Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, the threat of Rose Landry, assorted boston players

Additional Tags:

Hanahaki Disease, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, heavy on the comfort ofc, some much needed apologies, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Kissing, making out in a hospital bed actually, Fluff and Angst, Fluff, Angst, Hurt Shane Hollander, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Loverboy Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Calls Ilya Rozanov "Baby", as long as i am at the helm you can TRUST they'll be sappy n sweet, overuse of parentheses and italics as usual, also threw in some religious metaphors bc i can't fucking help myself apparently

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-06-04 Words: 10,790 Chapters: 1/1

and i will, i will, i will

Summary

ilya feels it when shane slams a gloved palm onto the ice to stabilize himself, echoing an earthquake through ilya’s skates and up to his sternum. his heart clenches with every heaving breath shane takes, bloodstained petals pouring past his lips. he’s hurting, and the need to hold him burns through ilya’s veins.

ilya was supposed to protect him, but he didn’t even see the hit, only the aftermath, just marly skating slowly away with terror on his face as the ice gets painted red.

or: it's april 2017, and cliff marleau just checked shane hollander into the boards. he doesn't break his collarbone, but he does start coughing up petals. a post-tuna melt hanahaki au.

Notes

hi friends!!! welcome to the angst 🫶

after my fluffy lil warped tour au (part 2 is underway btw), i had to go back into my cozy lil angsty home. hanahaki is one of my fave tropes but i’ve never written it before now??? wild to think abt but these two are just so perfect for it that i couldn't help but take a stab at it 🥰

not much to know before this one, just that shane’s convo with rose happens later than in canon, so he and ilya don’t reconcile at all stars in tampa. everything else should be covered in the fic!! also everything i know abt hockey is from hr, so take the hockey bits with a grain of salt lol i tried my best y'all 🫠

and no, i didn’t mess up the team names. they’re on the voyageurs and the raiders bc i said so ❤️

tw: descriptions and mentions of blood and coughing up blood

title from i will by leith ross

unbeta'd as usual, all mistakes are mine. no ai was used to write this.

enjoy the angst my loves!!! 💖

Shane is always so beautiful on the ice. 

He moves like he was born with skates on his feet, weaving through players with near-psychic knowledge of exactly where they’d be and exactly how they’d try to slow him down. (Their attempts are never successful. Shane will outmaneuver them every fucking time.) 

It’s a gift to watch Shane on the ice, even from the opposing side, especially from the opposing side. 

But tonight, he’s…

Flagging. 

It’s subtle, something Ilya only notices because he knows Shane’s body so well, knows the way he curves and stiffens, how he unfurls when he’s warm and sated and safe, how he flinches and bends around a bruise to get what he’s after. 

At first, Ilya thinks it’s an injury. 

But he’s been glued to his damn Google Alerts for weeks, thumbing through update after update about him and…her…to find something of substance, something real he could cling to as the earth steadily crumbled out from under his feet. (The breakup was confirmed via a “trusted source” two weeks ago, articles flooding his phone as Ilya walked out of his father’s funeral. He still hasn't received a single message from Jane.)

Injuries get reported, even ones that are meant to stay secret. This is not an injury. 

Shane’s catching the puck on the edge of his stick blade, not perfectly centered on the tape. He’s not reacting as quickly to passes, right on time by everyone else’s standards but a beat behind for himself, accepting the puck rather than anticipating it. 

His right ankle wobbled after he intercepted a pass meant for Ilya.

Shane Hollander’s ankles do not fucking wobble. 

Ilya doesn’t know what’s wrong, but something is fucking wrong. He notices during Shane’s second shift on the ice, and he watches him like a hawk every second after. (It hurts to have Shane in his eyeline again and not have it be in his bed or against the wall or on that damn couch Ilya needs to burn. But at this point, he’ll take any part of Shane he can get.) Ilya can feel his own play suffering as a result, but he doesn’t give a damn. An off-day for him is a stellar day for most of the other players on the ice, anyway. (All except for one.) 

His leg bounces where he’s sat on the bench, eyes glued to the frenzy on the ice, blue and black blurring through his vision as he tunnels his sight onto #24. On his right, Marly knocks a knee into his, breaking the rhythm for a split second.

“You good, bro?” he asks, eyes drawn underneath his visor. 

“Fine,” Ilya grunts, flicking his gaze toward Marly before focusing on the ice. “Want to get back out there.” Want to see him up close, want to protect him, want to make him be okay. 

“Hey, half a period is more than enough to break this tie. Especially for you.” 

(Yes. Because that’s what’s got Ilya so fucking antsy. The score.) 

He gives Marly another grunt, low and noncommittal, before he feels a fist knocking into his shoulder. 

“You’re up, boys.” 

Ilya darts to his feet before LeClaire has even finished speaking, hopping the boards with a speed he only ever reaches when Shane’s on the other side of the rink. He flies down to the Raiders’ goal, Marly hot on his trail as they join the fight for the puck. 

It’s a tangle of limbs behind the net, and Ilya eyes the corner of the rink where Shane lingers away from the scrum. Ilya flies straight into the fold, welcomes the heat and weight and pressure of the bodies battling around him, letting it ground him into the moment. (The back of his mind stays off to the side, where hesitation and fear and something wrong wait to make their move.)  

By some miracle, he manages to poke the puck out of the mess, tossing it behind him before any of the other players realize it’s gone. 

He dashes after the puck, feeling Marly cross behind his back to protect his path. There's a thud behind him, the familiar sound of players slamming into the boards, but Ilya keeps skating, because if he makes this goal, if he breaks this tie, then Shane has to pay attention to him. 

But then a fan screams, high-pitched and terrified and wrong. It’s not the excited scream that welcomes a fight, or the shout of praise after a puck is intercepted. It’s pure fucking fear, and Ilya feels it rattle in his bone marrow. 

He whips around, abandoning the puck to slide its way across the ice as he locks onto the sight of Shane stumbling to his knees, a hand pressed to his chest as coughs wrack his entire body, and the world switches to slow motion. 

Shane goes down in a storm of petals and blood. 

They fly around him, spurts of red splattering the ice and pooling in the shallow paths left behind by skate blades. The petals blend into the spray, heavy and soaked, and Shane somehow manages to get one stuck to the collar of his jersey. 

(Is Ilya breathing? He doesn’t think he’s breathing, thinks his lungs are caught in the same tangle as Shane’s.)

Ilya feels it when Shane slams a gloved palm onto the ice to stabilize himself, echoing an earthquake through Ilya’s skates and up to his sternum. His heart clenches with every heaving breath Shane takes, bloodstained petals pouring past his lips. He’s hurting, and the need to hold him burns through Ilya’s veins. 

Ilya was supposed to protect him, but he didn’t even see the hit, only the aftermath, just Marly skating slowly away with terror on his face as the ice gets painted red. 

Medics rush onto the rink as Shane chokes on his own blood, flashes of bright pink-purple peeking out from where the thick red liquid is already cooling on the ice. Around him, players slide backward to make room on the ice. Instinct holds Ilya in place, because what could be strong enough to pull him back, pull him away, pull him from the only thing that has ever mattered?

