Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Time Travel Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy, Time Travel, Canon Rewrite, Anxious Shane Hollander, Idiots in Love, Communication

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-07 Words: 6,713 Chapters: 1/1

Doctor Who Much?

Summary

“Can I?” Shane asked quietly, staring at his lips.

Rozanov would punch him. Shane would bend time and never come down to the gym in the first place. Simple.

Except no. Rozanov put the bottle down and pulled Shane into his lap.

What?..

...

Shane can travel back in time whenever he regrets something. This is particularly inconvenient for a man prone to regretting awkward conversations.

Somehow, time travel becomes therapy and these two idiots learn to talk.

• A translation of Ты типа Доктор Кто? by kurizakusturiza

14½.

During the intermission before the third period, Shane’s phone buzzed inside his locker. Once. Then again. He probably wouldn’t have heard the chiming over the noise if he hadn’t been standing right next to the locker.

As a rule, Shane didn’t touch his phone until the game was over, but this time… A shiver ran down his spine for no apparent reason. Frowning, he opened the locker and pulled out his phone. Ilya had sent him something in an Instagram DM, which was weird—they didn’t usually message there. Oh, right. He was on a plane, using the Wi-Fi.

Shane opened the message.

Love confessions. What the fuck? It didn’t even sound anything like the drunken, sentimental love ramblings he occasionally indulged in.

You: Ilya, what’s going on?

Ilya: The plane is falling.

Shane dropped the phone.

No.

He had wasted so much time regretting things, rewinding every single one of his public coming-outs because he hated the hundreds of comments from homophobes, hated Commissioner Crowell’s threats, hated the way his team reacted to his relationship with Ilya—they could have been married ages ago. And now Ilya was writing from a falling plane about how much he loved him, even though he was only on that plane because it had been Shane’s own fucking idea to bring Ilya to Ottawa, to a team sitting at the absolute bottom of the chart.

No.

This wasn’t happening.

Shane looked at his team.

“I’m sorry, guys.”

They didn’t have time to react. Hayden had only just started to frown when…

The world tilted, and time began to flow backward.

1.

Shane’s power manifested the first time he slept with a girl.

He knew what was expected of him. Everyone said girls were awesome, something something boobs, et cetera. He listened to those conversations with interest, but not because he was equally eager to get into bed with some girl. Mostly, he didn’t really understand what people were supposed to talk about if it wasn’t hockey, so he took mental notes.

He was sort of handsome, wasn’t he? And girls liked athletes. Shane’s teammates always gave cheerful wolf-whistles whenever someone managed to pick up a girl. So when Rebecca took his hand and led him somewhere, Shane followed her like a lamb.

He was sixteen. He probably could have gotten hard over practically anything. But the whole thing was awkward. Afterwards, he was left with a sticky, unpleasant feeling, as if he hadn’t lost his virginity but spent a week rowing in the galleys. For some reason, he even felt like crying.

Shane distinctly regretted following Rebecca in the first place. Then his head started spinning, his lungs squeezed tight, and his next breath came in the exact same hallway where Rebecca had taken his hand.

And she did it again—but this time Shane didn’t go anywhere with her.

“Sorry. I’m not ready,” Shane blurted out, short of shaking anxiously.

Only afterwards did it hit him.

Oh.

He could bend time.

2.

His power left thin phosphor-like streaks across his forearm, fading away by the time Shane returned to the moment when he had used his ability. Powers left traces on everyone; they weren’t invisible. Shane had heard about a boxer with superhuman strength whose opponents were always carefully examined after a fight, because whenever he threw a punch using his ability, it left an imprint on the other person. Almost like Shane’s—glowing phosphor, only multicolored, like something out of a Holi festival.

Shane’s marks were always pale blue, almost neon, and they only ever appeared on him.

A lot of athletes hid their abilities. Sometimes only management knew, maybe the team itself. Shane was a little jealous of ordinary people, who didn’t have to think about their public image, personal brand, or reputation within their industry. Besides, he was a responsible kid and a terrible liar.

His file was marked “enhanced human,” with a description based on his own testimony—but all of it came with question marks, because Shane couldn’t demonstrate anything. They also added a special requirement to his uniform: the lower half of his left forearm had to remain uncovered. His mom said he was lucky there were cameras everywhere during games. Back in the eighties, a player with an ability capable of affecting the outcome of a match wouldn’t have been allowed to play at all, and Shane would have had to hide it.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t demonstrate anything.” Shane arranged his face into polite regret simply because that was what people expected of him. “I think I have to really regret something for it to work. And I’ve never regretted hockey, even when I lost.”

