Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow, Boston Raiders Ensemble, Hayden Pike, J.J. Boiziau

Additional Tags:

Heated Rivalry Episode 5, Missing Scene, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, (you have to watch the ep for the comfort soz), Hockey, Injury, Hockey Chirping including offensive gendered language, mentions of ilya's mother's death, mentions of vomiting, Dissociation, abrupt right turn into a dog metaphor bc i am who i am, TV show canon but written with book reader knowledge

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-23 Words: 5,956 Chapters: 1/1

give it a hand, offer it a soul

Summary

Shane disappears down the far tunnel on a stretcher surrounded by paramedics and Metros' first aid people. Ilya watches till every last one of them is out of sight, utterly helpless, swaying like a puppet with his strings just cut.

He watches as the end gate closes.

There are still another fifty-nine minutes and thirty-five seconds left in the game.

 

Or: The moments between the hit and Ilya arriving at the hospital.

Notes

helloo heated rivalry has consumed my every waking moment and this is the result :3

someone on twt pointed out that shane got hurt like 25 seconds into the game and ilya had to play it out without knowing if he was okay and i! had some thoughts about that. i hope u like them sorry for all the hockey i do earnestly gaf abt it

also i knoooow marly's name is spelled marlow in the book but it's marleau on his jersey and this is show 'verse so pls walk with me

moreover sorry for becoming emotionally attached to kovalev and dubek. if i ever finish the other stuff i'm working on you Will see them again.

hockey term glossary

1st period, 19:35

Shane disappears down the far tunnel on a stretcher surrounded by paramedics and team first aid people. Ilya watches till every last one of them is out of sight, utterly helpless, swaying like a puppet with his strings just cut. 

He watches as the end gate closes. 

He doesn't watch the hit as it replays on the jumbotron, but the way the crowd gasps confirms that it’s bad. 

Everything is loud and indistinct in his head.

“It's a clean hit.” There’s a ref in front of him. Ilya knows his name. Knows his kids’ names. Asks about them in the TV timeouts, because refs always let you get away with a little more when you make friends. Ilya can’t remember any of it right now. The gaze Ilya levels on him must be hollow, because the ref continues, “The hit on Hollander. We reviewed it. Marleau will just get the fighting major, same as Pike, and we’ll call it square.” 

Montreal are down their captain and won’t even get a powerplay out of it. 

In any other game, Ilya would be arguing that Pike should get a minor penalty for instigating too. 

“Okay,” Ilya rasps. He barely recognizes his own voice.

The ref skates away. 

A clean hit. Ilya can already hear how they’ll talk about it on the Boston broadcast, media guys he likes and jokes with, saying shit like, That’s just a good clean hockey play. Gotta keep your head up in the neutral zone. 

Ilya can’t stop seeing it, Shane smiling and dancing away with the puck, all skill and speed, too focused on teasing to remember one of the cardinal rules of hockey. 

It’s Ilya’s fault. 

He can’t fucking look at Marleau. 

Dubek, Marleau’s defense partner, claps Ilya on the shoulder. “You good, Roz?”

He’s looking at Ilya with real concern and surprise, like he’s never seen Ilya before. That can’t be good. 

Ilya shuts his eyes and lets the cold wash over him. He thought he had left it in Moscow, but it still fits like a glove. “Da. Big hit. Let’s play some fucking hockey.” 

1st period, 19:34

Ilya loses the face off. It doesn’t help that Andropov–now bumped up to the first line in Shane’s place–hisses, “Fuckin dirty,” as the ref drops the puck. But Ilya would probably have lost anyway. 

He starts the shift on the back foot and never finds his footing. 

Ilya feels numb to it. The sound of skate blades on ice is muffled, the raging crowd little more than white noise. 

But the Metros are out of step too, the lines jumbled with Shane out and Pike in the box, and their shock and anger makes them sloppy. 

Ilya gets out of that first shift after about twenty seconds of the worst hockey he’s ever played professionally. 

1st period, 16:46

Ilya can’t stop seeing Shane laid out on the ice, limp and somehow small. His dark eyelashes. the red of his freckled cheeks. Half a smile still on his mouth. 