Part of Ilya wants to go to him, fall to his knees and force breath back into Shane’s lungs. Part of him wants to run, flee the fucking building and get on the first plane back to Boston. Part of him wants to scream and cry and flail until they take him, too, until he’s on a gurney flying down the hall beside Shane’s and they share an ambulance and a hospital room because they can’t be separated, they can’t, without it hurting the other. 

Instead, he stands there, still as ever, and watches with terrified eyes as Shane struggles to catch his breath and tumbles to the side. One of the medics stabilizes him and forces him upright with a stiff hand to the shoulder. (Ilya wishes it were him.) 

He feels more than sees Marly come up to him, skating into his side with a shocked drift. 

“I-it was a clean hit, Cap,” he chokes out. “I didn't know —”

“No one knew.” 

Because if they did, there’s no way Shane would be allowed on the ice tonight. Would be allowed on the ice at all until it had been sorted, however he managed it. Ilya would’ve heard about it through his damn useless Google Alerts and his daily scroll through social media. 

Hammersmith’s the next one to form the wall, his hulking frame creating a shadow on the ice despite the harsh fluorescents overhead. 

“Damn, Rose Landry fucked Hollander up, huh?” he says, caught somewhere between disbelief and pity. 

And —

It's her, isn't it? He loves her, doesn't he? Those are…those are rose petals.

(They have to be. It’s not like Shane would be in love with —)

Two weeks is fast, almost too fast, for this awful, wretched disease to progress, to take Shane away. But they’re roses, right? Thorns shredding Shane from the inside out, making things worse, forcing him to suffer on lightspeed? 

Fuck, Shane always has to be the best, the fastest, the most efficient, doesn’t he?

“Yeah,” Ilya mutters, because it’s all he can really say right now. His eyes mind heart soul are locked onto where the medics are helping Shane off the ice, gurney abandoned as he stands on shaky, sliding feet. 

Then Shane waves to the crowd as he inches toward the tunnel, the perfect polite people pleaser until the fucking end. He’s got blood down his jersey, and he’s fucking waving. (Ilya wishes he could be angry at him.) 

“Shit, you think he’ll be out for the playoffs?” Carmy asks, and when the fuck did he skate up to them? 

“Nah, Hollander won’t risk that,” Connors offers from the side, tapping his stick on the ice as Shane makes his slow exit. “He’s either getting on a plane or getting to a hospital tonight.” 

“A plane?” 

“Yeah, man, X-Squad finished filming in Montreal the other week. Don’t think Rose Landry stuck around.” 

“How the fuck do you know that?” 

His teammates’ bickering fades into the background as Ilya’s vision turns black at the edges. 

Shane is leaving. Shane is going to her. Shane is putting hockey second, for once in his goddamn life, just for her. 

It’s more than he ever wished he’d get from Shane, and some twisted, ugly-from-love part of him is happy for him. Happy Shane found someone he loved, happy he’s going to ask for what he wants, even if he’s guilty about it, even if he’s basically forced into it. He wants Shane to be happy, even though it’ll never be with Ilya. (And that’s the worst part of it all, isn’t it?) 

But — 

There’s still time, right? With that much blood, there’s no way they’re not sending him to the hospital to get checked over, even if it’s just an overnight stay. And as long as Shane is in Montreal, Ilya has a chance. 

It’s customary for the opposing team’s captain to visit injured players after a match whenever possible. Good sportsmanship and all that. He’s done it plenty of times, knows Shane has done the same. 

So he has one shot, a tiny little desperate window of opportunity, to see Shane one last time before Ilya loses him for good, before Rose takes over and loves him like Ilya wishes he could, gives him everything Ilya will never be able to. (Selfishly, he’d hoped he’d have more time before the door closed on them, heavy and locked and permanent. But when has Ilya ever gotten what he wanted?)

He’ll go tomorrow before the flight home. It’ll hurt, because everything with Shane hurts in the end, but Ilya would rather they finish like this, half-happy and half-decimated, than with the sour sound of footsteps fleeing and panicked breathing and a door slamming at his back. 

Around him, the fans’ cheers fade as Shane disappears into the tunnel with the medics, and both teams’ players slowly empty off the ice. Ilya feels Marly’s fingers wrap around his elbow, dragging him to the locker room so the rink staff can clear away the mess of blood. 

“Alright, Cap?” he asks, moving slowly to let the rest of their team go in front of them. 

“Yeah, just…” Ilya trails off as he gets his feet under him again. “Is a lot. After last week.” (He doesn’t want to play the whole dead father card, but. If it gets Marly off his case, it’s worth it.)

Marly claps him on the back once, shaking a palm between his shoulders. “I’m sorry you had to see that, man.” 

“It’s alright. I will talk to the guys.” 

“Good man,” Marly mutters, gliding ahead to cross the boards into the tunnel. 

Before he steps off the ice, Ilya looks back, cataloguing the spot where Shane went down one last time. The rink staff crowds the area, covered in protective gear as they clear away the congealed blood into neon biohazard containers. 

Off to the side, though, is a rogue swipe of red, standing out from the pool just a few feet away. Ilya squints, trying to identify the mark. 

Oh. 

Shane’s mouthguard is still on the ice, bloodstained and useless. 

Ilya can almost feel the exact contour of the bite marks he knows litter each end of the rubber. Those teeth have scraped over his pulse point more times than he can count, too gentle to leave a mark, too fleeting to satisfy either of them. He wishes Shane could bite down on him now, break the skin and make him bleed. (They’d be even, then, smearing blood where they’d hurt each other beyond the point of forgiveness. Ilya would welcome that final spark of pleasure-pain, that final taste of Shane Hollander.) 

A member of the cleaning crew looks behind them and dives for the mouthguard, swiping it into their neon bin. 

Ilya turns into the tunnel, and he lets his fear carry him to the locker room, through the final minutes of play and the win he barely registers, and back to the hotel, where he crashes into bed with his phone hooked up to the charger, already scrolling for answers.

The heels of Ilya’s boots click against the linoleum with every step he takes, echoing down the too-silent hallway. His breaths are short, strained, burning his lungs with the inescapable antiseptic that fills the air. Chin tucked to his chest, he avoids the gazes of the nurses standing guard at their stations, curious eyes tracking his frame as he glides across the floor with all the confidence, all the nonchalance he can manage right now. 

Public Enemy #1, come to see the city’s Golden Boy lie frail and helpless in a hospital bed. The headlines write themselves, really. 

The Google Alerts finally did their fucking job this morning, telling him that Shane had been taken to Montreal General to check for injuries. The article had said the Voyageurs were anticipating him being discharged within 48 hours, but that’s far too short a stay for a surgery. And if he’s not getting the surgery, then he’s either already told Rose or is getting on a flight to LA to tell her in person. 

(His window is closing. He wishes he could jam a crowbar into the slim space left and wrench it back open, throw the window wide for a do-over that he swears to his mama’s god he won’t waste.) 

And maybe it’s ridiculous that he arrived at 8:00 sharp, right as visiting hours opened for the day. His team probably thought so, even with the excuse of visiting before their flight this afternoon. Marly had shrugged and rolled back over in bed. LeClaire hadn’t even dignified his text with a thumbs up. 