“So what do you regret?” someone on the board asked Shane.

Without thinking, he answered with complete honesty:

“Girls.”

Mom decided Shane was a hopeless romantic.

3.

He stopped trying to hook up with girls because he regretted it every goddamn time and rewound it. And then, he started bending time because of awkward conversations.

“The smoking area is over there,” Shane told Ilya Rozanov.

“Okay,” Rozanov replied, lighting up his cigarette.

He shook Shane’s hand, but said nothing else, and Shane hadn’t felt that awkward in a long time.

His head spun. The world blurred. He was standing about twenty meters away from Rozanov, who was only just pulling a cigarette from the pack.

Act natural, idiot! How do people meet when they want to become friends? You’ve seen movies, come on!

“Hi. I’m Shane Hollander.”

Rozanov lit his cigarette and shook his hand.

“Hi.”

“And you’re Ilya Rozanov.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re an amazing player to watch.”

“Okay.”

“Are you always this much of an asshole?” Shane couldn’t stop himself. If this went badly, he’d start over. Or maybe he’d start over and simply not come over to introduce himself at all.

Rozanov blinked. “My English isn’t good. Talk slower.”

“…Fuck.”

Shane’s head spun. The world tilted. Rozanov was pulling a cigarette from the pack twenty meters away. Shane pushed up the left sleeve of his jacket: two small neon lines were slowly fading from his forearm, parallel to each other. For fuck’s sake, why was this so hard?

“Hi.”

“Hi?”

“I’m Shane Hollander. Nice to meet you.”

Rozanov shook his hand for the third time. And he seemed to be smirking, just a little.

“You play great,” Shane said shortly.

“Okay.”

Shane didn’t call him an asshole. He just looked him straight in the eye. Was Rozanov thinking of something to say, or was he fucking with him?

“You will not be so nice when we beat you,” Rozanov finally said.

“That’s not happening,” Shane immediately shot back, barking a short laugh.

So he had been thinking of a way to troll him. Asshole.

“See you in final,” Rozanov said all sly and cocky, and winked at him.

“Yeah. See you there.”

Later, Shane’s mom asked whether he’d managed to talk to Rozanov like he’d wanted to.

“Yeah. Once he learns English, he’s going to turn into a walking nightmare.”

4.

Shane still didn’t regret hockey. He didn’t regret losing the World Prospects final, and he didn’t regret being drafted second overall—he was only a little disappointed. (That was a lie. He was very disappointed.)

But what the hell was Rozanov doing in the tiny hotel gym? He had gotten everything he wanted that year. Shane was the one with the fury insomnia.

Rozanov wasn’t the problem there. The problem was Shane, because he was getting bolder. He was getting reckless. It was much easier to give in to impulses when you knew you could erase everything afterward, and nobody but you would remember.

Would the black eye still be there after Rozanov punched him and Shane rewound time?

They had been competing at cardio like idiots, and now they were sitting on the floor, drenched in sweat and breathing hard. Rozanov had a bottle of water. Shane had forgotten his. He didn’t care, because he wanted to kiss Rozanov more than he wanted a drink.

Come on, Shane. He’ll punch you, you’ll bend time, and nobody will ever know you kissed him. Come on…

“Here. Drink.” Rozanov handed him his bottle, delaying the inevitable.

And Shane drank. When he handed it back, Rozanov’s fingers brushed his—as if on purpose—and Shane followed the touch. He wanted to lick the sweat from Rozanov’s throat. Rozanov’s eyes went wide.

“Can I?” Shane asked quietly, staring at his lips.

Rozanov would punch him. Shane would bend time and never come down to the gym in the first place. Simple.

Except no. Rozanov put the bottle down and pulled Shane into his lap.

What?..

Shane was sitting in his lap, his fingers tangled in damp curls, and it wasn’t Shane but Rozanov who was licking his throat and grinding his hips against Shane’s.

What the fuck? Where was the punch?

Shane stared down at him, stunned. Rozanov was smiling. Not his camera smile, the one he wore during the jersey photoshoot earlier that evening, but a quiet, slightly sly smile, like he had gotten exactly what he wanted.

“Fuck, Hollander.” Rozanov gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Your place or mine?”

