he knew he wanted to get his hands on him. There was something about the way Hollander was wound so tight, all perfect politeness and insane hockey skill that made Ilya want to run his grubby hands all over him. Splash paint all across that perfect canvas. 

The fact that they were already being pitted against one another made it all the more enticing. Ilya loved fucking– that was simple enough. But the added element of danger, of risk. That was something else altogether. 

I am going to wreck you, Ilya thinks to himself in the elevator, bouncing from foot to foot. I am going to snap you in half, ride you hard, put you away wet. 

But once he’s there Hollander kisses him so sweetly. Gets on his knees so happily.  Sucks him off all clumsy enthusiasm and absolutely no finesse. 

Ilya’s traitorous heart gives a lurch at Hollander’s nervous earnestness. When Ilya had imagined how this encounter would go it had been sharper—angry, competitive, all teeth and claws. That is something that Ilya is used to. 

Instead, Shane moves like he’s afraid of doing something wrong.

He peels off his clothes one piece at a time and folds them, neat and deliberate, setting them on the nightstand with the utmost care.

The softness of it hits Ilya sideways. It’s ridiculous and absurd and unbearably Shane Hollander. Too careful, too sincere, too fussy for his own good.

Something tightens in Ilya’s chest. 

A dry, strange tickle meets the back of his throat. Suddenly his lungs feel like they’re seizing. For half a second panic flashes bright and cold behind his ribs. That’s all it takes for him to realize exactly what is happening– he’s seen it before after all.

Ilya turns the cough into a laugh. 

The sound catches, fractures. Ilya brings his fist to his mouth and coughs into it, shoulders shaking like he’s amused, like this is nothing at all. He keeps his head down, breath controlled, deliberately dislodging the petals in his windpipe.

When Shane whips around, eyes sharp and suddenly suspicious, Ilya is already smoothing himself out. He drops his hand, forces a crooked grin, lets the last cough melt into a soft huff of laughter.

Inside, his pulse is skidding. Outside, he looks easy. Unbothered. Perfectly fine.

“You making fun of me, Rozanov?”

“No. No, I would not dream of it, Hollander,” Ilya says, voice buttery and seductive.

At the same time, his hand closes around the sprig of something warm and damp he’s just coughed up. He doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t let himself. He shifts, casual as breathing, and when Shane turns back around to finish folding his shirt, Ilya slips his fist beneath the pillow like he’s only adjusting the sheets. The petals vanish.

“Come.” Ilya purrs. “You are too far away.”

Later, when Hollander is staring intensely at the ceiling and the room smells like sex, Ilya starts collecting his scattered clothes. He moves easily, lazily, like nothing in the world is wrong. Only when his back is turned does he slide his fingers under the pillow again, reclaiming his shame. His hand closes tight, crushing it before it can betray him any further.

It isn’t until the elevator doors shutter that Ilya finally exhales fully.

He opens his fist.

Nestled in his palm is a tiny stalk of lilac—elegant, guileless, and impossible to misinterpret.

Ilya Rozanov, you are so fucked.

-

1. Shane Hollander’s Apartment.

Entering Hollander for the first time feels like a revelation. There is something in his chest that is galloping wildly at the thought of being the one who gets to do this with Shane Hollander.
To have been the one given this privilege, to have been chosen to receive this tender gift. Ilya doesn’t know what to do with this feeling.  

He is also unbelievably nervous. And its not really about the sex– Ilya has been fucking men and women since he was 14; the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Ilya Rozanov is good at fucking. 

It’s the pressure of making this good for Hollander. Ilya wants to tear him apart. Rip open his ribs and make a home there. He wants to ruin Hollander for other people. There is something in him that is yawning wide and hungry. If this is the only time he will ever get to be with Hollander like this he wants to make an impression. He wants Hollander to never quite be able to forget the memory of Ilya on this night. 

I want to know that when you move on, you won't be able to forget me. Ilya thinks as he slides carefully inside Hollander. One year from now when you are fucking someone else. Five when you are engaged to a beautiful woman. Twenty years when you are attending your children's graduations. You won’t be able to forget the man who took you apart so sweetly. 

Hollander is a vision, legs folded up by his ears and arching so beautifully as Ilya fucks in and out of him. Ilya can’t stop himself from leaning forward and placing a delicate kiss to the freckles underneath Hollander’s right eye. He thinks Hollander is too blissed out to properly register what he’s doing. At least, that’s what Ilya hopes. 

After they’ve both finished, after Hollander mumbles something about the bed being dirty and Ilya showers, he feels triumphant. He’s managed this encounter well, Ilya thinks. And he felt nothing flutter in his chest beyond his own heart. Ilya has almost managed to convince himself that the lilacs a few years ago were a fluke. Some sort of one-and-done until–

Until he can’t stop himself from planting a soft and lingering kiss to Shane’s lips before he slips out into the darkness and into the car waiting for him. 

Ilya sits in his Uber and manages to make it five minutes down the road until he needs to shout at the man to pull over. He opens the car door and leans out to hack tiny yellow blossoms onto the wet Montreal pavement. He registers the driver cursing about puke in his car. 

Once he’s sure they’re all out he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and slams the door closed. He locks eyes with the taxi driver in the rearview. “50 dollars you see nothing.” 

The man shrugs. It’s only then that Ilya clocks the Metros logo air freshener dangling from his rearview. “Let’s make it 75, Boston.” 

Ilya grunts and forks over the cash. 

-

2014 Sochi Olympics. 

Ilya loses at the Olympics. He played well but the team choked. That’s just what happens sometimes in a team sport and that’s life. It isn’t the headlines that hurt. He can take journalists carving him into pieces, can take analysts replaying his mistakes in slow motion, can take strangers deciding who he is from behind a screen. All of that slides off of him.

The disappointment of his father burns like a brand. His father and Alexei. They slip past everything he’s built with the ease of habit—stiletto through the ribs, precise and intimate.

It’s dangerous when Hollander approaches him at the Olympics. Ilya used to be thrilled by danger, but the hunt, by the risk of it all. Hollander looks at him with those fucking brown eyes, all soft and sympathetic and Ilya’s instincts fracture. Part of him wants to snarl, to bare his teeth and drive Shane away. Another part wants to fold into those arms and forget where he is entirely.

Both urges scare him.

So he chooses anger.

Afterward, Ilya is almost proud of himself. No petals. No coughing. No weakness spilling out where someone might see it.

For a few hours, he believes he’s won.

Then he gets back to his childhood home.

By the time the first tightness crawls up his throat, he’s already in his old bedroom. The room hasn’t changed. Trophies still line the shelves, tarnished gold catching lamplight. Posters still grin down from the walls, frozen visions of heroes he once wanted to become.

The petals find him here, surrounded by the relics of a childhood that feels like it was centuries ago. He’s on all fours on the rug, breath stuttering. The leaves of this blossom are slightly serrated and they sting on their way out. 

-

2014 -  Major League Hockey Awards. 

“I heard that you and Shane Hollander are going to be hosting at the MLH awards this week.” Svetlana says casually. 

And Ilya has a hard time managing an appropriate response to this. He pops up from between her legs, chin glistening and scowls at her. “Sveta, can you not talk about other men with my tongue literally inside you?” 

Sveta rolls her eyes and pushes against his chest with a perfectly manicured foot. “If you were doing your job properly I wouldn’t be able to talk right now, Ilya Rozanov.” 