Ilya’s mother, lying on her back on the floor, hand outstretched. Her dark eyelashes. Her mouth slack.

They keep twisting and twining into one heartstopping moment, Shane and Ilya’s mother, torn from him so abruptly. 

Ilya’s breath is coming too fast. There’s a trainer whispering in the Montreal coach’s ear on the other bench. 

Ilya wonders if it’s an update on Shane. He glances at the jumbotron. Probably too soon for him to be at the hospital. But then, Ilya’s not sure where the nearest hospital is. 

He hopes it’s close. 

He wishes he was there. 

Fuck. 

Coach LeClaire must notice that Ilya is out of it, because the next time he sends out the first line, it’s with Kane at centre. Ilya doesn’t even notice till a cheer goes up from the Montreal crowd after Miitka makes a hell of a save on them.

1st period, 14:02

“Everything okay, Ilyukha?” Kovalev asks in Russian, knocking a gloved hand against Ilya’s knee. 

“Fine.” Ilya ignores the questioning look Kovalev keeps leveled on him. 

LeClaire sends Ilya over the boards and play is blown dead seconds later after an offside zone entrance, so the first line stays out as Marleau and Pike escape the penalty box.

It’s the TV timeout, so Ilya beelines straight for Pike, coming to a sharp stop in front of him halfway across the ice. 

Pike looks angry and wary. His lip is split. He’s not much of a fighter, usually. Ilya’s out of his weight class, and Marly was an even worse match up. But he’s a good friend. Ilya should give him less shit, maybe. 

“You will tell me if you hear about Hollander.” It’s not a question. 

Pike blinks, stunned, then scoffs. “Since when do you give a fuck?” 

There’s a lot Ilya could say, but nothing that would convey the roiling turmoil consuming him. “You will tell me,” he repeats, and then skates away before a ref decides he needs to interfere.

It’s another bad shift, made worse somehow by Marleau being back on the ice. 

Not that Marleau is bad. It’s not even his fault, really. 

Ilya wants to kill him anyway. 

Boiziau crushes Ilya hard against the boards as he’s jockeying for the puck with Couilliard below the goal line. Ilya spots him a second too late to brace up for the hit, so he feels every ounce of Boiziau’s 220 pounds when they collide. 

It winds him enough for Couilliard to get the puck and carry it up ice with the Metro’s makeshift first line. It’s only a little satisfying when Marleau stick-checks the puck away before they can make it past the blue line.

1st period, 11:13

Hard hitting aside, the Metros are playing sloppy and the Raiders are circling like sharks who smell blood. Montreal takes a slashing penalty in their own zone, so Ilya is over the boards with the first powerplay unit. 

The Raiders have one of the best powerplays in the league, scoring on nearly 30% of them this year, fucking automatic. Ilya is supposed to be one of the center pieces of that. 

He doesn’t get a shot off. 

It’s a relief when the Metros clear the puck and Ilya goes for a change. 

The second unit score. Ilya barely registers the groans in the arena or the cheers of his teammates.

1st period, 7:59

The next time Ilya’s on the ice, he makes a bad giveaway about ten seconds in and then spends the next minute and a half hemmed into the defensive zone, trying to prevent the Metros from evening it up. 

A shift like that is a breathing exercise more than anything: keeping your breath through the movement, catching it in split seconds of stillness, and breathing through the building burn. 

Every moment of it feels absurd as the Metros over-pass without Shane to break the game for them and find a lane. When they finally do get a shot off, Ilya gets himself in front of it and blocks it off his shin without even thinking. His shin guard takes most of it, but the sharp pain is clarifying, the rink brightening suddenly back into something real out of a haze of worry.

Ilya skates in and strips the puck off Couilliard with a nice little stick lift, then passes it up to Kovalev at the point to break them out of the zone finally. 

They don’t score off the play; all the Raiders are gassed from being on the ice so long, but they get the change, and Kovalev gets a shot on goal from the blue line that’s not half bad.

A trainer checks in with Ilya on the bench, but he waves him off. He’ll have a bruise, but nothing worse than he’s gotten every year in the playoffs. A souvenir, a lesser thing to match whatever war wounds Shane is carrying. 