Shane couldn’t believe this was happening to him—and that he actually wanted it. Unlike all those disappointing girls he had ended up rewinding.

“The walls are thin,” Shane breathed.

“Shower?”

“Yeah, probably…” Shane climbed out of his lap and pulled Rozanov to his feet. Only when Rozanov turned toward the exit did it hit him. “Fuck, there’s a camera in here!”

His head spun. The world tilted. Once again, he was sitting against the wall opposite Rozanov, trying to catch his breath. A neon line appeared on his forearm, just below the edge of his sleeve.

“What did you do?” Rozanov frowned, pointing at Shane’s arm.

“I bend time. League administration knows.”

“Like Doctor Who? You are Time Lord?” Rozanov said, looking bewildered. Apparently, someone had learned English from TV shows rather than textbooks.

“Not exactly.” Shane lowered his voice, though he suspected the hotel cameras didn’t record sound. “We kissed, and then I remembered the cameras. Poof!” He snapped the fingers of his left hand, unconsciously emphasizing the glowing line.

“We did what?” Rozanov grinned.

Shane leaned forward and quietly repeated Rozanov’s earlier question:

“Your place or mine?”

He could rewind everything if he didn’t like it, right? Nobody would know.

…Shane had been so foolish to hope. He did like it.

5.

“Who are you texting?” Mom could get carried away talking business, but not enough to ignore Shane’s flip phone chirping insistently throughout breakfast.

“I like someone.”

It was easy to be honest when you could literally take your words back.

“Will you introduce her to us, or is it too early to talk about that?” Dad would always understand and support him. Let’s see if he has the limits.

Although… did Shane really want to know? If they reacted poorly, he wouldn’t be able to unknow it afterward. Maybe it was better to keep guessing. Maybe he shouldn’t know for sure…

Fuck it.

“Him.”

Mom went silent. Dad only said a quiet “wow,” then shrugged.

“That explains the Nightwing posters in your room.”

Shane was still waiting for the explosion, but it was in vain.

“Sweetheart, I’m so glad you told us. How long have you known?” Mom wasn’t the most tactile person in the world, but she stroked his palm as if she didn’t want to let go.

“I’ve been with girls. I rewound every single one of them. I didn’t want to rewind him. But we can’t date.”

The league and the management had already made comments about Shane: he wasn’t white, and he had a superpower that needed monitoring, just look at us, we are so inclusive. But no matter how much the public was fed all these speeches about inclusivity, the hockey world was conservative as hell. Adding a certainly non-traditional love life to all that was risky.

“Well, if you win the Stanley Cup,” Mom suggested, “nobody will even dare make a peep about you having a boyfriend.”

“We need two Cups.” Shane couldn’t help giggling. “He plays too. And he’s not my boyfriend.”

Mom immediately started making plans for what they would do if Shane were outed against his will, and which brands they should work with in that case.

Shane couldn’t make himself regret this conversation.

6.

“I’m a faggot.” Shane pulled a can of WD-40 out of his bag, slammed it onto the bench with a clatter, and continued. “If you fuck up on the ice—you know what I’m gonna do to you.”

He had been coming out to the team for a week now. Como and Drapeau were complete assholes about it. Coach Thériault was even worse. Shane’s first contract with Montreal lasted until the end of the season, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to re-sign, even though the idea of bouncing between different clubs had originally repulsed him.

Pros: Shane had tried practically every approach, phrase, and wording imaginable. Saying “I’m gay” didn’t scare him anymore. His teeth didn’t clench. He didn’t turn pale. He had accepted that truly fitting in was probably never going to happen for him.

Cons: he knew exactly which people on his team—the team he had been named captain of at the ridiculous age of twenty-two—were scum and douches and homophobes. And Shane couldn’t erase that knowledge from his own mind.

Honestly, the almost meme-worthy threat of violence was a terrible coming-out strategy. Guys on Reddit had written things like, show them who’s the boss, make them fear you, and this was the last piece of advice Shane hadn’t tried yet. He was desperate. He was sick of this shit. This was his final attempt—after this, he would rewind everything and keep his mouth shut until he could get the hell out of Montreal.

The team stared at the WD-40 can in silent confusion for several seconds, and then…

JJ started laughing like he was having a seizure. Then everyone else joined in.

“That is one fucking extreme way to establish yourself as the alpha male.” Hayden slapped him on the shoulder, wiping tears from his eyes.