But he spent last night spiraling in a way he never had before, mind running marathons around the possibilities. Did Shane have any other injuries? Would the doctors run their tests and find something else wrong? Is Rose already on her way to Montreal to take him back, reverse the thorny growths in his lungs? 

Ilya’s not about to wait around to find out. 

It’ll be a short visit, anyway. The team bus leaves for the airport at 1:00, and he really should’ve used his sleepless hours last night to pack his bag, but he didn’t, so he’s working with even less time. (Not that Shane will want him to stick around, but still. What’s the point of a window if he can’t take a long, deep breath?) 

Ilya just needs to get in, make sure Shane is okay, get some fucking closure, and then move on with his fucking life. He can’t stay stuck like this forever, trapped in a cage of his own fucking making. (God, he never should’ve asked Shane to stay that night. He should’ve known he would ruin them.) He’ll savor these last few moments, hold onto them for a bit, and then find something to fill the void. There has to be something that will fill the void. 

He stalks down the sterile hall, eyes trained on the blue-gray room markers by each door. He doesn’t even stop to think, just reaches for the handle on room 1217 and twists it. He slips through the door, keeping his head down as he steps to the side and closes it behind him, sealing them in. 

It’s quiet inside, no visitors taking up space by Shane’s bed. Not that Ilya expected anyone at this hour, planned his visit specifically to avoid others, but still. Little mercies, right? 

Slowly, he raises his head to take in the room. Ilya looks around Shane before he looks at him, because it’s easier to take in the pile of stained tissues and the IV drip and the rogue petal stuck to the bedframe than it is to see the full weight of Shane’s love killing him. 

But then Shane clears his throat, and what is Ilya supposed to do but listen when his love calls? 

Oh, god.

Instantly, Ilya wishes he’d never lifted his eyes, never come to the hospital at all. Shane’s hooked up to so many machines. There’s a tube underneath his nose giving him oxygen, and something off to the side is beeping a steady rhythm that Ilya hopes means he’s healthy and safe and still so full of love. Wires poking out of the neckline of his flimsy hospital gown, his hand all taped up with IVs and monitors, bandages on the inside of his elbow where the doctors had probably drawn blood last night. 

(Ilya already doesn’t like hospitals, but he thinks he fucking hates them, now.)

And Shane is beautiful, always, but right now, he’s so pale and the circles around his eyes are so dark and his cheeks, those smooth slopes adorned with those damn freckles, seem thinner, somehow, like someone shaved them down from the inside. God, how did Ilya not fucking notice this? 

It hits him all at once, and he clings to the door handle to hold himself up on buckled knees. He knows he failed Shane long ago, probably failed him a thousand times over the years, but the evidence of it is devastating. Shane has someone who loves him, even if he doesn’t know it, even if it’s not the person he wants. And Ilya should’ve done something. He should’ve looked closer, should’ve broken the silence between them and set Shane back on the path to being okay.  

If only he weren’t so shit at showing Shane that he actually cared. 

Ilya struggles to stay upright once their eyes lock and he sees his own terror reflected in Shane’s deep brown irises (but hey, if he’s gonna faint, at least he’s doing it in a hospital). As soon as it registers, though, it’s gone, Shane’s entire face shuttering and closing Ilya off from where he most wants to be. 

He deserves it, but it still hurts. 

“Rozanov.” Shane’s voice is weak from across the room, too weak to hold onto the cold tone he’s clearly trying for.

“Hi.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I wanted to —” Ilya manages to say before he chokes on it, swallowing around the lump that’s made a home at the base of his throat. He shakes his head slightly, as if that’ll help the horrid blend of fear and anger and love swirling in his chest. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You do not look fine, Hollander.”

Shane sighs, and Ilya can nearly hear it bubble through his bloody lungs. “Yeah, well, I will be. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, should be back on the ice within the week.”

No, no, no, that’s not right. Shane’s supposed to be here for a day; he’s not supposed to get the surgery. He’s not supposed to have his love taken from him so…so violently. 

He can’t — 

Shane can’t —

“Y-you are getting the surgery?” Ilya asks, rough voice grating above a whisper. 

Shane shrugs. “It gets me playing sooner.” 

And fuck that. Fuck the ice, and the Voyageurs, and the Raiders, and the stupid scoring race commentators force on them every fucking year. Shane nearly died, and he’s thinking about hockey? Rose Landry is actively killing him, and he’s worried about his playoff chances?

God fucking dammit. (Why the fuck did Ilya have to fall in love with this stubborn, single-minded, too-good-for-him man?) 

“But you want the surgery, yes? Actually want this?” he asks, because he needs to hear it from Shane to believe it’s true. Needs to hear that yes, Shane wants to have his petals, his love, taken from him, wants to be the hockey robot the world has branded him as. Needs to hear that there’s no point in Ilya loving him anymore, because he will never, truly never, be loved in return.

(No. He knows he'd love Shane anyway, pour into it for both of them if he got the chance. He’d fill all the empty spaces this petaled terror left behind and ignore how it hurt because being with Shane is a gift he’s turned down too many times to deserve the full thing.) 

Shane nods, jaw clenched. “Better for everyone this way.”

But —

Better for who, exactly? Better for Shane, who will live with a hollow chest? Better for Ilya, who will have to hold memories of a half-formed love that never got its due? Or better for…better for Rose, who can wash her hands clean of Shane, never knowing the wreckage she left in her path? 

(There’s a smear of dried blood by Shane’s chin, dark and cracked and taunting him. Ilya briefly considers the consequences of murdering Rose Landry.)

“Hollander, you…you can't.” Ilya pauses, clearing his throat in a futile attempt to regain the control he lost on the ice last night (or maybe the control he lost the second Shane shook his hand outside a Saskatchewan arena). “Tell her you love her. She will take you back, I know this.” 

And for some fucking reason, Shane looks at him like he’s grown two heads. (Normally, Ilya would find those furrowed brows endearing, but he can’t muster up the feeling today.) “Who?”

“Rose Landry, yes? This is about her? She will take you back, Hollander, how could she not?” 

“Oh, fuck, no, it's not —” He's cut off by his own coughing fit, wet and hacking, purple petals and a blood-splattered tissue unfurling in his lap, and everything in Ilya screams at him to run and hold and protect and save and love. But fuck, he's rooted to the spot, vines tying him down as tightly as they wind through Shane's chest. 

“Shane, please, do not do this,” Ilya pleads, half a step above begging, because he can (almost) deal with Shane not being his, but he doesn't know if he can deal with a Shane who will never love and be loved the way he so deserves. 

(It's better, he thinks distantly, than a Shane who will never be anything, six feet under and giving life to the very thing that took his breath.) 

“I need to, Rozanov,” Shane chokes out. “I can't — it wouldn't work out, anyway.” And he looks so defeated, so helplessly resigned, that it makes anger roar fire down Ilya’s sternum. (How fucking dare she discard him like this?) 