“Don’t need you doing that, Roz,” LeClaire murmurs, leaning over Ilya’s shoulder. 

“Just trying to get in the game.” 

1st period, 3:38

They’re up two by the time Ilya plays his next shift, a slapper from the blue line by Marleau that has the whole arena booing.

Ilya usually loves to hear the ire of the Montreal crowd. Today, it’s a punch in the gut. 

The Metros are mad on the shift following. Ilya loses another faceoff to Andropov, which is pretty fucking embarrassing, and then, fifteen frantic seconds later, once he’s gotten the puck back, someone crosschecks him in the back and sends him to his knees. 

It doesn’t get called which is just fucking classic, but then again, Ilya’s not sure who did it either. He grits his teeth and gets to his feet to chase the play back into the Raiders’ end. 

Everything hurts: his shin, his back, his shoulder that he’s been rehabbing and got jostled by the Boiziau hit, and of course his heart, laid out with Shane on the ice and now running after something far from here.

That the shift ends without a Montreal goal feels like a fucking miracle. He’s not even grateful.

First Period Break

Ilya ducks into a storage closet off the hallway. He gives himself three minutes to look for updates, two to catastrophize, and one to get his shit back together. Then he has to get back to the locker room.

He can’t stop thinking about his mother, sprawled across the bathroom floor. The way that when he called out for her, she never answered again.

He checks the Metros’ twitter. All they’ve said is that Shane won't return to tonight's game and that he’s been taken to Montreal General for treatment and further evaluation.

Ilya tries to remember if he saw Shane move at all before he disappeared. People have posted clips of the hit and what followed, but Ilya can’t bring himself to watch it yet. There are still two periods of hockey to play.

He wants to tear off his gear and leave it all behind, but what would he say at the hospital anyway? You have to let me in. We've been rivals for nine years and I don't know who I'd be on ice or off it without him.

He's important to me.

I love him.

He loves me.

No, none of that.

Ilya turns off his phone, sits on one of the travel crates, and tries to breathe with his head between his knees. He doesn’t let himself cry.

Ilya pulls himself back together with ten minutes left in the intermission. Kovalev looks at him in askance when he gets back to the locker room, but Ilya ignores him in favour of stabbing a finger into Marleau’s chest. 

“Fucking watch yourself, Marly,” he growls quietly. 

Ilya knows he can’t make a scene. He shouldn’t be this fucking cut up about a clean hit. He shouldn’t be this worried about Shane fucking Hollander. There’s no explanation for it except the truth, and Ilya can’t strip himself that raw. 

“The fuck, Roz?” 

“That hit on Hollander. We don’t need that shit. We’re a tough team, not dirty.” 

Marleau takes half a step closer, a posturing move. Ilya stands his ground. He’s not fucking scared of Marly. 

“Clean hit, Roz. Coming fast through the neutral zone, you know I have to hit him every time,” Marleau says, voice deep, and then he takes the half step back and lets his shoulders drop. “Feel fuckin’ bad about it, though. Hollander would usually see that coming.”

Ilya can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He wants to be mad. He is mad, because Shane is– is his, his to watch over, his to protect from all the shit outside of them. 

Ilya wants to beat Shane fair and square every day for the rest of their lives. And now he doesn’t know if Shane will ever play hockey again.

He can’t afford to think like that now. 

Ilya pokes Marleau’s chest again. “I know. But you are big fucking guy. Watch yourself.”

Ilya spends the rest of the intermission sitting in his stall, drinking water slowly and staring into space, trying not to think of bodies limp on the ground. 

2nd period, 20:00

“You gonna get your head in the game, Roz?” LeClaire asks as Ilya passes him on the bench. 

“Is in the game,” Ilya lies.

“Fuckin show me, then,” says LeClaire, waving Ilya onto the ice for the faceoff.

As he skates to centre ice, Ilya chances a glance over at the Metros bench. They look stoic. Angry. Determined. 

He wonders if they know anything more about Shane. He tries to catch Pike’s eye, but he’s not looking at Ilya. 

Ilya wins this one. Thank fuck. He might be distraught, but he can’t keep losing to fucking Andropov. 