Oh. This time they simply hadn’t believed him. Of course.

7.

Shane didn’t discuss his ability. Everyone knew he had one because of the exposed forearm on his uniform, but that was it. Rozanov knew exactly what it did—Shane had told him the very first time.

They slept together, but they weren’t dating. Rozanov sent him filthy texts and teased him. Shane’s parents knew he had “a boy,” but not who it was. Journalists kept writing little articles about Hollander-Rozanov mutual hatred. His love life was a fucking mess.

When Rozanov was already getting dressed, a neon countdown started glowing on Shane’s arm. Shane himself was still naked. It seemed like a small thing, but Rozanov would rather choke himself than leave a bad impression after sex, overachieving competitive bastard that he was.

“What happened?”

Rozanov had been relaxed, almost cheerful, but now he started to frown.

Shane felt like a coward.

He had already told Rozanov it wasn’t about him and told him to go do whatever he needed to do, but the moment the hotel-room door closed behind him, Shane got thrown back.

“I regret not asking you to stay, but I’ll regret it again if you say no,” Shane forced out. “It’s some kind of trap.”

“Hm.” Rozanov tossed his shirt somewhere and studied him. It was a dangerous look, the one he got on the ice when he was looking for the perfect taunt before a faceoff. “You want to nap together, or you want some cuddles?”

Shane didn’t know what to say. He only stared at the fading phosphorescent lines and felt his fingers go numb. He was one second away from bending time again.

He didn’t. Rozanov didn’t get undressed again; he simply flopped onto the bed, on top of the covers, still wearing his jeans. Then he gently stroked Shane’s face with his fingertips.

“Is it always like this for you?”

“When we just blow each other real quick—no.” Shane didn’t like reflecting on what happened in bed, but this time he tried, because suddenly—shockingly—Rozanov actually cared. “You know how, in the beginning, you don’t rush when you’re planning to take me apart? I think I want…”

“Me not to rush after?”

“Yeah. I guess. Until it passes.”

Rozanov kissed the top of his head and began gently stroking his hair.

“Sorry. I thought you wanted to keep distance.”

Shane nearly purred. Now he was warm. He felt good. He didn’t want to rewind anything.

“Mmm, well, not that much distance. No distance at all if you were just inside me, okay?”

Rozanov carefully kissed him on the lips and stroked him, stroked his face, ran his fingers through his hair. God, it felt good…

“In that case, I’m going to ask something of you too. Don’t call me by my last name when we’re alone. I can keep calling you Hollander if you want, but… please.”

When Shane finally calmed down, when he stopped kissing Ilya, maybe he would realize just how completely fucked he was.

8.

“Ilya.”

“Hollander, go away.”

This was their twelfth conversation at the Sochi Olympics, and Shane still couldn’t understand why Rozanov was icing him out so hard. Yes, his team had lost—in a very much humiliating way—and Rozanov had been the captain. That had to hurt. But every single time, he told Shane to fuck off. What the hell?

So Shane rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie: his entire forearm was glowing.

“I’m sick of this! I’m sick of you telling me to fuck off! I just wanted to check if you were okay!”

Ilya visibly ground his teeth before asking:

“Can you rewind again?”

“I think so,” Shane hissed. “Right now I regret this entire stupid day!”

“Well, excellent.” Ilya smiled all broad and fake. “Have you heard about the latest law?”

“A little.” Shane faltered. The news had sounded awful, but nobody had been arrested yet, and the Canadian team had merely been advised not to walk around the streets waving rainbow flags—which, personally, wasn’t much of an inconvenience for Shane.

Because, apart from the women’s league, hockey wasn’t inclusive for shit. Nothing new there.

Ilya gave a humorless laugh.

“For now, it’s relatively safe. But only for now. I know from a reliable source that they’ll wait a year, maybe two, five, and then pass another couple of laws. Something about extremism, you know. And that’ll be it. The end. You should have heard how happy my father was. For most of his life, people were imprisoned for homosexuality in this country. ‘Send all those faggots to jail.’ Yeah. He smiles, and I want to throw up. I always knew he was a fucking traditionalist, but now? I thought, well, worst case, he’d throw me out of house and never talk to me. No great tragedy. God, I was fucking wrong. Here’s the situation, Hollander: if my father catches me doing anything like this, they’ll never find my body. Don’t come near me while we’re here. And don’t fucking text me.”