“Oh we are full-naming me right now? Perhaps I will just leave you here to tend to yourself.” Ilya says, slapping the flesh of Svetlana’s inner thigh and beginning to slide off the bed dramatically.

She cackles– a victory for Ilya– and hooks both of her feet around Ilya’s neck to block his escape. “You will finish me off this instant, Ilyushka, or I will release the photographs of you from–” 

“--you wouldn’t dare–” 

“--do you want to test that theory?” Sveta says, tongue catching on her teeth as she grins, the way she does when she is particularly happy. 

Ilya huffs dramatically before ducking back low, tonguing her soft folds. He slips a finger inside and feels Sveta shudder and relax around him. 

He eats Svetlana out and pretends that this thing with Hollander is temporary. He is stronger than this. His body is a weak hunk of flesh and he is going to will it into submission. Ilya is no stranger to whipping his body into shape, molding it into its most practical form. He will keep away from Hollander and the curse in his body will eventually fade. 

*

Ilya keeps his promise to himself just as long as Hollander is out of sight. He delays and delays seeing him until mere seconds until they’re meant to go on stage. 

Ilya takes one look at Hollander’s face and can tell he is a heartbeat away from a panic attack. His nervous energy sends tingles under Ilya’s skin. He can’t help teasing him on the stage, trailing his hand up Hollander’s back, silently counting the ridges in his spine.

They spill off stage and Ilya watches Hollander awkwardly speedwalk towards the back corridors and he resolves not to follow. 

He takes two steps in the direction of the audience before stopping. 

It feels like an invisible string is pulling him after Hollander. He’s just going to follow him and check that he isn’t actually going to off himself or have a panic attack. That’s it. 

-

2014 -  Ilya Rozanov’s Hotel Room, Post-Awards. 

Ilya can handle this situation. It’s just fucking, no matter what his brain or the petals in his chest are saying. Ilya can keep a handle on this just as long as he remembers that this is just a bodily urge. 

They fuck. Hollander asks him some halting questions about Russia and his family. Ilya flicks the ash off of his cigarette and grunts through an answer he doesn’t remember as soon as it leaves his lips. Hollander can be dense sometimes but thankfully he gets the message. He wanders into the adjoining room and Ilya listens to him methodically dressing, clothing rustling with his movements. 

Ilya stays glued to the bed. 

Hollander calls out a goodbye and the door clicks behind him with a finality that makes Ilya’s stomach clench. 

It’s only once he’s alone again that Ilya allows the flowers come up. He hunkers over the side of the bed and spews purple petals onto the ground.

*

The flowers come and go over the next two years. There are long stretches where his chest feels quiet, empty in a way that could almost pass for healed. Weeks. Sometimes months. No flutter, no tickle in his throat. Just lungs doing what lungs are supposed to do.

In those stretches, Ilya lives boldly. He goes out with Sveta and the boys, drinks too much, laughs too hard, adds nights to his collection of memories. He fills his big home with noise and bodies and motion, with anything that keeps him from sitting still long enough to be alone with his thoughts. If someone asks how he’s doing, he says good. If someone stays over, he makes sure they leave before morning. This play is easy to perform; he’s had the lines memorized since he was fourteen.

And yet he keeps sleeping with Hollander, too.

With Hollander, the petals always make themselves known; an unwelcome third party to their coupling. Sometimes it’s a soft warning, a tightness behind his ribs. Sometimes it’s violent and sudden, like his body is betraying him for fun. Ilya learns to manage it. He flushes blues and purples and fuchsias down the pipes and pretends the throb in his chest is just exertion.

He tells himself it’s physical.

Which is ridiculous, because Ilya has had a lot of sex in his life, and nothing has ever felt like this. No one else has ever made his pulse race the way Hollander does, has never made him want to linger afterwards, has never made him memorize the shape of someone’s smile. With Shane, it isn’t just heat. It’s the way his name sounds different in Shane’s mouth. It’s the way his house feels too quiet after Shane leaves. It’s his soul looking in a mirror and seeing its reflection for the first time—it’s recognition. 

So Ilya works harder to ignore it.

He doesn’t let himself imagine past the next visit, the next game, the next excuse to see him again. He treats Shane like something temporary.

Ilya tells himself he can outlast this. If Ilya knows one thing it's how to just keep surviving.

-

2016 Boston, Ilya Rozanov’s Home.

“You could stay.” 

Hollander looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. 

Ilya doesn’t know what makes him say it really– just instinct telling him to grab onto Shane and hold him with both hands. “I’m not done with you yet” Ilya rushes to add. This is about sex, you don’t want him to stay for any other reason. Ilya leans over, presses a kiss to Hollander’s lips, “stay” he breathes into them. And by some miracle Hollander stays. 

Ilya wakes early, his brain coming online slowly. It takes him a long moment to realize that the body he is cradling in his arms is Shane’s. He flutters his eyes open and there he is. That beautiful boy curled onto his side, snuffling quietly into the pillow. Ilya traces the puckered scar across Shane’s left shoulder and wonders not for the first time where it came from. He wonders if Shane will ever tell him the story. 

Shane begins to stir so Ilya pretends that he is just waking too– he does not want Shane to know he spent the last quarter hour staring at him. 

The rest of the morning passes peacefully. They eat. They watch the Buffalo game. Even the call with his father and the silence of his brother cannot burst the warm bubble Ilya is in. 

Ilya returns to the couch and tugs Shane into a cuddle. He’s shocked and pleased when Shane begins to kiss down his chest, runs an exploring fingertip down the length of Ilya’s cock where it's trapped in his sweatpants. 

Suddenly he has a lapful of boy. Shane arches his back to rub their clothed cocks together, then makes quick work freeing them both from their pants. When Shane brings his hands up to his mouth Ilya spits dutifully, not able to suppress the grunt when Shane’s calloused hand closes around his aching dick.

Ilya finds that he really, really likes looking up at Shane. 

They lock eyes at the same time that Shane twists his wrist in exactly the right way– Ilya can’t help but gasp, “Fuck! Shane!” and suddenly he’s coming. His breath is heaving as Shane follows him over the edge and he almost swears that he hears Shane groan Ilya. 

It’s wishful thinking but the thought still makes Ilya smile. He tries to plant a playful kiss to Shane’s lips but he must not have been careful because he misses, lands closer to the corner of his mouth. Ilya tries again, trying harder with his aim this time but Shane is pulling away already.

Ilya thinks that this is Shane’s usual compulsion to immediately clean himself after fucking until– 

Until Ilya gets a proper look at Shane’s face. It’s blank in a way that Ilya has come to associate with Shane absolutely freaking out. 

Oh fuck.  

Ilya rewinds the last few seconds in his head as Shane frantically tugs up his sweatpants. He realizes his mistake. 

Shane he’d said. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! 

He watches Hollander get his head stuck in his borrowed black shirt. Ilya is frozen to the couch. 

“I gotta go. Um. Team meeting. Now. I forgot. So. I have to go now. Immediately.” Hollander stammers out.

Ilya is a fucking idiot. He let himself get swept up in his feelings. His father always said that Ilya never knew his place. 

“Hollander.” Ilya says, correcting his error from earlier. He says it and hopes Hollander hears it for the apology that it is. I forgot myself, but I will be better now.

Hollander doesn’t even look up at him. He stares at the floor and says tonelessly, “Thank you. For the tuna melt.”

Ilya can’t help reaching out, palm open. “Hollander.” Ilya says, by which he means: please, please come back. I will be good, I will remember my place. Forgive me. 

His hand is still outstretched long after Hollander has fled. 