“Shane,” he starts, muttering through gritted teeth. “If you are in love with her —” 

“I'm not in love with her! Okay?!” Shane gives a weak cough to clear his throat, spine bouncing off the hospital bed. “Fuck, this isn't even about her.” 

Oh. 

Had Shane…had Shane gone and fallen in love with someone else right under Ilya's nose? Had he found men in other cities, other teams, and picked one of them instead? Another woman, maybe, a friend of Rose's that was off-limits before and still is now, separated by jealousy and time zones and levels of fame that have kept even them trapped? 

Is it Pike? His wife? Boizau, even? 

Anyone but Ilya, right? Because he ruined it before he had it, pushed too hard and let his stupid fucking heart take the lead. And he knows he's not worth the trouble it would cause Shane to be with him, but fuck. 

They could’ve had something, as complicated and messy as it would be. For Shane, he would’ve tried. 

Calls at any hour of the day, flights up to Montreal on his days off, nights alone and glued to his phone while his teammates tear through clubs on the road. He doesn’t fucking care how much he’d have to change his schedule, his plans, his life to give them a shot. Ilya would happily remold the world to fit Shane, burn it all down and build a home from the ashes. 

He would’ve fucking tried.

(But it was anyone but him. Anyone but him. Anyone but him.) 

“Oh,” he tries, a little dumb, a little stunned. (The window’s been closed this whole time, huh?) 

“Yeah,” Shane says, but he won’t meet Ilya’s eyes anymore, fiddling with the plastic edge of his hospital bracelet instead.  

“Are you going to tell them?” 

“Absolutely not,” he declares, but his throat’s so fucked that all the force behind his words comes out as a wheeze. 

What?

“They deserve to know, Shane,” he protests. He’d tell Shane if it were him on the wrong end of this disease. (Though, is there really a wrong end here, when it’s destruction either way?)

“I told you, Rozanov,” Shane says, tone firm even as his voice shakes. “It wouldn’t work out. I’d just land back here.” 

Back here, as in getting the surgery anyway. Back here, as in they don’t love Shane back, and he’s stuck with a slow death as the only other alternative. 

But genuinely, truly — how could someone know Shane and not love him? How could they see the care he puts into every little thing he does, hear his voice turn into song as he rambles on about his latest idea for a penalty kill, feel the tension bleed out of him as he settles into a conversation, and not know that they’d found something, someone, so fucking special?

(It took Ilya far too long to realize that the weight he carried in his chest was love. And he was clearly idiotic enough to let Shane go and fall into the arms of this horrible, nameless lover. He’s already planning on kicking himself for it every day until he dies, but what the fuck does he have to live for if Shane has a gaping wound where his love should be? What’s the point when he’s been doomed by a heavy hand he doesn’t recognize, who hurt Shane with a gut punch that rippled out far beyond their view?) 

“And you know this for sure?” Ilya asks, wary. 

“There’s no other option.” 

“Says you.” 

“Rozanov.” 

“No, Shane,” Ilya insists, because why doesn’t this boy see it? How does he not see how utterly fucking wrong he is? “You need to give yourself a chance. You…you deserve better than that fucking surgery.”

Shane shakes his head, defeat rolling off him in waves. Ilya keeps going.  

“And it’s all over the news, now. They know, yes? They are just waiting for you to say it to their face.” 

Shane makes a sound, something wounded and breathy, pained down to the tips of his toes. And maybe it makes him awful, but Ilya barrels on despite it, because he has to get this out. He has to make Shane understand how fucking lucky this person is to be loved by him, how he doesn’t deserve the torture of lying in this hospital bed, sticking to oppressive silence. 

“You need to tell them, Shane, because they will love you back, I know this. And then you won’t need the surgery, and whoever it is will —”

“It's you, asshole!” he shouts, wet and gargling and too loud not to scrape on the way out. “Obviously, it's you! Who else could it ever fucking be?!” 

Fuck. 

Ilya didn't — he hadn't dared to hope. Didn't think it was worth it to give himself a glimpse of what could be, even tucked safe in the back of his mind. 

Shane loving Ilya to the point of destruction feels wrong. He's…he's not someone who destroys, he's someone who builds and grows and thrives and comes so fucking alive when he’s in his element, when he’s on the ice, when he’s in Ilya’s arms. They’ve hurt each other, yes, undoubtedly yes, but there’s no destruction here. Ilya never feels more real, more human, than when he slots his thumbs around Shane’s hipbones and presses down. 

But if Shane has been…

That means he…

“How long?” Ilya whispers, eyes locked on the freckles dotting Shane's cheeks, fainter than he's ever seen. (Still so, so beautiful, though.)

“How long, what? How long have I loved you?” Shane scoffs, but it's slick and raw and sounds like it hurts more than anything. “I don't…I don't even know anymore. But it's been killing me since Boston.” 

“When we —”

“Yeah.” 

(Ilya is going to burn that fucking couch.)

Shane draws in a breath, shallow and shaky through lips ringed with hot, bright blood. “You said my name and I've been suffocating ever since.” 

This is his fault.

He’s the one who pushed before Shane was ready, before Shane knew he was safe there. If he’d just waited, thought about it more, planned what he was going to say better, maybe they wouldn’t be here right now. Maybe Shane wouldn’t have spent the past five months struggling to breathe while Ilya sucked in cool, easy air like it was nothing. 

Maybe. 

But he's Ilya Rozanov, and he hurts the people he loves, and if it weren’t this, it would’ve been something else, right? Always something else. 

“F-fuck,” he stammers, tongue twisting over his words, clumsy no matter which language he chose. “I'm sorry, Shane, I —”

“Please don't apologize,” Shane croaks. “Don't. I know we can't be anything, and so I'm gonna get the surgery, and it'll be fine.” He finally looks up to meet Ilya’s eyes before dropping his voice to a pained, lurching whisper. “You'll be fine.” 

And Shane seems so sure of it. So blindly, desperately confident that he's not creating carnage in Ilya’s chest with this decision, enacting his torture in the form of mistaken promises and cooing betrayal. 

God, he couldn't be more wrong. 

“No, I won't,” Ilya mutters. 

Shane sighs, letting his gaze fall. “You will, I pro–” 

“I won't because I have been suffocating, too,” Ilya interrupts, voice strong and terrified. “I do not have petals in my throat, but I have been choking on this love for many years, Shane. So long that I don't know how to live without it.” 

And his Shane, his kind, beautiful, loving Shane, looks at Ilya like he just told him they’re swapping hockey pucks for baseballs. 

“W-what?” he stammers, eyes wide as saucers, lips trembling around a gasp. 

“Don't you dare get that surgery, Shane. Don’t you dare.” 

He stalks over to the bed, falling to his knees on the cold linoleum and clutching at Shane's hand, careful to slip his fingers around the tubes and wires sticking out of the back of his palm. And the returning pressure is weak, Shane's fingers straining to cradle his, but it's there and it's real and Ilya clings to this fleeting sign of life.

“Tell me, lyubimyy. Tell me how you feel, please,” he asks, demands, begs, his gaze locked on Shane's bloodshot eyes.

“I…” 

“Shane.”

Shane blinks once, and his fingers tighten around Ilya’s. 

“I love you.” 