The world tilted. His lungs squeezed tight. Shane drew a deep breath, like he was surfacing from a deep mountain lake.

Morning. A café on a windy waterfront. Twelve neon lines on Shane’s forearm. There wouldn’t be a thirteenth.

“Rook, are you okay?” Hunter had seemed off all day, Shane remembered that, but when Shane started shaking after the rewind, the chief Admiral kicked into gear immediately.

“No,” Shane rasped. “No, I’m not okay.”

He had never thought before about how lucky he was to have his family. How lucky he was to have been born where he was born.

What a fucking nightmare.

9.

You: You asked me not to text you during the Olympics. But you’re back in the States now, so—I’m sorry about your game. And about… everything else.

Lily: I asked you not to text me?

You: We had twelve terrible conversations. I rewound all of them. Nobody saw us.

You: I didn’t know what you were risking before. Now I do. If you want to stop seeing me, I’ll understand.

Lily: I thought about it. I’m still thinking. I don’t know.

You: I’m not rushing you. Really. And… you can keep texting me, I guess? Who cares about some Jane?

10.

“How’s your boy?”

They never discussed it in public. Shane had already come out once on Instagram, once on Twitter, and once more during a live post-game broadcast. Every single time, it had ended, to put it mildly, not so good. His conversation with the NHL commissioner had been particularly unpleasant. But his parents had known for a long time that Shane was texting someone, and Mom seemed to want to meet him. For the past week, she had been dropping hints that Shane should invite the guy to his birthday for a small family dinner.

“We’re taking a break,” Shane finally admitted.

“Oh.” Dad sounded almost disappointed. “It seemed like things were serious between you two.”

Shane wanted to cry.

“We can’t be serious. Ever. We can’t even go on a date. I’m risking my career, and he’s risking literally everything, fuck.”

Mom took his face in her hands.

“Baby. I’m not pushing. But maybe you just need outside help? We live in a civilized world. We have lawyers. Give me the problem and we’ll see what we can do.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a hitman.” Shane wasn’t sure he was joking. Oh, he really wasn’t. “What do you think it costs to put a hit on a Russian police colonel?”

11.

Mom had plans for what to do in case Shane and “his boy” were exposed. She had known who the boy was for a while, but Ilya was still referred to simply as “your boy” or “Shane’s boy”. Shane himself didn’t believe any plans would help.

He kept sleeping with Ilya as though it meant nothing, although that was complete bullshit.

No plan could save them. Ilya kept going home for the summer even though he was miserable there, even though his father remained an asshole despite forgetting his own children’s names. Ilya couldn’t stand his relatives or family friends—except his niece, whom he always talked about with a smile. At the same time, he sent his family a fucking fortune, which somehow disappeared with astonishing speed. Ilya would have liked simply not to go back, but guilt would eat him alive: his mother was buried in Moscow, and he couldn’t make himself accept that the living needed him more, and his mother certainly wouldn’t have wanted him to ruin his life just so that he could visit her grave.

Shane learned all of this bit by bit, collecting tiny pieces of the puzzle every time Ilya cuddled him after sex or wrapped him in a blanket and made him drink hot tea. More often than not, they stayed silent, but sometimes… yes, sometimes they talked in hushed tones hardly above the whipser. After that one rewind, Ilya had stopped leaving immediately after showering, and Shane had stopped forcing himself to leave too.

Shane didn’t like leaving afterward. He didn’t like watching Ilya leave. But his heart went wild from their goodbye kisses. Ilya kissed his freckles. Ilya kissed the corner of his mouth. It felt like Shane’s whole body got hit on by a lightning.

If it weren’t for their careers, if it weren’t for their sphere and personal images, Shane probably would have proposed to Ilya ages ago.

It had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be the first one to fuck up.

Ilya asked him to stay over. Fed him breakfast when they woke up together. Kept Shane’s favorite ginger ale in the fridge. They watched sports channels and gossiped about other teams like a pair of rats. Ilya hugged him, stroked his hair, and…

They were just like Hayden and Jackie. Exactly like them.

“Jesus Christ, Ilya, what are we doing?” Shane blurted, jumping off the couch.

“What…” Shane looked away. Ilya’s face was so frightened and upset that Shane desperately wished he could erase it from his memory, but he couldn’t.

His head spun. The world tilted. Shane saw Ilya in bed the night before, content and peaceful, looking at Shane strangely as if he were about to ask something—and Shane already knew exactly what.