After what could have been minutes or hours, Ilya stands up woodenly and carries their dirty dishes to the sink. He washes them methodically, stacking them on the drying rack. He grips the side of the sink tight, knuckles white, and then he’s coughing. 

Bright crimson petals mix with tuna melt in the basin of the sink. Ilya turns the water on and flushes it all down the stupid American garbage disposal and he tells himself that he doesn’t feel anything.

-

2016 October, Montreal, Caché nightclub.

“The only way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Svetlana had once said, laughing, back when they were teenagers. She’d just broken up with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, mascara smudged, mouth set in a brave smile. That was the first night they’d ever been together properly—two lonely kids learning how to use sex to cauterize wounds.

So he drags Marleau and Connors to the club. He just needs noise, bodies, sweat—anything to distract from the fullness behind his ribs when he lays down at night. Ilya is so, so tired of the heartache. Of the empty hotel rooms. Of waking up already braced for disappointment. 

He’s at the bar when he sees Rose Landry’s friend. His stomach clenches with the certainty that Rose is here too. With Hollander. 

He melts into the crowd, letting the music take over his body, swaying instead of standing still and breaking apart. It doesn’t take long before someone notices him. A woman catches his eye and doesn’t look away. It’s not long before he’s slotting himself in behind her. His hands find the swell of her hips, body moving to the thumping bass. Ilya’s palms sweep up, lingering over the generous curve of her breasts. 

He isn’t thinking about her. He’s thinking about being seen. About looking like he’s wanted. About proving that he isn’t still waiting around for Shane Hollander to choose him.

Ilya scans the crowd again and—there. Hollander.

Their eyes meet.

He can’t stop himself. Ilya leans forward and sucks the girl’s ear into his mouth. He does it the same way he used to with Hollander—slow, deliberate, intimate. The way that used to make Hollander’s knees go weak.

Ilya watches as his petty little knife slices through Hollander. His face twists, and then he’s turning and running off the dance floor in a rush. 

Where Ilya expects to feel victory all he feels is numb. He keeps dancing until he can no longer stand it. 

“Cigarette.” He grunts in the girl’s ear. He doesn’t honestly care if she’s heard him or not. Ilya goes out the side alley and pulls his pack out of his jeans. As he’s lighting up his eyes catch on a puddle of blossoms on the ground. 

Ilya squints at them. He’s no good at flowers– does not want to know them frankly– but these he thinks he recognizes. Chamomile. 

It makes him think to days when he was a child. Anytime he was sick his mother would brew a pot of chamomile tea and they would lounge on the couch together, legs tangled as they watched terrible 80s soap operas. 

Ilya cannot drink chamomile tea to this day, the taste of it makes him nauseous. 

There’s only one way a pile of spit-slick blossoms ends up in a dingy alley like this. Ilya exhales smoke through his nose like a dragon, the burn in his sinuses a comfort. Somewhere out there another poor bastard is coughing up petals too, choking quietly on the same disease.

The idea that he isn’t the only tragic idiot in this city, spewing flowers over someone who doesn’t want him back, settles him. 

At least tonight, he’s not alone.

-

2016 December, MLH Charity Drive

Ilya goes to the league’s Christmas charity drive. It gives him something to do over Christmas besides wander around his empty house. Sveta promised to come visit over new year’s but until then he is on his own. He couldn’t face going back to Russia right now. Alexei would sense blood in the water immediately and the ensuing fight would end with someone in the hospital. 

No. Ilya is staying right here this year. 

Plus, Ilya genuinely enjoys this sort of thing. Old people tend to be filterless and say whatever they mean– you don’t have to guess at what they’re thinking. It’s refreshing to be around people without artifice, especially when Ilya feels that’s all he is these days. Nothing but a weak and crumbling facade. 

Once the camera crew clears out, Ilya lingers. He’d had a long conversation with an old man debating the merits of Ryan Price being traded to the Minnesota Nomads. It’s the type of conversation that Ilya can have without thinking too hard. Eventually it peters out and Ilya starts to get ready to circulate the room when he is approached by a nervous looking staff member. 

“Ilya Rozanov?” The woman asks tentatively. “Hi, I’m Stacey. I am a care nurse here.” 

Ilya smiles and shakes her hand. 

She twists her hair around a finger and bites her lip. Ilya is expecting her to proposition him in all honesty, which is why he is so thrown by what she says next, “Um. I was wondering if you might come speak to one of my clients? Her name is Olga Petrova and she– well. She has dementia and Russian is her first language. You might not know, but with dementia patients sometimes they start to lose some of their language skills? So, like, English has been getting harder and harder for her.” 

Ilya isn’t sure what expression he is making but she rushes to explain even more.

“Well, it’s just that, um. I thought it would be good for her to talk in her native language, you know? And her family don’t get to visit much any more. And they told me you are from Russia. So.” 

There’s an awkward pause where neither of them say anything. 

“Shit– I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have–” Stacey says. 

“Of course.” Ilya cuts in smoothly. “Please, introduce us.” 

Ilya lets himself be led into a quiet corner where an impossibly small woman sits in a wheelchair, her legs hidden beneath a crooked, handmade blanket of mismatched crocheted squares.

Ilya squats down in front of her so that she doesn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him. Stacey begins introducing them in English, bright and bubbly, but Olga barely seems to register her. Her gaze skates over Ilya, unfocused, distant—until he speaks.

He greets her in Russian, soft and respectful, the kind of politeness that would have pleased Irina.

Olga’s eyes blink into clarity.

“Oh! It is nice to see you again, grandson. Where have you been?” Olga tuts at him. “You look like you have been sick. So pale, and eyes so dark.” 

“A touch of a cold, grandmother, that’s all.” Ilya says dutifully. He won’t be sharing that the real illness is standing on the other side of the room in his best button-down, making incredibly boring small talk. 

Olga smiles and it is a warmth that Ilya can’t help but feel he is stealing from her actual grandson, like a changeling. “Look at those beautiful curls. Ah, but you have grown so handsome.” She reaches out a small hand and cups his cheek. Her palm is paper-soft against his face. 

“But better than that, you are a very good boy. Grandmother is proud of you, you know?” 

Ilya didn’t know that there was a corner of his heart left unbroken until Olga shattered it. He blinks hard against the wetness in his eyes and reaches down to pull the blanket tighter across her lap. 

“You honor me, grandmother.” He murmurs, unable to look her in the eyes as he does so. 

Olga tips his head to the side, examining the angles of his face. “Why are you crying?”

Ilya can’t help the truth that spills over his lips. “I–I’m sad.” 

“I’m sorry you’re sad.” Olga presses a dry kiss to his forehead. 

“It’s okay.” 

“It’s not.” Olga says simply. 

They stay in silence for a while longer until Stacey comes back. She smiles at him and thanks him for spending time with Olga, as if it was some sort of hardship. As if Ilya did anything at all.

Ilya clears his throat and hopes his eyes aren’t too obviously red. 

After Olga is wheeled off by Stacey Ilya flits around the room a little longer. He doesn’t really want to stay, but he doesn’t really want to leave because Hollander is here, and it's one of the rare times that they’re in the same room together that’s not a hockey rink. Ilya surreptitiously scans the room and spots Shane at a table playing chess with a resident. From here it looks like Shane is losing badly. Then all at once Shane is surrounded by several eager octogenarians. They’re all speaking at him, grabbing at him, and Ilya recognizes the look that is beginning to bloom on his face; there’s that silent panic. Ilya can’t quite suppress the soft feeling he gets at the sight of Shane being swarmed by well-meaning seniors. 