Ilya’s a good hockey player. He’s been playing since he could skate, and skating since he could walk. Hockey is as natural as breathing. 

That instinct is the only thing keeping him in it. The first shift feels like a dream, Ilya always a half second late to get into position, to make the pass, to lay a hit.

But he plays for a good fucking hockey team. They’ve always got a shot at winning, with or without him. 

Ilya’s shift ends with a puck in the back of the net, though he has nothing to do with it. It’s all Kovalev and Oregan, his brilliant wingers, with a nasty little dangle around Gagnon for the pass and then a sly stick around Miitka’s outstretched leg. 

Back on the bench, Ilya knows his coach is looking at him with concern and frustration both. It’s hard to care.

2nd period, 16:27

LeClaire sends Kovalev and Oregan out with Kane centering them again. 

Ilya keeps looking up at the jumbotron, hoping against hope that there’ll be an update on Shane. 

There’s not. 

2nd period, 13:54

“You’re not benching me yet,” Ilya says to LeClaire when the TV timeout is called, and then he’s over the boards before LeClaire can protest. 

There’s some grumbling, and then Kane’s usual line mates Johansson and Connors shuffle onto the ice too.

Ilya ignores them in favour of skating over to the Metros’ bench. 

“Have you heard about Hollander?” He asks Pike, leveling a glare at him. 

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” one of Montreal’s big third pair defensemen calls. “Holly’s worth fuckin’ twelve of you, you fucking cunt!” 

“Don’t think we won’t fucking get you too!” someone else joins in down the bench. 

Ilya keeps his gaze on Pike. “Well?” 

Pike is looking at him like a particularly detestable puzzle, perhaps one missing a lot of pieces. His gaze flicks to something just behind Ilya, and then Ilya is bumped–gently, but deliberately–by Boiziau’s hulking figure. 

“You want to start some shit, Rozanov?” Boiziau asks. 

Ilya stands his ground and doesn’t look away from Pike. Watches Pike’s gaze return to him, watches him take a slow breath and decide something. 

“First aid said he was conscious when they loaded him in the ambulance. We probably won’t hear more till after the game.” 

Ilya sucks in a breath that feels like it inflates his lungs for the first time since Shane went down. Conscious. That’s not nothing. 

Ilya gives Pike a sharp nod of thanks, then skates away to the faceoff dot. 

Boiziau follows closely. “Because I’ll fucking finish whatever shit you’re starting, you fucking son of a bitch. You think you can play fucking games just because Holly’s out?” 

Ilya comes to a stop in the offensive zone circle and turns to face Boiziau. “That’s enough. Gagnon, call off your dog,” Ilya calls to Boiziau’s d-partner. 

Boiziau gets in Ilya’s face and gives him a push with his stick between two hands. “C’mon, you fucking pussy. Put your money where your mouth is. Or are you fucking scared?” 

Ilya spits. “I’m not going to fucking fight you, I’m not fucking stupid,” he snaps at Boiziau. “Just because fucking Pike thinks he can take fucking Marly doesn’t mean I have shit for brains too.”

Boiziau drops his stick and goes to lose his gloves too, but they’ve gotten the attention of the whole arena now, including the refs, who skate over to get between them. Ilya lets Connors pull him back. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Roz?” Connors hisses.

“Getting in the fucking game,” Ilya says, feeling a thousand miles away. 

A part of him does want to fight. Longs for the crush of a hard fist against his jaw, the way a good punch to the head knocks everything out of focus for a second. Boiziau would fucking destroy him, he’s easily twenty pounds out of Ilya’s weight class, and that’s why Ilya would never fight him under normal circumstances. Right now, getting beat to shit might feel like taking back control.

Probably, though, it would just feel like getting beat to shit.

And there are some things Ilya knows he could never justify to his teammates.

It’s another bad shift. It’s not Connors and Johansson’s fault. Ilya’s played with them enough in practice and training camp and even sometimes during the playoffs when LeClaire is double-shifting him. He knows how to play with them. They’re good wingers.

It’s Ilya who’s still out of it, mind going a million miles an hour thinking about everything except hockey, longing for someone to put him out of his misery either through violence or good news.