But a neon countdown was wrapping itself around his forearm.

“Sorry. I’m not staying.”

Ilya was in front of him in a second. He hadn’t seen Shane rewind time in two years.

“Why? What did I do?”

Shane realized he was crying, but only shook his head.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. It was wonderful. But this has gotten too serious. And we can’t… If something happens to you because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. Do you understand?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have talked so much around you,” Ilya said, smiling.

The smile was utterly miserable. Like a man on death row unsuccessfully pretending that nothing mattered to him anymore.

“I’m glad you talked. Really. I just think we shouldn’t do it anymore.”

“Shane.”

“You’re special to me. We had a wonderful day.”

“One you regretted.”

“Now I know what I’m losing, and I don’t want you to know. It’s easier to miss something you never had than…”

“Than to have it like you?”

“Than to have it like me.”

When Shane left, Ilya shoved a ginger ale from the fridge into his hands. And kissed his freckles one last time.

12.

You: I met a girl. She’s funny, she knows hockey, she jokes around a lot. Almost like you, only with more gossip and fewer sex jokes. I’m comfortable with her. I’d like it to work out, but I don’t want her. Just so you understand the scale of the tragedy, it’s Rose Landry.

Lily: Hate to disappoint you, Jane, but I think you just met your best friend.

You: So that’s what this is!

Lily: Dumbass.

Lily: …I miss you.

You: I miss you too.

13.

Hayden and JJ had known for quite a while that Shane hadn’t been joking when he came out with the WD-40 and mock threats. They had known about Ilya ever since Shane returned from a catastrophic, perfect date carrying a pile of ginger ale and rather unceremoniously burst into tears on Hayden’s shoulder.

Hayden had panicked and called JJ: his ability affected brain chemistry, and every emergency service in the cities where they played had his number on speed dial. A couple of times JJ had been called straight off the ice and flown by helicopter to hostage situations, but usually people simply called him to talk suicidal jumpers down from ledges.

When Shane finally confessed whom exactly he had broken up with, JJ had to calm Hayden down instead, because Hayden had a lot to say about Shane’s taste in men.

“I don’t know what Rozanov is like in bed, but my future wife better love me the way Shane loves him.”

Hayden kept his incredibly valuable opinion to himself after that.

When Shane honestly admitted that Rose Landry had turned out to be his long-lost bestie, JJ spent several minutes trying to kill himself with facepalms, because seriously, bro, you’re not just gay—you’re supergay if even a superstar doesn’t do it for you.

Hayden, meanwhile, finally accepted that his best friend and his child’s godfather wanted to marry Rozanov after Montreal played their December game against Boston. Because in that game, not only Shane but Ilya too played like a pair of miserable sacks of shit.

Hayden still didn’t understand how the hell they had gotten together in the first place, but at least he had stopped judging.

“Dude, are you actually okay playing on the same line as him?” Hayden’s voice on the phone was slightly sleepy, as always when he spent a long stretch at home.

At last, the league had grown tired of milking their rivalry, and at the All-Star Game Shane found himself on the same team as Ilya. The feeling was surreal. Tampa felt like a resort. Ilya bought him beer as if nothing had happened. Carter Vaughn from the Admirals teased them—he seemed to have thought Shane and Ilya were actually best friends from the very beginning.

When Hayden called, Ilya was entertaining other players’ children in the pool, while Shane drank ridiculous mocktails with little umbrellas at a nearby bar and watched him.

He knew Ilya missed his niece. He knew Ilya loved being—or pretending to be—a cheerful, carefree clown whenever he was allowed to. Shane thought, he would make a very good father.

Ilya and Shane had once even discussed it. How little kids didn’t care about your bank account; what they needed was exactly that kind of ridiculous playmate. Shane himself would probably make them eat vegetables and do their homework, and his children would say “fuck” and “shit” for every other word—he had only restrained himself around the Pike brood because Jackie demanded it.

“We’re trying to behave like friends. You know what I mean.” Shane sighed. “Yeah, Hayd. He’s incredible to play with. Seriously. It’s like I can read his mind. I always know where he’ll be, even when I can’t see him. And neither of us hogs the puck—we just fuck with the entire opposing team. You know those couples at bachata nights who improvise and still move in perfect sync?”

“You’re a poet, buddy.”