Then Shane looks up at him and for a moment it’s just the two of them.  

Oh God its happening right now. Ilya can’t even hide his urgency, he has to fucking run for the bathroom. He’s barely made it into the stall before he’s choking. Ilya heaves for what feels like hours, until he’s empty and aching. 

-

2017, January, Boston Raider Training Center.

“Rozanov, did you see this?”

Marleau shoves his phone into Ilya’s line of sight. It’s a Twitter thread. It’s Shane Hollander… apologizing?

To the fans and everyone I let down yesterday. I’m really sorry. I’ll do better.

Ilya squints at it. “What, he kill someone?”

Marleau snorts. “Nah. He just got goofy in some bar. It’s actually fucking hilarious because he’s usually so buttoned-up.”

He hits play.

It’s Shane and Rose Landry on a karaoke stage, both of them visibly, catastrophically drunk, singing I’ve Had the Time of My Life at the top of their lungs. Rose goes for the lift, catches her heel in the mic cord, and topples them both straight onto the structure holding up the curtains. They bring it down a heap.

The video shakes with the laughter of whoever is recording.

There’s Shane giggling, breathless, already apologizing to everyone in sight, offering to pay for anything they might have broken as the clip cuts out.

It’s stupid. It’s harmless. It’s kind of adorable.

It hurts like hell.

Ilya loves this boy so much it is an illness. It should be him up there, not Rose. Him getting lifted, dropped, laughed at. Him listening to Shane apologize for existing.

He watches Shane’s video again. Then the shaky clip of karaoke. Again.

That should be me. His jaw tightens. Stupid Rose Landry. 

Maybe Shane really loves her.

The thought sends a cold dread up his spine. He flees the gym and settles under the boiling hot spray of a locker room shower. 

-

2017 - Ottawa. Children’s Hospital of Ottawa. 

Ilya’s hands won’t stop shaking. He’s spent an entire day with a perfect little girl who is desperately ill and his body is betraying him. And Amira is incredible– she is a tiny little gremlin and Ilya is endlessly charmed. 

Ilya has done many, many visits like this in his time with MLH. Every time it is baffling. It’s flattering, in a way, but more than that is just… confusing. He will always feel a little off-kilter at the idea that he is anyone’s favorite person, let alone someone who is actively dying. 

Why would anyone want to spend any of the precious minutes they have left on earth with Ilya Rozanov?

Ilya is contemplating this as he slaps a cigarette out of the pack he keeps on hand for emergencies. His hands are shaking so hard it takes him three attempts to light the fucking thing. Once it finally catches he sucks in a grateful breath, smoke curling around and drying out the leaves in his lungs. 

The petals have been ceaseless since Shane left him that day in his house in Boston.

At first it was only once every few weeks—one dry cough into the sink, a single, embarrassed blossom he could rinse away before coffee. Then it became once a week. Then every few days. Now it is almost constant, a low ache in his chest that never fully settles, lungs packed with something soft and wrong. The flowers hollow him out from the inside, leaving him stretched thin, breath shallow, energy leeched away in quiet increments. He still skates. Still hits the gym. Still fucks faceless women at the club. Still shows up. But everything feels heavier, like he’s moving through molasses instead of air.

He hides it badly.

His trashcans fill with tissues stained pink and red. His throat is perpetually raw. Sometimes, when he laughs, it turns into a choking fit that makes his vision sparkle with black at the edges. He’ll brace himself over the counter afterward, knuckles white, waiting for his heartbeat to stop trying to escape his ribs. He tells himself it’s manageable. He tells himself he’s had worse injuries– hockey isn’t a delicate sport afterall. 

Svetlana notices anyway.

She starts dropping by more often—showing up with soup he didn’t ask for, rearranging all of the furniture in his home while bullying him for his taste, lingering in doorways like a particularly beautiful ghost. He catches her watching him when she thinks he’s not looking: eyes flicking to his mouth when he coughs, to his chest when he inhales, to the sink after he disappears into the bathroom for too long. Her concern sits heavy in the room between them.

“Too much training,” he tells her. “Too many games.” “Not sleeping enough.”

Each excuse is pathetic. He knows he is not fooling her. But Sveta has always been too good to him and she does not call him on it.

But sometimes he sees her jaw tighten. Sometimes her hands pause mid-task. Sometimes she says his name like a question instead of a greeting. And every time she looks at him that way, Ilya feels the petals settle deeper in his lungs, like they’re rooting there, growing comfortable.

Ilya wonders how much longer he can keep this up for before he has to admit defeat and come clean to her. 

It’s the last thought Ilya has before he is suddenly slapped hard across the jaw. It’s the surprise more than the pain that stuns him. Hollander is in front of him all panting anger and burning red cheeks. It makes his freckles all the more prominent. 

“Are you fucking kidding me! Are you fucking kidding me right now?! After you just spent an entire day with a little girl with cancer?” Hollander shouts. 

He’s all righteous fury, incandescent with it, like an old testament angel, holy and wrathful.

The sting in Ilya’s cheek from the hit barely registers compared to the fire spreading through the rest of him. How dare Hollander stand here pretending to care, pretending to be outraged, pretending he gets to have a say. The hypocrisy hits harder than the slap ever could. 

After Hollander left him. After Hollander was the one who ran. After Hollander looked at him like Ilya was a mistake.

“You have no right.” Ilya grounds out, fighting to keep his voice flat while it feels like his skin is going to vibrate off of his bones.

“I-I don’t have a right.” Hollander says, tone abruptly shifting into something softer. “I’m– fuck, sorry I’m fucking this all up. Can we please talk somewhere? Privately?”

And it’s a bad idea. Shane is a bad idea. They’ll go back to Ilya’s hotel room, and he’ll forget how to stay angry with Hollander. They’ll touch and kiss and fuck and they’ll both politely pretend like Ilya is not a broken thing. 

Tomorrow the agony of it will be doubled for how sweet it was the night before. 

He stares at Hollander who is waiting for an answer. Hollander is rocking slightly on his heels, hands useless at his sides, stance awkward in that way it always is– like Hollander doesn’t know exactly how to position his body at any given moment. 

Fuck it. 

Ilya has a long history of loving things that will kill him. What’s one more? He drops the cigarette and snuffs it out with the heel of his boot. “Okay.”

By the time Ilya makes it to his rental, he’s already folding forward over the steering wheel, petals spilling into the footwell before he’s even put the fucking thing in reverse.

*

They don’t fuck. It’s much, much worse than that. 

Ilya tries, of course. He tries to remind Hollander that Ilya can be easy again– Ilya can fold himself into any shape that Hollander finds most appealing. He is sucking on Hollander’s tongue and running his hands up Hollander’s abdomen the moment he walks through the door. 

But then Hollander is pushing him back, wants to talk. 

“It made me realize how much I like you. How much I want us to be an ‘us’. Do you–? I mean. I feel like. Maybe you want that too?”

This isn’t happening. Ilya grits his teeth and traces a water stain in the ceiling with his eyes. Protect yourself Ilya. This is a trap. You do not get to have this. Ilya thinks. 

“It’s not possible.”

“Not what I asked.”

“It’s bad idea.” Ilya corrects.