That’s why he misses the pass from Johansson, sending some fucking Metros third liner on a breakaway instead. 

It’s a nice goal. Probably the nicest goal of this guys’ whole fucking career. 

Ilya slams his stick against the boards so hard it snaps in two.

On the bench, LeClaire is in his ear again. “Did you get fucking knocked in the head Roz?” 

Ilya shakes his head no. 

“Because you’re playing like you’ve got fuck all between the ears. What’s your fucking problem?” 

“No problem. Just…” Ilya trails off. Just eating himself alive with worry. Just trying to get out the other side of this game to find out what happened to Shane. 

He’s conscious, Ilya reminds himself. That’s a good sign. 

“Well, figure your shit out.” 

2nd period, 12:03

LeClaire sends Ilya’s wingers out with Kane again. They score off the faceoff. 

The game is 4-1. 

Boiziau skates past the Raiders bench, glaring daggers at Ilya all the while.

Seems like a discredit to Marleau, honestly. Ilya has done fuck all this whole game. 

2nd period, 11:22

Kovalev scoots down the bench to press himself against Ilya’s side and shoves a fistful of smelling salt packages under Ilya’s nose. 

“Holy fuck, you fucking asshole!” Ilya yelps in Russian, reeling backwards as his nose is assaulted. 

“Just trying to make sure you are awake. If I have to keep playing on a line with two Americans I will lose my shit.” Kovalev says it with a grin, but Ilya can hear the underlying concern. The unspoken question of what the fuck is wrong with you?

“Try not scoring. Then LeClaire will let you warm the bench with me.” 

Kovalev punches Ilya in the shoulder. “This is not like you. Are you hurt?” 

Ilya shakes his head. Pauses. Takes stock of himself physically. The aches, the pains. A nausea that’s been unfurling in his stomach for an hour. It’s too much to carry. Ilya lets it fade back into the cold again. “A bit sick, maybe.” 

It feels like admitting weakness to be affected, or maybe like a cop out to call it anything but what it is. 

“Idiot. Tell LeClaire before he decides you have been replaced by an imposter.” 

“I am fine, Dima.”

“Like fuck you are.” Kovalev rolls his eyes, then switches to English, calling down the bench, “Oi, Coach, Roz has stomach bug or some shit!” 

LeClaire shoots them both a concerned look.

“I am fine,” Ilya protests flatly. 

On the ice, Pike gets called for tripping. Ilya stands to go out with the first power play unit. 

“Go to the locker room, Roz. Let the doctors give you something,” LeClaire barks. 

Ilya stands motionless for a moment. 

Kovalev levels a glare at him, one leg over the boards. “Go.” 

Ilya goes.

The team doctor gives him the whole concussion protocol run down, which is absurd because Ilya’s head is just fucking fine.

It’s his heart that’s taken the hit. 

Eventually she concludes the same, more or less, and gives him one of her many mysterious pills for the nausea. 

It’s hard for Ilya to know what he wants. The quiet of the locker room makes his thoughts loud. On the bench, Ilya can’t help but stare at the ice and remember how Shane looked spread across it. 

“You seem fine, physically,” the doctor says when Ilya’s been sitting and breathing with his head between his knees for a few minutes. “There’s no reason for you not to play that I can see.” 

Ilya jerks his head up and ignores the wave of vertigo. “Then let me play.” 

If it’s play or do nothing, Ilya knows what he’d prefer.

2nd period, 2:08

The score is 5-2 when Ilya returns to the bench, which seems a bit less embarrassing for the captain-less Metros. 

Not that he cares. 

Just, Shane deserves a team that puts up a bit of a fight for him. 

“I’m cleared to play,” Ilya tells LeClaire. “Let me try.” 

LeClaire rolls his eyes, says, “Fine,” and sends Ilya out with his usual linemates. 

Kovalev taps Ilya’s leg with his stick blade. “Thank fuck you’re back.” 

Ilya offers him a weak smile. It feels unnatural on his face.

He wins the faceoff, sending the puck back to Oregan and then dodging around Andropov to get into the slot. 

Oregan passes to Kovalev, who passes to Ilya, too fast for the Metros to form into a proper defensive position. 