“I want to strangle half his relatives. Or kidnap him, for fuck’s sake. Let those Russians choke on it. They don’t treat him well enough. They can go fuck themselves.”

“A barbarian poet. What’s the word here? Ah, macho.”

“Fuck you.”

Ilya found him on the beach that evening after the game, when everyone else was already getting wasted at the bar and nobody was looking for them.

Shane spoke first.

“I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too.”

Ilya looked around, and when he saw nobody was watching, he hooked his little finger against Shane’s.

“How’s your family?”

Naturally, Ilya grimaced.

“Same as always. Dad’s completely out. On the one hand, once I grew up and developed a few brain cells that weren’t knocked out by pucks yet, I realized what an asshole he was and that, honestly, I can’t stand him. On the other hand, I always had this splinter inside—desire for him to be proud of me. And now there’s nothing left to want or hate. He doesn’t remember shit. Everyone else? Same as always. Ilya, hi, give us money.”

Ilya dropped onto his back in the sand, and Shane followed a second later. Their pinkies stayed linked.

“One day I’m going to wait for you after a game in Montreal, pull a bag over your head, shove you into a trunk, and take you to the woods outside Ottawa. I’ve got a gorgeous cottage there. Nobody will ever find you. You’ll live like a king.”

They giggled like lunatics.

“And after that outrageous, inhumane kidnapping, do I get Canadian citizenship?”

“Well… if I keep you there for three years…”

They didn’t sneak into each other’s rooms in Tampa. They only talked.

But Shane had the feeling that a window somewhere had cracked open and let in a breath of hope.

A couple of years ago, he had wanted to have Ilya’s daddy murdered.

Now… now he only needed to wait, however horrible that sounded.

He didn’t have to wait long at all.

14.

“Thank you for making me talk to you all this time. I knew where all this was heading. I knew. And at least I was a little prepared, you know?”

Shane sat on a hotel fire escape while Ilya walked somewhere in Moscow. He said it was some kind of park. Shane hoped it wasn’t the one with the serial killers—he had stumbled across some very strange documentaries when he started taking an interest in what exactly Ilya might do during the off-season.

“I don’t want to sound heartless, but I’m glad it’s over, and you… can put a full stop on it, I guess.”

“I suppose.”

“You don’t have to go back there anymore, right?”

“After I literally got into fight with my brother at funeral, I don’t think so.”

“Jesus Christ, Ilya.”

Ilya laughed—there was no joy in it, but also… no cosmic weight that had seemed to crush him for so long.

Shane remembered one of his dear mother’s calculations. She had long believed that sneaking around hotels the way they did was utter insanity.

And he thought:

It was fucking time.

He wanted what Hayden and Jackie had, too, and he wanted Ilya to remember it this time.

“Ilya. What do you think about Canadian citizenship after all?”

15.

Boston was playing Montreal.

The Bell Centre was roaring.

Shane skated over to Ilya while he stretched and told him he was waiting for him after the game. He wanted to introduce him to his parents, discuss the plan in more detail.

The Ottawa team was a fucking hole, but Ilya would rather hang himself than move somewhere like Toronto, where a bunch of fucking assholes played, and Montreal couldn’t afford him. He liked Boston, but he had been skating on extremely thin ice with Hollander throughout this whole almost-relationship.

He might never get U.S. citizenship, and if he were outed and lost his work visa…

Ilya doubted they would crucify him back home simply for being involved with a man—save for his dad who would have been pretty much likely to fall into cosplaying Taras Bulba—but only for now.

And Ilya wasn’t particularly eager to test it.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Shane smiled before heading back to his bench.

Then something went wrong at the opening faceoff.

They smiled, tangled their sticks a little…

Shane’s eyes flew open.

He inhaled sharply, like someone breaking the surface after being underwater for way too long.

A blinding phosphorescent countdown flared along his exposed forearm.

Shane began to shake.

The horrible glow reached his eyes, and he collapsed onto the ice.

“Everybody stay back!”

“What’s his ability?”

“Where are the medics?!”

Shane kept shaking.

Blood ran from his nose.

Ilya dropped his stick and tore off his right glove.

He knew his eyes were glowing too, just like Shane’s—but swamp-green instead of neon phosphorescent blue.

He had never registered his ability.

It was pretty useless, really.

Ilya could manipulate injuries: give away his own and take other people’s.

He didn’t give his away because he had no nearby assholes he actually wanted to use that way.