“Also not what I asked.” Shane pauses and then knocks the breath clean out of Ilya with his next words. “I mean. You could just say it, if– if you don’t like me back. It would be okay”

“I do like you.” Ilya says immediately. “Of course I like you.” The idea that Ilya doesn’t like Shane is absurd to a point that Ilya cannot let it stand, even for a moment, despite every instinct in his body screaming at him to protect himself. 

“Oh. Well. That’s. Good.” Shane says in that halting way of his. 

Ilya yearns to reach out and hold his hand. He loves this boy. Ilya wishes it could be simple. But– “I could never go home. To Russia.” Even if by some miracle Shane did not tire of Ilya, a relationship between them would not be possible. Russia is not safe for such things. And something squirms in his gut at the idea of what his father would say if he were ever to find out.

Ilya tells Shane about his father. About his illness.

And suddenly Ilya can’t hold it back anymore. A tear slips from his eye unbidden, and he immediately turns away. He doesn’t want Shane to see his weakness, doesn’t want Shane to know this part of him. 

But Shane has always been too generous. 

Shane wipes the tears from Ilya’s face with his thumbs, kisses his damp cheeks, then presses a wet, salty kiss to his mouth. Shane rocks him back and forth cradling him like he, Ilya, is something precious. Something Ilya thought long dormant wakens at the touch, embers he hadn’t realized were not fully banked sparking back to life. 

For a split second Ilya considers telling Shane everything.

But then he thinks about the last time they got close like this. The way Ilya had asked for too much of Shane. The way it had panicked Shane and sent him literally running. Ilya’s heart has always been a greedy, grasping thing. Without careful discipline it grows unruly. 

So Ilya swallows the words down, swallows the ache. Swallows the petals that have slowly been building at the base of his throat. 

This is enough. You will not be selfish. He tells himself firmly. You will be satisfied by what you get and you will not ask for more. 

But Ilya cannot help himself. He decides right then and there that if they’re to do this, that Ilya will be all-in.

And that thought alone is a comfort. 

-

March 2017, A few weeks later. 

Ilya’s father passes and everything is needlessly complex. His family, putting his father’s estate in order, managing the funeral, the burial; Ilya had had no concept of how busy death makes a person. When his mama died he was too young to have noticed these things. But now? Now he is in charge and there is no time for grief when managing so many tasks. 

Then everything is over and he’s fighting with his brother. Sveta is planting a soft kiss to his mouth and telling him it's okay, that he is going to be fine. 

By the time Ilya calls Shane on his walk, he is so mixed up he barely knows where he is. The only solid thought he can fix on is that he wants to hear that flat tone of Shane’s in his ear. He needs Shane to tether him back to earth or he thinks he might float away. 

“How are you?” Shane’s voice is an anchor. 

“Okay. Not good. Probably bad.” Ilya grits out. 

He struggles to put his thoughts together, let alone translate them into English. When Shane suggests he just speaks in Russian he shrugs his shoulders. Fuck it. Why not. 

Ilya takes a deep breath and talks about how hard this has all been. The confusing web of hurt and anger that binds the Rozanovs together. He pauses at one point, thinking about his father. 

“He wasn’t always terrible, you know. This would have been much easier if he had been. But he wasn’t.” Ilya closes his eyes and breathes through the memories of going to the small store around the corner for little cakes after church on Sundays. Of his father lifting him onto his shoulders while Ilya licked the honey off his fingers. How his father would lean in and kiss Irina with Ilya still on his shoulders as if Ilya himself was God looking down on them from the clouds.  

The way his father would sometimes come to his games when he was a child. How he would sometimes squeeze Ilya’s shoulder after a win and say, “Very good, Ilyukha.” 

Ilya doesn’t know how to begin to explain, even in Russian, how much it hurt when these moments of light came less and less. 

When ‘Ilyukha’ turned into ‘Ilya’ turned into ‘lazy bastard’.

And then what happened after Irina died. Well. That doesn’t even bear thinking of. 

He clears his throat and forces his thoughts down another path. 

“I still have Sveta. She loves me. But not like– Not like how I love you.” 

The petals are fluttering in his chest but they don't come up. The confession seems to settle something in him for the moment. 

“It is tearing me apart, you know?” He sniffs, the cold air stinging his nostrils. “Not like– not like a fucking metaphor but actually. Physically. And it’s crazy but I almost appreciate it. Not the retching– that I could do without.” Ilya laughs humorlessly. “But the fact that it is real. That I can hold my love for you in my hands. This, at least, is something that I can touch.” 

Ilya draws in a huge breath. “You asked me once what I wanted. I want you. I want it to be different. I want to be enough for you. I-I want–” Ilya stops. “Fuck. I should know by now how not to want what I cannot have but there. I have always been stupid and slow to learn.” 

Shane is silent, but he can hear him breathing steadily on the line. Ilya wonders how long Shane would sit on the phone in complete silence if he asked him to. 

He won’t ask him to. 

Ilya says, “I’m done.” 

Shane asks him to teach him some Russian and Ilya tries to find the path back to normalcy again. To ground that feels familiar under his feet. He flirts with Shane, “Oh yes? What would you like to learn? ‘Fuck me harder’?”

His lips are already twitching into a smile, anticipating the way Shane will stutter before he sends back a weak little volley of his own. But he doesn’t. He does something terrible instead and says– “I wish you were here.”

And that is what does it. Ilya slams his phone on mute and turns his head aside to roughly cough up petals into the frozen ground. The force of it brings tears to his eyes. 

Shane wants him there. Shane wants him there. Ilya loves him and every breath is agony.

Ilya spits one last time and takes himself off of mute. “I wish I was there too.” He says in Russian. Keep me, Ilya almost says, do not let me part from your side. 

Instead he says. “Okay. I’m really done now.” 

After he hangs up Ilya tips his head to rest against his knees and considers what a fine fucking mess he has made of his life. 

-

2017 - Boston Vs. Montreal 

Ilya sees it happen a split second before it does. Just enough time for him to suck in a fearful breath, not enough for him to alert Shane in any way. 

The sound of Marleau hitting Shane is one he won’t soon forget. The crowd makes a sorrowful noise, a massive beast howling on all sides. 

Shane is on the ice. Shane is on the ice and he is not moving. Shane is on the ice and he is not moving and the medics are coming out. 

Ilya is only distantly aware that Marleau is fending off an attack from Pike– the two teams swarming together like angry bees. The fear in the stadium is a physical thing. 

“Is he okay?” Ilya hears his own voice saying. He tries to move closer but the ref pushes him back and to tell the truth– 

He couldn’t go closer even if they would let him. Ilya’s legs simply won’t move. 

Ilya sees Shane laying there on the ground. Not moving. Not moving like mama. In a tangled heap of limbs like mama. 

Then in a rush he hears Shane groan, hears him grunt something to the medic. 

Alive his blood is singing in his veins. Alive alive alive!!

The crowd is on its feet, clapping as Shane is wheeled off the ice. Ilya watches him disappear into the tunnel and feels something inside him give a furious lurch. 

That’s all the warning he gets before he’s folding in half, body ripping from within. Ilya has never felt a pain so blinding before. It feels like something with claws is trying to surge from out of his chest. Ilya hears someone– Connors?-- call out to him in concern but it sounds like it is coming from somewhere far, far away. 

Ilya cannot breathe. This clawed thing is stuck inside his throat. Something primal kicks him in the back of the brain. He is wheezing, disembodied hands are on his back thumping him hard. Ilya opens his mouth, rips his glove off with his teeth. Then he is jamming his fingers into his throat where he can just barely grasp the tip of a vine. 