Air crushes itself out of Ilya's lungs at the same time Shane's chest inflates, his free hand reaching for their joined ones as Ilya drops his forehead to the mattress.

“Again, Shane.” 

“I love you, Ilya.” 

His voice is stronger now, oxygen in his blood again after so long, like his body already knows what Ilya's answer will be. It makes something in Ilya's chest sing. 

He shifts forward, dragging his lips over Shane's fingertips before looking up and connecting their gazes. 

“I love you, too, Shane. So much more than you know.” 

“Please kiss me.” 

Always. 

He surges forward, lifting off his knees to clutch at Shane, hospital gown wrinkling in his fists as he hauls his love into a bruising, frantic kiss. He tastes like a blood-soaked bouquet, an odd floral and metallic blend that floods Ilya’s tongue, and it’s not until salt coats his lips that he realizes they’re both crying. 

“Moya lyubov, I —” 

“Not yet.” 

Shane pulls him back in with fingers tangled in his curls, Ilya nearly falling over the bedrails with the force of it. He lets Shane take what he needs, sucking on his tongue and biting at his lips, and Ilya is ready and willing to bleed in his lover’s place. 

They don’t separate even when Ilya’s lungs are begging for breath, burning in his ribs, because this pain is his penance. He waits until Shane pulls back, both of their chests heaving with the weight of it. Ilya’s hands pulse where they’re wrapped around Shane’s hospital gown, fists loosening to knead at the soft flesh beneath. (The heartbeat pounding through the rough fabric feels like proof of heaven.)  

He rests their foreheads together, eyes falling shut as he memorizes the feeling of Shane’s nose brushing against his, a miracle of closeness he never thought he’d get again. 

“I’ve missed you so much, Ilya,” Shane whispers, pained, and it draws a whimper from the base of Ilya’s throat.  

“I’m here, I missed you, I’m here,” he says, punctuating each sentiment with a kiss. He shifts to the side, pressing his forehead to Shane’s cheekbone so he can ghost his lips over his jawline instead. And it feels so good here, nestled in Shane’s warmth again, that he really doesn’t give a fuck about the ache in his back from bending over so awkwardly, or the way his elbow is kind of locking up where it’s pressing his weight into the flimsy mattress. 

He has his Shane again. And he’s not letting anything get in their way this time. 

They rest there for a moment, savoring the heat of each other’s breath on their skin. It’s his own slice of paradise, Ilya thinks, being close enough to touch, being welcome to feel. He snakes one hand up to run his fingers through Shane’s hair, still silky despite the salty sweat from last night’s game. And when Shane burrows further into the crook of Ilya’s neck in response, he knows he will do whatever it takes to keep this, them, for the rest of his fucking life. 

Ilya doesn't know how long they stay in this oasis, but it's not long enough. 

Shane draws back with a hum, Ilya’s jaw cradled in his cold hands, safe despite the chill. As he shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, Ilya reaches his own fingers up to wrap around Shane’s, rubbing his thumb over the jut of bone at his wrist. (He can tell just from a single touch that those wrists are thinner, and the thought of Shane withering away from his own pain makes Ilya's chest clench.)  

“You…” Shane starts, sounding dazed, almost, his eyes a little glassy. “You have my blood on your mouth.” 

Brow furrowed, Ilya darts his tongue out, swiping along his bottom lip to catch a smear of red along the swollen flesh. Oh. 

“That’s okay,” he says, shrugging. “As long as it’s the last time you bleed for me, it’s okay.”   

“Ilya, baby, we’re hockey players,” Shane counters with a scoff, smoothing his thumb along the spit-slick skin. “And on rival teams.” 

(Ilya baby Ilya baby Ilya baby.) (Holy fucking shit.)  

“Yes, and you will not get hurt as long as I am on the ice.” 

“Ilya, you can’t —” 

“I will put my own players through the boards before they hurt you again,” he interrupts, fierce and biting and raw. He holds Shane’s gaze so he knows it’s true, knows Ilya will risk fucking life and limb to keep him safe now that he has him. 

“I'm not gonna ask you to do that.”

“Then don't ask,” he says, plain and simple because it is. “I will do anyway.” 

“Ilya.”

“I thought I lost you, Shane. Permanently.” He pauses, twisting in Shane's hold to kiss his palm, rough and callused from years on the ice, a reminder that this is real. “Was scariest moment of my life. And I can't — if you get hurt again, I do not know what I'd —”

“Hey, hey, it's over now, it's okay,” Shane whispers, shushing the harsh, speeding breaths rattling through Ilya's ribs. But Ilya feels frantic, temples pulsing with flashbacks to last night, fear trickling through his veins with every glimpse of red that his terrible, traitorous brain pushes to the forefront. 

It had been agony, going home without answers, spending his night switching between ESPN and tabloid sites and every social media app he could fucking download just to find a single morsel of information about Shane. He’d crashed at some point, exhaustion catching up to him like a tidal wave, but the marrow-deep fear had lingered, hovering around his bones and waiting to flood free. 

It rushes out now. 

“You scared me, Shane,” he whispers, lifting a shaky hand to run gentle fingertips down Shane’s face, reverent against those faded freckles.  

“I’m sorry.” 

“Do not do this again, lyubimyy. Please.” 

“Okay.”  

“I mean that for anything,” Ilya insists. “You sneeze too many times, you call me, yes? I will get on a plane and make you my mama’s borscht.”

Shane huffs, a little wheezy. “That’s maybe a bit overkill, Ilya.” 

“Nothing is overkill for you, Shane,” he says. “Nothing.”

Shane sighs, his eyes so full of love that Ilya is almost scared to meet them. Carefully, he pulls Ilya in for a soft, chaste kiss. It lingers, far more than they’ve ever indulged before, and it makes Ilya ache for all the time they’ve lost.  

“I need you safe and here with me,” Ilya murmurs when they break apart, his forehead pressing into Shane’s. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

“You better not.” 

Shane smiles, but it’s sad, soft. “I’m sorry I let it get this bad.” 

“No, Shane, you do not have to —” he tries, but Shane keeps talking as if he’d never said a thing. 

“I thought that if I found someone else and tried to love them instead, it would go away.”

Ilya can nearly hear his heart breaking for this boy, this beautiful, relentless, determined boy, who tries so fucking hard for everyone but himself. “Sweetheart.” 

“I know it was stupid. I know,” he brushes off, pausing to let out a wet cough. “But if someone found out, then they’d start asking questions and try to figure out who it was, and what if they realized it was you? I can’t risk you like that, Ilya. I can’t.” 

And fuck, his eyes are so tight, fear lacing through the bloodshot streaks stretching out from a ring of brown. Ilya understands the terror, of course he does, almost appreciates the lengths Shane is willing to go to keep him safe. But his life could not, would not, be worth it if Shane’s is on the line. 

“So you let yourself hurt instead?” Ilya pushes, letting his voice go cold.  

“Well, yeah, I guess.” 

Ilya presses his lips into a terse line, running his thumbs over Shane's cheeks as he shakes his head. “Never again, Shane.” 