Ilya would have to be drunk and blind to miss the shot as Miitka overcommits to the left. He picks the corner, upper righthand side, nothing but net. 

It doesn’t feel like anything at all. 

Second Period Break

Ilya refreshes his twitter feed and then runs a frantic google search. Nothing. 

He opens his text thread with Jane. The last message is from Shane, sent just before puck drop. 

            Jane: 1919 

Ilya could weep. 

Instead, he closes his eyes and just tries to breathe. There’s a split second where he thinks he’s evened out, and then his stomach flip flops and he’s on his feet and racing to the bathroom. 

It’s the first time Ilya has thrown up in the middle of a game since he got food poisoning in Detroit four years ago. Before that, it had been since Juniors, when he pushed himself too hard and didn’t know how to stop. 

After, he rinses his mouth out with someone else’s mouth wash, left in the bathroom during pre-game preparations. 

In the mirror, he looks haunted. 

He pulls out his phone again. Types madly. 

            Lily: You’re probably not going to be allowed to read this for ages, but I’m thinking about you. Let me know if you are okay. 

His finger hovers over the Send button. 

Then Dubek sticks his head in the bathroom. “You left in a rush. Kovy said you were sick.” 

Ilya winces. “Threw up.” 

“Gross. I’ll tell coach.” 

“I’m fine,” Ilya insists, but Dubek is gone already. He closes his phone without sending the message.

LeClaire and the team doctor are waiting for Ilya when he leaves the bathroom. 

“You said you were good to play.” LeClaire doesn’t phrase it as a question. 

He’s a good coach. Ilya likes him, likes the trust and freedom LeClaire affords to the team, cares about living up to it. 

Usually. Right now, he doesn’t care about very much at all. 

“I am.” 

LeClaire exchanges a glance with the team doctor. She shrugs. “There’s nothing obvious. You could sit him.” 

It goes without saying that the game is 6-2, and Ilya has hardly made an impact to this point. Except for his goal, that is. His sitting out probably won’t hurt.

“I can play.” It comes out flat, passionless. Ilya feels distant, a passenger in this conversation. He has a preference, technically, but neither outcome will really give him what he wants. He squeezes his phone in his fist. 

LeClaire looks him up and down, evaluating. “You can try.”

In the locker room, Ilya sits in his stall and takes little sips of Gatorade, trying not to think about anything at all. 

When there are about two minutes left in the intermission, Marleau leans over. “You hear anything about Hollander?” 

Ilya shoots him an indignant look. “The fuck, Marly?” 

Marleau shrugs. “I feel bad. Wasn’t trying to lay him out like that. And you were talking to Pike. Was there an update?”

Ilya takes another swallow of the Gatorade. It’s orange flavour, he realizes. Nasty. He’s usually a fruit punch boy. He hadn’t even noticed. 

Marleau’s still watching him. 

“He was conscious. When they left the arena. He was awake.” 

Some of the tension seeps out of Marleau’s shoulders. “Good,” he says, and he sounds like he means it. “I hope it’s not serious.”

Ilya tightens a hand into a fist and doesn’t cry.

3rd period, 17:55

One minute Ilya is in the locker room, the next he’s on the bench and the first two minutes of play have already passed. He doesn’t remember any of it.

LeClaire is speaking on the bench behind Ilya. Ilya can’t hear him. 

Kovalev stands and shoves into the seat beside Ilya. “You got a shift in you?” he asks in Russian.

Ilya swallows. Stretches his neck one way, then the other. “Da.” 

As he gets ready at the faceoff dot, Ilya realizes that LeClaire hasn’t sent him out for a shift mid-play since the first period. He’s being deployed to win faceoffs and little else. Which is smart, all things considered. 

Not that his faceoff numbers are great today. 

Ilya wins the faceoff like it’s a point to prove. Yes, he’s in his head and utterly fucked, but he’s still useful. Still the guy they picked over Shane Hollander. 

Fuck. 

Again, Ilya’s feet are too slow, his head a beat behind. Oregan sends him a beautiful pass, and Ilya hesitates a second too long.

Good clean hockey hits will be the defining phrase of this game. 