Ilya’s vision is beginning to blacken at the edges as he struggles for air. With one last surge of adrenaline he pulls. 

A long, thorned vine is wrenched from his throat, several bloody red roses clinging to its body. 

Ilya gags as the last of it comes free, casting it aside as he heaves gulps of air. It’s like trying to breathe underwater as blood from the lacerations in his throat keeps flooding his mouth. 

“Shnn.” Is all Ilya can manage before he is tipping forward into the soft embrace of darkness. 

-

Montreal General Hospital. 2016. Post-Hit.

Ilya is already bored of the hospital.

He’s lucky that he didn’t die outright, the doctors were quick to inform him, like that would make him feel better. It was a minor miracle they’d stabilized him with a tricky field tracheotomy. Ilya had had to look that word up. He wished he hadn’t. The images lived behind his eyes now, showing up when he tried to sleep.

The doctors think he’ll make a good recovery. Mostly. His vocal cords will likely remain moderately damaged, which means his voice will stay rougher than before, permanently sanded down.

“That’s an end to any potential singing career, unfortunately,” The doctor had tried to joke.

Ilya had stared at him until he left, tail between his legs.

There’s a knock at the door and a cheerful nurse pops her head in.

“Visitor for you, Mr. Rozanov.”

Ilya blinks. Sveta’s flight doesn’t land until tomorrow afternoon, and the boys have already come and gone with their loud concern and bad jokes and the uncomfortable buzz of words left unspoken. Marleau had been unbearable, huge and lumbering through an apology. As if he’d had to apologize for just doing his job. Ilya is grateful the doctors had already told the boys he was on vocal rest, using that as a perfect excuse not to respond to Marleau at all.

The nurse smiles. “David Hollander.”

Ilya hesitates, then nods. His pulse is suddenly loud in his ears, out of proportion with the quiet room.

David comes in and instantly the atmosphere is awkward as fuck.

Shane’s dad doesn’t much look like him but he has the same nervous energy of his son packed into a too-big body, the same way of standing like he’s not quite sure what to do with his hands. He’s holding a small paper bag like it might explode. 

David says a few niceties, hovering near the door before finally committing to the room.

“I know you’re probably not supposed to talk so maybe just shake your head yes or no? I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

Ilya nods.

David lowers himself into the chair beside the bed, making a dad-ish grunt as he lands. 

“You love my son?”

Ilya nods.

“I love him too.” David folds his arms across his chest. “He’s easy to love, you know?”

Ilya does know. He’s been in love with Shane Hollander practically since the moment he laid eyes on him. Shane is easy in ways Ilya has never been. 

Ilya nods again.

David frowns, fidgeting in his chair. The movement is painfully familiar. Shane does the same thing when he’s nervous, knees bouncing, fingers worrying invisible seams. There is no mistaking that David is Shane’s father. The comparison tugs at something inside of Ilya. 

“Shane was pretty little when he decided that he loved hockey. And from that moment on, he went after it full force. I’ve never known my son to do anything by halves.”

Ilya tilts his head, listening.

David grimaces before continuing.

“I guess what I’m trying to say, kid, is that. Well. You have a bit of a reputation. And I guess I just hope that that’s hearsay. Because frankly I don’t think my son is the type to want to share.”

A different version of Ilya might have been offended by this statement. But Ilya isn’t angry; he likes that Shane has a father who is looking out for him. He wants to handle this delicately, afraid that if he says the wrong thing here he might ruin his chances with Shane’s family. 

“No. I don’t do that type of thing anymore.” He speaks even though every word scrapes on the way out, like dragging gravel through his throat. “I would never hurt Shane on purpose.”

David watches him for a long moment. Really looks at him, like he’s checking for cracks.

“Okay.”

Then, unexpectedly, he reaches out and pats Ilya’s shoulder, awkward but sincere. The weight of it lingers after his hand pulls back.

David reaches into the paper bag, pulls out a plastic spoon, presses it into Ilya’s palm, then follows it with a cup of something cold.

“It’s sorbet. I would’ve gotten ice cream but Cheddar said dairy would be bad for the lacerations. I wasn’t sure what flavors you like but I figure you can’t really go wrong with strawberry.”

Ilya stares at the cup.

Then the spoon.

Then David.

It’s such a small thing. So painfully normal. 

“I– like strawberry.” Ilya says.

David slaps his thighs and levers himself up.

“Great! Okay. Good talk. Same time tomorrow?”

And then he’s gone, sneakers squeaking softly as the door clicks shut behind him.

Ilya sits there holding the stupid little paper cup watching the pink sorbet melt at the edges. His throat aches. His eyes burn. His chest feels strangely full, but not like it does when it’s full of petals.

Crying over sorbet would be childish and pathetic. 

But the room is empty– who would know? 

Ilya lets himself cry, strawberry sorbet lingering sweet on his tongue. 

-

Montreal General Hospital. 2016. A few days later.

Chad comes to visit Ilya in the hospital with a card from Amira in tow (Dr. Header, we met a few months ago at CHOO? Feel free to call me Chad, dude!)

The card is clumsily drawn in crayon and folded completely lopsided. On the inside it says, “Get better soon, hospitals suck!!!” in aggressive, bold handwriting.

Amira has drawn a blob that Ilya assumes to be him in his black-and-yellow Raiders uniform, surrounded by hockey pucks and sticks. She has also inexplicably included what Ilya thinks might be a horse. Or perhaps a very ugly dog? Either way it has too many legs and a haunted expression.

There is also something in the corner, written with care in shaky Cyrillic. Ilya has to squint at it before realization hits.

Я тебя люблю.

I love you.

Ilya swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, pretending it’s irritation. He never used to be weepy. Another thing that is Shane Hollander’s fault.

Chad politely looks away and pretends to be absolutely enthralled by the soap opera blaring from the mounted TV.

“She is very bad at drawing.” Ilya rasps.

“She sure is.” Chad says happily. 

Ilya shifts against the pillows, fingers worrying the edge of the card. He’s scared to ask the next part, like saying it out loud might jinx it.

“How– How is she doing?”

Chad’s grin gets even bigger.

 “Well I can’t say much, patient-doctor confidentiality and all that– but. Yeah. She’s doing good.” 

Ilya blows out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, shoulders sinking a fraction deeper into the mattress.

They sit in an easy, unforced quiet after that. The machines hum. People walk up and down the hallways, voices muffled. 

Eventually Chad clears his throat. “So. Have you talked to Shane yet?”

Ilya’s stomach sours instantly. He shakes his head no.

Chad nods, thoughtful.

“Alright. Better to do it sooner rather than later, though. Another round of roses might actually kill you for realsies this time.”

Ilya glares at him.

Chad throws his hands up, laughing.

“I can only be glib because I know you’re going to be fine. I can’t wait to give the best man speech, dude. It’s going to kill. I’ve been taking notes on what I’ll say for a few years now.”

Ilya blinks.

Best man.

He watches, bemused and vaguely alarmed, as Chad pulls out his phone and taps into his notes app. The screen is full of chaotic bullet points. Ilya catches words like bro, love, awesome, heart, and what might be three separate entries labeled Shane embarrassing childhood story.

“Oh! Actually, gimme your phone number dude. We’re going to be such good buddies, man, I can already tell.”

And somehow –without quite agreeing to it– Ilya finds himself tapping his number into Chad Header’s iPhone.

This is how the Hollander-clan works. The realization settles slowly. They just… include you. Feed you sorbet. Hand you crayon cards. Draft you into future speeches you haven’t earned.