“It’s not like it worked, anyway,” Shane says with a shrug, and the barest hint of pink floods out from underneath Ilya’s fingers on his face. “Turns out I can’t not love you.” 

And thank fuck for that.

Ilya leans in as something crumbles in glory behind his ribs, connecting his lips to Shane’s with a slow, savoring kiss. (He still tastes like blood.) “I cannot not love you, either. I spent many years trying not to, and it did not go so well.” 

God, did he ever, distracting himself with cars and clubs when the ache burrowed deep in his chest got too loud to ignore. It was an endless fall into a bottomless pit, the world muted and rushing by him while the one thing he wanted, the one thing he’s ever needed, slipped further and further out of his grasp. He’d hoped it’d get knocked out of him eventually, the edges of emptiness soothed numb with vodka and sex and adrenaline, but nothing helped. 

For nine fucking years, nothing could stop that ache from grumbling with need. It begged him for another taste of where Shane’s hips met his thighs, another glimpse of the hollow of Shane’s throat stretching back with bliss, another brush of Shane’s lips against his forehead with sweat cooling on his hairline. It begged and begged and begged until it forced Ilya to fucking do something about it, only for him to basically run Shane out of the house with the whisper of his name. 

He’d been so ready to love Shane from afar for the rest of his fucking life. And he’s so fucking happy he doesn’t have to do that anymore.

Shane laughs, and, like always, Ilya is helpless not to follow. (He’s never seen open, raw joy like this before. He wants it to stay with Shane forever.) “No, it really didn’t.” 

“But it worked out.”

“It did. I love you.” 

“And I love you.” 

Shane shifts forward, letting his arms fall around Ilya’s waist so he can bury his face into Ilya’s chest instead, forehead crushed to his sternum like he’s trying to transfer heartbeats. Ilya pulls him closer instantly, curling a hand behind his head and wrapping the other arm around his shoulders, protective and warm.

(Somehow, despite all they’ve done, this feels the most intimate to Ilya. He feels stripped bare, bones whittled down to the marrow, and when he reaches out to touch, he knows that Shane is right there with him.) 

His fingertips trail up Shane’s spine, dragging against the opening of his hospital gown to skim the thick skin beneath. The goosebumps that rise in his wake send a thrill of delight down the back of his neck. Ilya tips his chin to press his lips to the crown of Shane’s head, breathing in the scent of sweat and antiseptic and the slightest hint of the seaweed shampoo that was always stocked in Shane’s bathroom. 

It’s his first deep breath in weeks, head out the window and gulping in the fresh air, and it’s the best thing he’s tasted since Shane’s soft skin in a Toronto hotel room. 

Silently, there in the peace of his love’s arms, Ilya promises he'll never make Shane hurt like this again, promises he'll spend the rest of his life making up for this pain. (It’s the least he can fucking do, really.) 

“Can you…” Shane starts, his voice hoarse and a little muffled from where his lips brush the cotton of Ilya's shirt. “Can you lie down with me? Please?” 

Ilya leans back without letting go of Shane, flicking his gaze over the sheets. “I do not think this bed is wide enough, lyubimyy.” 

“If we’re both on our sides, though?”

Ilya runs his eyes over the tubes sticking out of Shane’s hand, the cannula delivering oxygen to his slowly healing lungs. A rush of anxiety clutches at his chest, tingling down his veins. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“You won’t,” Shane protests, shaking his head. “You could never.” 

(But I already did.)

He relents, because of course he does. Carefully, Ilya kicks his shoes off and tosses his coat onto the chair in the far corner of the room. When he turns around, Shane is already curled up on his side, facing Ilya with teary eyes and an outstretched hand. 

“Come here, baby.” 

Ilya all but collapses into him, falling fast into the hospital bed and twining his legs with Shane’s. (Perfect fucking fit.) He takes Shane’s hand in one of his, dragging his lips over the cracked knuckles before letting the tangle of fingers rest on the pillow, tucked safe between them. His other arm locks like a vice over Shane’s hip, tight and possessive. 

Shane’s eyes are bright despite the dullness of his skin, and Ilya can’t fucking look away. Hair splayed on the pillow, cheek smushed in, shoulders curving in around his body. He looks like everything Ilya could ever want. 

(Ilya is struck with a sudden image of them, exactly like this, but with morning sun adorning their twisted, tangled bodies, wrapped in the comfort of the old knit blanket Ilya keeps tucked away in the back of his closet, a relic saved from his mama. He wants it so desperately, a soft easy warm loving safe future for them. He doesn’t know if they’ll get it, but Ilya thinks, in moments like these, that they’ll get close enough.)

“Thank you for coming here,” Shane whispers, and his breath on Ilya’s fingertips is like a salve to his wild, ridiculous desires. 

“Of course.”

“I know your coach probably told you to, but still.” 

What?

“No, no,” Ilya protests, shaking his head. “This was my decision, Shane.” 

“Really?” 

And why the fuck does Shane sound so shocked? Ilya nods, holding the eye contact so that Shane knows, he knows, that Ilya’s every move revolves around him in some way. 

“Even though you thought the petals were for Rose?”

(Something deep and selfish flares where his ribs meet, and Ilya barely keeps it from cracking his chest open.)

“I could not let Boston be my last memory of us,” he admits, voice low and rumbling across the sheets. “Even if I left here alone, it would’ve been better.” 

Shane hesitates, squeezing their intertwined fingers on the pillow. “I’m sorry I ran that day.” 

“Shane —” 

“I am. Everything just got so real, so fast, and I got so fucking scared that running felt like the only option.” He scoffs like he’s angry, like he’s disappointed, like he’s planning his punishment already. (What was all this if not an exercise in self-flagellation, then?) “But it wasn’t, and I shouldn’t have left you like that. I wanted to turn back as soon as I shut the door, but I figured I’d already ruined it. In for a penny, in for a pound, you know?” 

“Shane, I have no idea what the fuck that means.” 

Shane laughs, weak around the oxygen tube stretching across his face. “It means I was wrong to leave you, I was wrong to keep going, and that I’m sorry I did. I wish I had stayed, and not just because the coughing started the next morning.” 

The reminder is sobering, and Ilya disentangles one hand to rest it against Shane’s throat, feeling the steady, thrumming pulse beneath.  

“Were you really not going to tell me?” he asks, voice wavering around the raw fear tucked between his words. 

Shane sighs, resignation sticking to the heat of his breath. “I probably would’ve in the end. You were right; you deserved to know.” He pauses, hooking a bare thigh over Ilya’s denim-clad legs to pull them closer together. “But I was more scared of your response than I was back in Boston. It would’ve really been the end, then, you know?” 

“I know. I was scared you were already with Rose.” 

Shane snorts. “Just because I fell in love with you that quickly doesn’t mean I did the same with her,” he says, like he’s not rearranging the world’s atoms with his words, like he’s not changing everything Ilya thought he’d accepted about this doomed love. “And I’m gay, anyway.” 

Oh, god. 

Ilya can’t get enough air past his lips. Something is squeezing it out of him, choking him at every divot of his throat and wringing his lungs out like wet rags. 

“What do you mean that quickly?” Ilya asks.