Boiziau hits him head-on like a steam train, coming round the net as Ilya turns towards it. It’s almost easier to be the one laid out on the ice, but Ilya still scrambles to his feet in the next second, winded but unharmed. 

The fucking shot block hurt more, after the initial moment of contact. 

It must look worse than it is, though, or maybe it’s just obvious that Ilya’s struggling to be present, because when he gets back to the bench, LeClaire lays a hand on his shoulder and says, “I think that’s enough, Roz. We don’t need you getting hurt.” 

He says it gently, almost paternal. 

Ilya bites the inside of his cheek and reminds himself to go numb.

3rd period, 0:00

The game ends 6-2. 

The last fifteen minutes of play pass in a blur. 

It’s not a good win. In fact, as Ilya fist bumps his boys on the way off the ice, he thinks it’s bitter in their mouths too. 

Marleau’s the last off the ice. He bumps Ilya’s fist, then knocks their helmets together gently. “Good game, Roz.” It’s almost a question.

Ilya smiles weakly. “Doctor thinks it is just stomach bug.” 

“Course.” 

Postgame

Ilya shucks his gear and showers mechanically. He escapes into the room set aside for physiotherapy before the media can arrive and doesn’t emerge till they’re gone from the locker room.

It’s irresponsible. It’s not like him. It’ll be a disappointment, because people always want to hear from Hollander and Rozanov when they play each other.

Ilya doesn’t really give a fuck what people want.

They take the bus back to the hotel. Ilya puts in his earphones and blocks out the low team chatter for the whole fifteen minute drive.

On the way off the bus, Dubek slaps Ilya on the back. “Get some fuckin’ rest, yeah?” 

Ilya nods distractedly. 

Once they get back to the hotel room, Ilya spends ten minutes hyperventilating in the bathroom. The tears don’t come because he doesn’t let them. 

Ilya has kept his heart on a short leash since he was twelve years old.

It escapes the constraint sometimes. There’s something about Shane that makes Ilya’s heart a reactive dog, tugging and tugging till it pulls free and races ahead, Ilya chasing and yelling, hoping it doesn’t run into the street to become roadkill. 

Well. The car has come and gone, a hit and run, and Ilya’s heart is limping back to him, asking if it was good. 

Of course it was not. It was foolish, and reckless, and too eager, and Ilya chased it anyway. 

Montreal General is a twelve minute walk from the hotel. Ilya knows because he googled it on the bus. 

He goes through the motions of getting ready for bed. Brushes his teeth, tosses his t-shirt towards the suitcase, plugs in his phone. 

And then, when Connors shuts himself in the bathroom, Ilya pulls on a hoodie and his coat and slips out into the night. 

It’s nearly midnight, but it’s a Friday in Montreal so the streets are full. Ilya pulls up his hood, keeps his head down, and walks as briskly as he can, weaving through the crowds and jaywalking across the side streets. 

There’s something jarring about stepping through the sliding doors from the dimly lit street to the bright overhead fluorescents in the hospital entrance. 

Shane would hate them. 

Ilya nearly stumbles as the thought passes over him, as it guts him quickly and cleanly like Connors is always doing to walleyes on his summer instagram stories. 

But it’s true. Ilya thinks of the warm glow of Shane’s apartment, the way it turns him soft and golden. Shane doesn’t belong in a place like this. 

Ilya tightens his hand into a fist, grounded by his nails biting into his palm. 

They probably won’t even let him see Shane. He has to ask. 

There’s a woman in scrubs at the information desk. Ilya makes his way over, tugging down his hood and trying not to feel conspicuous. The lobby is mostly empty, but someone could recognize him easily. 

“Hello, I am here to see someone…” Ilya starts, uncertain. 

“Visiting hours ended at 9 unless you’re family,” the woman says, still focused on her computer monitor. 

Ilya figured she’d say that. His heart still drops into his stomach. He could say he was… Well. Anything he could say would be untrue, and it’s all a secret anyway. 

Then she glances up. “Oh! Ilya Rozanov!”

Ilya offers her a brittle smile. “I know it is late. I just wanted to check in on Hollander.” 

“That’s very thoughtful. Unfortunately, the ward is closed till 8 am tomorrow.” 