It’s nice.

It’s also terrifying.

Ilya exhales softly. He can survive tracheotomies.  He’s just not at all sure he can survive the aggressive kindness of these people.

*

He is already sort of expecting it when Yuna Hollander arrives. There is no cheerful nurse announcement, no soft knock. One moment Ilya is alone with his hospital pudding cup and his regrets, and the next the air in the room goes arctic around a woman with perfect posture and devastating calm.

She pauses just inside the threshold.

Her eyes move over him in quick, economical passes: the bandage at his throat, the IV line, the bruising under his eyes, the way he’s propped too upright because he doesn’t like looking weak when the boys come around. 

It feels less like being visited and more like being inspected at customs.

“So,” she says. Polite. Dangerous.

“So,” Ilya croaks back, immediately hating how pathetic his voice sounds now.

She steps fully inside and closes the door behind her. The click is quiet but final. Yuna sets her purse on the visitor’s chair instead of sitting in it. Power move, Ilya thinks impressed.

“I’m Yuna.”

“Ilya.”

Her mouth flickers. Not quite a smile.

“You nearly died.”

“Only a little.”

That earns him the faintest hum of amusement. It passes quickly.

She folds her arms. 

“You’ve made quite an impression on my family.”

Silence stretches. The tube at his throat tickles and Ilya manfully resists the urge to itch it. Yuna watches him, letting the quiet do work. 

“My son has been– strange. For months.”

That almost makes him laugh. Almost. Shane has been strange his whole life, Ilya thinks.

“And now here you are. Throwing roses for my son. A man I know very little about beyond his poor reputation.”

Heat creeps up Ilya’s neck.

She moves closer, stopping at the foot of the bed.

“Tell me something, Ilya. Are you going to be a problem?”

The hit lands clean. Yuna’s not trying to be cruel, Ilya realizes. She’s assessing him like she would any third party interested in her son. Ilya wonders hysterically if this is how her meeting with Rolex went. 

He considers lying. He’s very good at lying.

Instead he says, “Yes.”

Yuna raises her eyebrows incredulously.

“To myself. Mostly.” He swallows. It scrapes. He pushes through it anyway. “But not to Shane. Never to him. Not on purpose.”

She studies him harder now, a variable not easily solved. 

“David says you’re a good kid.” Yuna says. “And Shane seems to like you.”

Ilya exhales a broken laugh.

She pushes her purse aside and finally sits. It’s subtle, but the room changes with it– it feels less courtroom cross-examination and more conversational. One you might have on a couch or at a kitchen table.

Yuna folds her hands in her lap and nods once, like she’s finished an internal checklist.

“Okay.”

Ilya blinks.

“…Okay?”

“Yes.”

She reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone, already scrolling.

“You are currently on a sports visa tied to a country where you will not be welcomed back when you confirm you’re dating my son.”

Ilya blinks at this being laid out so simply. Even though he’d already resolved not to go back to Russia the thought still stings. “Yes.”

She taps faster.

“We are not letting immigration send you packing to a country that will not protect you.”

“What?”

Yuna looks up.

“We need to file some paperwork, but given this situation the lawyers think we can probably get it expedited.”

“For—” His voice cracks. He clears it. “For what?”

Yuna gives him a look. “American citizenship.”

Ilya stares.

She keeps talking, brisk and plain, like she’s discussing groceries.

“First we submit your medical documentation. Then employment sponsorship through the MLH. Then immigration counsel — I already reached out to a few firms out in Boston. They are both excellent.”

“Yuna–”

“Don’t.” She says sharply.

He shuts up.

“I am going to do everything in my power to keep you safe.” She meets his gaze squarely now. “My son chose you. And–” Yuna smiles at him gently. “And I’m looking forward to discovering why. I’ve never known him to choose poorly.”

Ilya presses his lips together before his face completely betrays him. The gentleness is worse than suspicion ever was.

She stands, smooth and sure.

“Rest. Heal. Talk to each other. You have tedious immigration meetings to look forward to.”

She picks up her purse. At the door she glances back.

“David will be by later. He found a different sorbet place and he’s excited to get you a new flavor. Taro, I think?”

Her mouth curves up fondly and the mention of her husband.

The door clicks shut behind her. Ilya stares at it for a long time.

His hands are shaking.

Ilya grips his sheets tight and resolves to talk to Shane as soon as possible. 

Chapter End Notes

Lilac - first love
Buttercups - delight, sunshine, joyful beginnings.
Rockfoil - resilience and persistence.
Bellflower - unwavering love and constancy.
cypress blossoms - despair, disappointed hopes.
Blooddrops - painful memories and sorrow.
Black-eyed Susans - adaptability, growth through adversity
Canterbury Bells - faith, gratitude, everlasting love
Red rose - true and passionate love
I hope you enjoyed Ilya's chapter-- his voice was harder for me to write than I was expecting, hence the delay in post. Feedback, either positive or constructive always appreciated!!

Thank you all <3

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

2017 - Montreal General Hospital. Present Day. 

Once the ringing in Shane’s ears subsides he has only one thought. Ilya is in this hospital somewhere– there is nowhere else they could have brought him if he was injured on the ice. Ilya is here, somewhere in this building. In pain. In pain because of Shane. 

Even though Shane rises carefully, his collar screams in agony. He breathes through it, waiting for the throb to subside into something manageable. 

He throws his legs over the side of the bed and stands, his toes meeting the cold floor through his grippy socks. 

Shane has shuffled himself halfway across the room when Cheddar comes through the door. He’d come a few days ago to visit with a card from Amira, which featured a crayon version of Shane being plowed by Marleau. Amira had also written: ‘sorry you got hit!! It looked really cool though!! Get better soon!!’

Shane had taken the compliment for what it was. 

“Whoah!” Chad came forward, gripping Shane’s uninjured forearm. “Hey– you need the bathroom dude?”

“No.” Shane pursed his lips. “Ilya.” 

Chad looks confused for a split second before smoothing out. “Ah. Heard about that did you? Shit. Well. I think he wanted to tell you himself.” 

They stare at each other for a long time before Chad throws his hands up. “One floor down, room 1230.” 

Shane squints. “How’d you know that?”

Chad shrugs. “I’m not not gonna visit my new bro, dude.” 

Shane huffs out something between a laugh and a nervous exhale. His fingers worry at the hem of his sleeve. He still isn’t good at saying things out loud, even when he wants to. Especially when he wants to.

Chad looks at Shane expectantly, eyebrows raised. Shane shuffles a little. “Yeah. Um. You know, Ilya and I are…? Well I mean. I’m gay.” 

“Cool. I thought maybe I sensed an energy between you two when you came to visit the hospital but I didn’t want to assume.” Chad chucks Shane softly on his good shoulder. The touch is careless and affectionate.

He bites his lip, voice smaller than he means it to be. “And? You don’t…? Care?”

Chad smiles at Shane, bright and happy. “I thought we already had that discussion– about me caring about you, dude. You’re lucky you’re so broken right now, bro, otherwise I’d be hugging your guts out” 

They beam at each other like idiots, suspended in the moment, neither of them quite knowing what to do with it.

Then Chad clears his throat and claps his hands once.

“Okay, make your mad escape. I’ll wait here and play interference with Yuna.”

Shane shuffles towards the door thinking about how lucky he is to have friends like Chad and Rose– friends who don’t love him despite who is but because of who he is. 

*

He slips into Ilya’s room as quietly as a man his size can manage, easing the door shut behind him.