Shane's eyes go wide, lips parting like he'd made a mistake. But Ilya holds him there, because he needs to know. (He always seems to need when it comes to Shane.)  “Oh, I —” 

“Shane.” 

He sighs, cheeks coloring with his…embarrassment? Anxiety? Ilya can’t tell, but he knows it lives somewhere inside himself, too. “That night in Toronto…” (Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.) “It was like everything made sense. For once, off the ice, things made sense. And I didn’t want to admit it then, but that night changed things for me. I was halfway gone on you before our careers even started.” 

His stare holds somewhere down by Ilya’s chin, bashful and nervous, and Ilya will be damned if he ever lets his boy be ashamed of loving him so beautifully, so wholly, even when they have to hide. 

Ilya darts forward as best he can in this cramped hospital bed, dragging Shane into a desperate, gasping kiss, because fuck. He’d thought he was alone in it, all these years alone. 

He pours every dismissed want, every shaken-off thought into where their lips meet, crushing Shane as close to him as possible. Every moment he found someone’s eyes across the club and wished it was Shane staring back at him is with him now, his desires finally finding their home. Their kiss is deep, searching, a deluge of reassurances between one broken breath and the next. 

I’m here. I see you. I love you. I’ve felt every moment with you, from Saskatchewan to now. You have me, you have me, you have me. 

“I was gone, too, Shane,” he pants out when they part, lips pink and swollen with pressure. “I was. You folded your clothes as soon as you took them off, and I was done for.” 

“That’s what did it for you?” Shane scoffs, eyebrows rising in surprise (cute cute cute). “The folding?” 

“Yes. You folded, and then I folded, too.” 

Shane bursts into a laugh, swaying forward to curve further into Ilya’s hold. “Idiot.” 

Ilya hums as he smooths a kiss over Shane’s hairline. “Yours.” 

Nodding, Shane falls into him, hiding his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck. And he fits so perfectly there, even with his oxygen tube digging into Ilya’s throat and the fabric of his hospital gown rubbing rough against Ilya’s collarbones. It’s perfect, and it’s theirs, and it’s home. 

(Ilya is so fucking glad he came as early in the day as he did. Time has always been a luxury for them, the one thing money and fame couldn’t access. He may only have a few hours, now, but he’s more than happy to spend them with Shane in his arms.)

The breath skimming across the back of his neck starts to even out, and Ilya bites his lip around the satisfaction it gives him, knowing Shane feels safe enough to rest here. 

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Ilya murmurs. He twists to nip at the curve of Shane’s ear, playful and teasing. 

“Maybe,” Shane croaks, craning his neck back to connect their gazes. Carefully, he lifts his hand to trace his fingertips over the curve of Ilya’s cheekbone, smoothing over the dip where his mole is and stretching to comb through the golden curls behind his ear. And good god, Ilya feels adored. 

He leans in for a kiss, just a chaste press of lips, but it still sends sparks fluttering across his skin. (The smile Shane gives him when they part is proof he felt that fleeting heat, too.) 

“You know, they —” Shane cuts himself off with a round of harsh, startled coughs, throat still rough and unused to the cool air flowing through. Ilya nearly fucking leaps off the bed to grab the glass of water on the folding table beside them, holding the straw to Shane's lips as he sits up, his body jolting with every hack. 

“Thank you, baby,” he mutters before taking a sip, and Ilya has to press his lips to Shane's forehead to stop the sudden sob inching up his throat. (He did this, he did this, he did this.)

Shane takes a few deep breaths after draining half the cup, and Ilya keeps a close hold on him as he steadies himself. 

“They took my petals back for testing last night,” Shane starts again, his voice a little stronger now. “Did you recognize them?” 

“I thought they were rose petals.” 

Shane shakes his head, eyes wide and watery as he stares up at Ilya. “They were Siberian Fawn Lilies.” 

Fucking hell. 

“Really?”

“The doctors were really confused by me coughing up flowers that don't exist in Canada.” 

Ilya snorts. “I do not think those are even in Moscow.”

“I figured, from the whole Siberian thing.” Shane gives him a crooked smile, easy and beautiful, and Ilya can’t help but kiss him.  

“I’d been trying to figure out what they were,” he starts, curling his fingers under Shane’s chin. “But I couldn’t — I didn’t want to look at the photos.”

“Ilya…”

Ilya swallows, willing the tear-filled lump in his throat to go away. (Fuck, he hates crying.) “There was so much blood, Shane.” 

“Hey,” Shane starts, lifting his hands to hold Ilya’s jaw where it clenches around the threat of emotion. “Look at me. Look at me, Ilya.” And his wonderful, patient Shane waits, thumbs skimming over Ilya’s cheekbones as he works up the courage to lock their gazes. (Shane’s freckles are blurry through Ilya’s eyes.)

“I’m okay. I promise.” Shane reaches down to grab one of Ilya’s hands, pulling to lay it flat against his chest. Ilya’s fingers follow as he takes a deep breath, ribs expanding, glorious and alive.

“You feel that? I’m okay. I’m okay because you love me, because we love each other.”

“We do.” And what a fucking miracle that is. 

“It's you and me, okay? We're gonna figure this out, and then it's gonna be us.” He brings their joined hands up to his lips, adorning Ilya’s knuckles with a long, reverent kiss. “You're stuck with me, Rozanov.”

(Good fucking lord, he is going to love this man forever.) “I would not dream of anything else, Hollander.” 

He’s been Shane’s from the start, since before they ever felt the spark of skin against skin. Toronto may have opened things up for Shane, but it only confirmed them for Ilya. Those fucking freckles haunted him from Regina to Moscow and back again, following him through their draft day and their second round at World Juniors in Ottawa and every moment in between, the only thing that kept him going through terse dinners and berating game reviews with his father. 

Shane has been his strength since before he knew what it meant to love another person.

And there's nothing he wouldn't do for Shane now, at his mercy and happy to stay there. He’d carve himself open and take out each organ one by one, give them to Shane and say here, this is yours, do with me what you please, I will love you anyway and always. 

But he doesn’t know how to put that into words, so he settles for lifting their joined hands to his face, resting his cheek on the back of Shane’s palm.

“If it is going to be us,” Ilya starts, “then there is something I need to say first.” 

Shane nods, leaning up to brush a kiss against the corner of Ilya’s mouth. “Lie down with me before you do?”

(God, he’s too sweet, too understanding, for Ilya’s own good.) 

“Yes, but flip so you lie on me. You have not healed yet, moya lyubov.” 

“Okay.” 

They arrange themselves on the bed with Shane propped on Ilya’s chest, the hand connected to the IV drip resting in the slight dip of Ilya’s waist. His other sits beneath his chin, providing the slightest cushion against the hard plane of Ilya’s sternum. 

From here, Ilya can feel Shane’s heart pounding against his ribs, and he lets it be a balm to his worries.

“What is it, baby?” Shane asks, deep eyes intent with concern. 