“Of course.” Ilya clenches his fist again and takes a deep breath. He might look completely deranged. He feels it. “Is there…” Ilya clears his throat. “I guess you cannot give me an update on his condition?” 

“Sorry, that’s private health information. My hands are legally tied.” 

“Right.” Ilya’s voice catches. Fuck. Fuck. “8 am?”

“8 am,” she confirms, sounding faintly apologetic. 

Ilya hears himself thank her, feels his feet move until he’s back out in the bracing night air. He’s shaking. Ilya pulls his hood up and starts walking. 

He finds himself again on a bench outside an apartment building. Ilya buries his face in his hands and discovers his cheeks are wet. Somewhere along the way, he must have started crying. 

Ilya lights a cigarette. He smokes it down to a stub in record time, using it to regulate his breathing so he doesn’t start sobbing. He has to fucking get it together.  

As Ilya lights another cigarette, his phone buzzes. And keeps buzzing. Reluctantly, he pulls it from his pocket.

It’s Connors. “What?” Ilya answers flatly. He’s just glad his voice doesn’t shake.

“Where the fuck are you, Roz? Just fuckin’ disappeared, man.” 

“Am out for cigarette. You worry too much.” 

“It’s been like half an hour.” 

“Okay, two cigarettes. Chill the fuck out, man.” 

“If you get caught missing curfew after that game, Roz, I think LeClaire’ll fuckin’ kill you.” 

Connors isn’t wrong. Ilya grits his teeth. “Ten minutes, Con, you can cover for ten minutes if he asks.”

Ilya hears the sigh and can picture the eyeroll. “Fine. Ten minutes, Roz. It’s always fucking Montreal, huh?”

Ilya swears in Russian and hangs up. He hates this fucking city. At least the tears have stopped. 

He checks the time. Less than eight hours till he can see Shane. 

If he had just a little less sense, he’d be waiting outside that hospital all night. 

Too loyal, too earnest, too big, this ill-behaved heart of his, breaking free of its muzzle.

Ilya stamps out the last of his cigarette, collects the butt, and starts walking.

Ilya barely sleeps. He tosses and turns all night, wondering if Shane is awake, if he’s hurting, if he’ll ever have that same magic on ice again. 

Probably he will. Shane doesn’t have a concussion history. He’s still young. There’s no reason for him not to recover. 

Unless it’s something big. Something impossible.

Around 5 am, Ilya checks the Metros’ socials again. There’s no update. 

Probably because the social media manager is fucking asleep. 

At 6, Ilya lets himself give up on sleep. He pulls on sweats and a hoodie and gets to the door of the hotel gym before he remembers LA, and two exercise bikes, and Shane, always ready to work hard.

Ilya turns around and makes for the outdoors. It’s raining lightly when his feet hit the pavement. Ilya pulls up his hood and runs mindlessly. 

He’s back at the hotel an hour later, freezing cold and fucking gassed. His legs feel like jello to a degree that’s frankly embarrassing for a professional athlete, but it was easier to push himself than to think. 

Ilya showers and dresses quietly. 

Visiting hours don’t start for another half hour, but Ilya can’t bear to wait around in a fucking hotel room. He pulls on his shoes and makes for the door, but that’s when Connors rolls over, squinting. 

“Where th’fuck are you going?” 

Ilya stares at him, frozen with his hand on the doorknob for several heartbeats. He searches madly for a lie. It’s one thing to admit the truth after the fact, when the desperation isn’t written all over his face, the worry still clawing at his ribs like a caged animal. Then it might just be a display of sportsmanship and an offhand comment to make Marleau feel better. Now he feels terribly exposed. But he has to admit it one way or the other. “I am going to check in on Hollander. At hospital.”

“Oh.” Connors blinks at him in surprise, then yawns. “Okay, cool. Give him my best, yeah?”

“Sure.”

Ilya leaves before either of them can say more. Before his heart can come tumbling out of his chest, pointing the way. 

His heart, that holds Shane in its jaws with the soft, firm grip of a hunting dog. Ilya knows he has to pull it away soon. He knows the teeth will leave marks.

But for now he follows where it leads. For now, he lets the teeth sink in.