And he didn’t really take injuries from other people either.

The last time he had tried was with his mother, when it was already too late.

Besides, he wasn’t some holy martyr, helping people at his own expense.

But he could pull some of whatever was hurting Shane into himself, whatever was causing it, just enough to—

Shane caught his wrist.

He had stopped shaking.

He smiled through bloodied lips.

“I told you not to heal me without my permission.”

“Shane.” Ilya blinked and curled his fingers into a fist, extinguishing his ability. “You never told me that. You shouldn’t even know about my power.”

Although maybe he knew now.

Shane had a fucking long countdown on his arm.

“Shane, do you know where you are?” one of the medics who had poured onto the ice asked.

“Forget the city. Tell me the year,” Shane sighed.

The Montreal players began swearing quietly.

They understood that, under the League agreement, Hollander could no longer play for their team.

16. 

Shane had used his ability during a game only once.

Marlow had knocked him down badly, breaking his collarbone and giving him a concussion. The medics hadn’t reached Shane in time: he came to when Ilya used his ability on him, taking the injuries and collapsing onto the ice in his place.

Shane hadn’t understood what happened and rewound time to the opening faceoff.

Naturally, they benched him for the first five minutes until the countdown faded.

That evening, he grabbed Ilya by the collar and demanded an explanation.

Injury manipulation, entirely at his own expense—what kind of stupid power was that?

Shane demanded then and there that Ilya never heal him again without permission.

Marlow and the one time Shane had used his ability in a game—those memories were the reason he knew, but now nobody remembered.

Now the countdown glittered around his arm all the way to his shoulder.

Four years.

Shane hadn’t planned to rewind that far.

He had simply never regretted anything so much in his entire life.

They led him off the ice because, fuck, he had been convulsing and covered in blood from his nose. And everyone could see the traces of his power on his forearm.

He could no longer play for the team he had once, a long time ago, planned to retire at, because he had seen every single one of their games.

Who cared that there had been a hell of a lot of games in four years, and Shane hardly remembered anything from, say, 2017 at this point?

He was a potential holder of insider information.

It wouldn’t be fair.

They played the game without him.

When Shane came out of the medical room, his nose had stopped bleeding, but his eyes still glowed with blue neon.

Players, reporters, coaching staff, Shane’s parents—everyone who wanted to know what the hell had happened and had access to the restricted area—was waiting for him.

Shane knew they expected an explanation.

And he knew he didn’t want to regret anything ever again, because the worst thing that could happen had already happened once.

Everything else he had worried about…

He didn’t give a fuck anymore.

“You know I rarely use my ability, and you know it can affect the course of a game. You also know that I have never used it on the ice. When I regret something, I rewind time.”

Shane heard the murmur of questions, but he wasn’t looking at the reporters, cameras, or microphones.

He was looking only at Ilya.

“In January of 2021, an Ottawa Centaurs plane crashed. The person I love was on board. I know the NHL commissioner will want to crucify me for what I’m about to do—over four years that only I remember, he threatened me more than once. I know many fans will turn away from me. But I don’t give a fuck anymore. Excuse me.”

Shane walked toward Ilya, and people moved aside before him like the Red Sea before Moses.

Ilya’s expression was deliberately neutral, but his eyes grew wider and wider as Shane approached.

They stopped nose to nose.

Ilya was clearly struggling to breathe.

Shane was calm.

I almost lost you.

“We waited too long, and I don’t want to waste another minute.”

Shane cleared his throat and switched to Russian.

“I love you. Will you marry me?”

“Holy fucking shit!” Ilya said in the least romantic way possible, and his perpetually hard, stoic voice cracked.

“Don’t ruin the moment, asshole. Yes or no?”

“Fuck.” A smile broke across Ilya’s face like sunlight. “Yes.” He glanced briefly at the people surrounding them and snorted. “If you don’t want to get an eyeful, look away.”

17.

Shane had decided he had nothing left to regret and that he would never use his ability again.

But he did have to rewind time just once more.

“What’s it like being the first openly gay player in the NHL?” someone asked after Shane finally let Ilya out of bed, drove him to the airport and, naturally, ran into paparazzi on the way back.

“What?” Shane genuinely didn’t understand. “First? Since when? Did everyone just forget about Scott Hunter making out with his boyfriend beside the Stanley Cup?”

“Scott Hunter?!”

“…Fuck.”

The world tilted.

One last time.