Shane’s eyes land on the bed.

Ilya is propped up against a pile of hospital pillows, too pale against the white, curls flattened and greasy. He looks… small.

Ilya Rozanov is supposed to take up space. He’s supposed to be impossible to ignore. The sight is painful.

“Shane” Ilya says. 

His name sends Shane pitching forward, crawling onto the bed. He barely registers the angry throb in his collarbone as he climbs over Ilya, settles on top of him, too close, not close enough, forehead hovering near Ilya’s.

Shane feels the tears already begin to form in his eyes. “I’m– I’m sorry.” 

“Oh fuck, Shane, no.” Ilya looks shattered. Shane hates that expression. “Don’t– don’t say sorry. Fuck. That is worst thing you could say.” Ilya already sounds choked up, making his already splintered voice sound worse. “It’s okay you don’t feel the same way. It’s not your fault that I’m–” 

“Stupid! Ilya!” Shane hiccups. 

“I know!” Ilya says bitterly. “I’m sorry. I know I ask too much. I always have.” 

“No!” Shane pinches his nose, squeezing his eyelids shut. He’s never been great at words and the concussion is making it feel like he’s wading through wet cement. He has to try harder; this is too important to fuck up. “We’re stupid, Ilya. That’s what I mean.” 

Shane reaches inside his brace– a surprisingly good place to keep something close and safe. He presses the single red rose, stem and all, into the palm of Ilya’s hand. 

Ilya looks down at it, something complicated crossing his face. He traces one of the petals with a reverent fingertip. 

“Where’d you get this?” Ilya croaks. “I didn’t think they kept any after they cleaned the ice.” 

Shane lifts his one good hand and cups Ilya’s face. His thumb brushes beneath Ilya’s eye, gentle and supplicating, like he’s touching something fragile instead of the strongest man he knows. “It’s mine.” 

Ilya’s head snaps up. His eyes are wide and raw and red-rimmed. “What.” 

Shane doesn’t look away. Can’t look away. “You know what that means. Don’t you?” 

“Tell me anyway?” Ilya pleads. 

It’s not hard to find these words. They’ve been on the tip of his tongue for nearly a decade, impatient and urgent. “I love you, Ilya.” 

The second Shane says it, something inside him finally gives. The pressure in his lungs releases and drains away.

“Really?”

That single whispered word destroys him.

“Yes. Really.”

Ilya laughs once, breathless and stunned, like the sound got dragged out of him without permission.

“You say this now,” he murmurs, voice wrecked, “after I nearly die of flowers.”

Shane huffs wetly. “Yeah. Because apparently we only know how to do things the hard way.”

Ilya lifts the rose between them. His hands are shaking, but his eyes are steady now.

“All this time,” he says quietly, “we were choking on the same thing.”

Shane nods.

Ilya brings the crimson bloom up to his lips and kisses it softly. “I love you too. In case you needed it said.” 

Shane’s breath leaves him in a shaky rush. “I definitely do.” 

They stay there, tangled together at a careful, awkward angle, Shane half-propped against the pillows so his collarbone stays protected, Ilya curled around him like a shield. It’s not elegant but it gets the job done. And it feels just right.

Eventually the evening nurse bustles in, takes one look at Shane out of bed, and immediately starts squawking about liability and concussion protocols.

Laughter spills out of them, breathless and helpless, Ilya pressing his lips to Shane’s temple.

Ilya squeezes Shane’s hand and lets his thumb trace slow, grounding circles into his skin. He smiles at him like he’s memorizing the moment.

They both know, with a quiet, settled certainty, that this parting isn’t a goodbye. It’s a see-you-later.

And that makes all the difference. 

*

Chapter End Notes

Thank you all for coming on this journey with me-- I am very grateful to everyone who has kudos'd and commented. I've said it before but I am always baffled and delighted when people engage with my writing.

Only an epilogue left-- I am following through on an earlier promise :')

Chapter 8: Epilogue

Ilya had made the promise to Amira and her parents casually.

(When you’re better, I’ll fly all of you to Boston.)

Not if– when.

So when Chad texts him a picture of Amira in a Raiders hoodie three sizes too big with the caption “LETS FUCKIN GOOOOOO!!!!”, Ilya has to sit down on the locker room floor and breathe through the way his vision swims.

He doesn’t cry.

He laughs instead, sharp and stunned, like his body doesn’t know what else to do with relief this big.

-

2018, Boston Raiders’ Garden Arena

The next time Montreal comes to Boston the winter air is bitterly cold. The Garden is roaring before the first puck even drops– by third period the stadium feels half-feral. The Raiders play like the outcome of this match is personal. In a way, it is.

Montreal puts up a valiant fight, but the Raiders are on top form– Ilya scores a hat trick that Montreal can’t come back from.

The final horn blares Boston fucking detonates.

The crowd is still roaring by the time they’re able to get Amira suited up and out on the ice. She’s in full gear — tiny skates, gloves bulky, helmet wobbling. The Raiders part for her instinctively, like she’s always belonged out here with them.

Ilya watches, chest tight, smiling so hard it almost hurts.

A few of the Montreal guys stay out– they’d talked about this before the game even started. Pike drops into the net, exaggerated and theatrical.

“Alright,” Pike calls. “Show me what you got, kid.”

Amira throws the puck down like it personally offended her. She winds up. Shoots.

The puck snaps into the top corner of the net.

The crowd erupts, pride at their hometown girl a palpable thing.

Amira throws her arms into the air like she just won the Cup. Pike groans dramatically and collapses backward.

She immediately yanks off her gloves. Then her helmet.

“Oh no,” Ilya mutters.

Because of course Amira is squaring up.

Pike is laughing, already crouching. Thank God Pike understands the language of little goblin girls. “You wanna go?”

She absolutely does.

Before the Garden can witness the smallest, angriest fight in MLH history, Ilya swoops in, grabs her under the arms, and lifts her straight onto his shoulders.

She shrieks.

The crowd laughs.

Her skates kick against his chest. “Put me down!”

“No fighting on my ice,” Ilya tells her. “You are menace. Listen to your captain.”

She grins down at him, wild and bright and alive in a way that still feels like a miracle.

Ilya makes a signal with his hand and a rink-side interviewer hustles over, microphone already out.

“Amira!” she calls. “Anything you wanna say to the people of Boston?”

Amira blinks at the sea of people. Thousands of them. Hushed, waiting.

Ilya steadies her calves.

She leans into the mic and takes a deep breath before screaming: “WHAT TEAM?!”

The crowd answers obediently, “RAIDERS!”

“HOW DO WE DO?”

The crowd makes a low booming noise back like a cannon.

“RAIDERS!”

“BOOM!”

“RAIDERS!”

“BOOM!”

“RAIDERS!”

The Garden shakes with the force of the final boom of the crowd. 

Amira throws both arms into the air. Then, with perfect timing and absolutely no fear, she adds—“FUCK MONTREAL!”

For half a second there is stunned silence.

Then Boston absolutely loses its mind.

People are screaming. Laughing. Howling. The chant collapses into delighted chaos. Pike clutches his chest like he’s been wounded. Ilya adjusts Amira higher on his shoulders while the crowd keeps roaring. She’s still grinning, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.

Ilya’s laughter bursts out of him before he can stop it, loud and helpless.

Across the ice, Shane is bent in half, hands on his knees, laughing just as hard. Their eyes catch in the middle of the madness.

Something warm and steady passes between them.

It’s just happiness.

The uncomplicated kind.

*