Ilya reaches out, brushing Shane’s hair out of his face with careful fingers. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” 

Instantly, Shane’s brow furrows, lifting off the bed in protest. “Ilya, you have nothing to be —”

“I do. I do.” He takes a deep breath as he curves an arm around Shane. (Keep the window open.) “I am sorry I could not be what you needed. For so long, I fought this and looked the other way when I hurt you. I am sorry I kept hurting you. I’m sorry I couldn't tell you how I felt without making a joke of it. I’m sorry I ever made you think you were not loved by me. You are — you are so, so loved by me.”

“I know that now.”  

“And I will make sure you do not forget it. I will be the lover you deserve, Shane, I promise.” 

Shane's face crumples into itself, disgust threading a line through his furrowed brow. “Oh, no, Ilya, don’t call us that.” 

“What, lovers?” Ilya asks, taken aback. “But we are in love. We are lovers, yes?”

“Pick a different word, please, baby.” 

“Fine,” he sighs, rolling his eyes. “The man you deserve, then.” (It’s not as good as lover, in Ilya’s opinion, but he won’t object to being Shane Hollander’s man. He won’t object to being Shane Hollander’s anything, really.) 

“That works.” 

Shane presses another kiss to Ilya’s chest before cuddling in close again, head turned so his ear rests just below Ilya’s collarbone. 

“Do you have any plans for this summer?” Shane asks as he traces shapes down Ilya's side, wrinkling the cotton of his henley. 

“Nothing I can't cancel.”

“What if you came to my cottage for a bit? Not the whole summer, if you have things to do. Just some time where we can be us, you know?”

God, what a fucking dream that would be. Ilya doesn’t even have to think about his answer. 

“I will be there,” he says, decides, declares. No fucking room for argument. 

“You will?” Shane asks, his voice so soft, so stunned.

“Of course. I —” Ilya hesitates. “There is nothing tying me to Russia anymore. And I do not want to go back.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, moya lyubov. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.” He pauses, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. “I will need to celebrate my Cup win somehow, yes?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Shane huffs, shoving weakly at Ilya’s shoulder. “No way you’re getting past us in the playoffs.” 

“Ah, now, Hollander, who won last night?” he prods, chin tipped high. “Because I do not think it was Montreal.”

“Carmichael only broke that tie because I was off the ice, asshole.” 

“And you will not be back on the ice until you are all healed, lyubimyy. Playoffs start in three days.”

Shane leans in, so close their lips nearly brush as he speaks, voice rough and low. “Give me a week and then I’ll crush you in Game 2.” 

Ilya cranes his neck off the pillow to get closer, always closer, as he whispers, “You can do whatever you want to me, sweetheart.” 

Shane fucking dives in, fisting the curls at the base of Ilya’s neck and tugging, swallowing Ilya’s answering gasp with parted lips. The kiss is a livewire, jolts of electricity buzzing through Ilya's veins with every swirl of Shane's tongue against his. 

He feels drunk off the low, humming moans escaping Shane's throat, vibrating against Ilya’s mouth with the most delicious pressure. This is heaven, Ilya thinks, even with his nose knocking against the oxygen tube stretched atop Shane's upper lip, even with his movements limited by the bedrails holding them in. 

Shane shifts so that he's straddling Ilya, his hospital gown bunched up around his hips, and Ilya immediately locks onto the smooth, soft skin exposed below. He digs his fingers into the muscle of Shane’s thighs and squeezes, desperate to pull him closer, desperate to erase the space between them until they’re a single, melded thing, sharing breath and body and helpless without each other. (It’s not the biggest leap to take, Ilya thinks, not with Shane already nestled into the center of his soul.) 

They part with a gasp, and Ilya curves around Shane to burrow his face into the crook of his neck, lips pressed to his pulse point for worship. He’d sit at this altar forever if Shane let him, reverent and unworthy, every minute of his life dedicated to how beautiful, how blessed it is that Shane is alive and here with him. 

Ilya lifts a reluctant hand off Shane to push against the hospital bed, giving him enough leverage to sit up and hold his love against him without disconnecting his lips. He bites down, pulling Shane’s artery between his teeth and feeling it throb beneath his tongue. 

“Fuck, baby,” Shane whimpers, whines, and it makes Ilya’s blood run hot as he reconnects their lips. It’s what he’s been missing for months now, the weight of his world heavy on his lap, arms draped around his shoulders with hands pulling at his curls. 

And Ilya loves him, he loves him, he loves him.  

(And what a miracle it is to be loved back.)

Distantly, Ilya recognizes a rapid beeping off to the side, some machine going off as Shane's breathing speeds up and his heart starts to race. But he pays it no mind, too preoccupied trying to figure out how to work around twisting wires and lay Shane down in his arms. 

He can't fuck Shane in a hospital bed, but maybe he can still —

A knock at the door has him scrambling off the flimsy mattress, scurrying out of Shane’s hold and straightening to stand at his bedside, socked feet on the cold linoleum. (Good god, thank fuck Shane’s door doesn’t have a window.)

“Oh.” The nurse freezes as she comes into the room, eyes darting between them as they both try to contain their heaving chests. “Didn’t realize you had a…visitor.” 

Shane clears his throat, adjusting his hospital gown where it's gone askew. “That’s alright. C-come in, please.” 

“Just came to check your vitals. We may be able to get you into surgery tonight after all.”

Right. Because that’s still what everyone thinks, that Shane needs to get his love taken away. (What will they think when they learn the true reason behind the lilies that carved a path up his throat?)

“I will go now, then,” Ilya says, trying to discreetly shove his feet back into his discarded shoes. “Get well soon, Hollander.” And fuck, it feels so wrong to call him that. That's Shane, his Shane, his lover, even if Shane doesn’t want to call them that. (Would he be alright with boyfriends, maybe?) 

“No, Rozanov. That’s alright,” Shane says, waving a hand out to stop Ilya from leaving. He turns back toward the nurse. “Actually, I, uh, won’t need the surgery anymore.” 

The nurse leans back from where she was checking his IV setup, eyes wide with surprise. “No? You told your love, then?” 

“Yeah. My Lily.” 

“And it’s good news?” 

Shane rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, barely holding back his grin around the bite. “The best.” 

“Well, you sound better already,” she says, smiling as she jots something down on her clipboard. “Guess you’ll get back to making trouble for the Raiders soon enough, eh?” 

“Hope so.”

Ilya huffs out a laugh. “Is no fun beating Montreal without you on the ice, Hollander.”

“Right back at’cha, Rozanov.” There’s a glint in Shane’s eyes, playful and theirs, and Ilya somehow feels himself fall more in love with his Shane.  

The nurse smiles, slipping her pen back into her chest pocket. “I’ll get that surgery canceled and set you up for some recovery testing. Should get you out of here and back with your love by tomorrow at the latest.” 

“Thank you, really.” 

“Of course, Mr. Hollander. I’m glad it worked out.” 

Shane’s smile grows impossibly wider. “Me, too.” 

They watch, silent, as the nurse leaves the room, the flounce of her hair disappearing through the door as it shuts tight behind her. 

“Your Lily, huh?” Ilya asks, turning to connect his gaze with Shane’s.

“Yes,” he confirms. “Mine.”

Ilya reaches over to take Shane’s hand, twisting to press his lips to the beautiful, thumping pulse of his inner wrist. 

“Yours.”