Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Suicide Attempt, Mental Health Issues, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Marriage

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of a strange door

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-23 Words: 7,489 Chapters: 1/1

seeing no face but his, to him i crept

Summary

Ilya's left hand, which had been folded onto his lap, drops to the seat of the car. Shane hopes he's interpreting the gesture correctly when he takes Ilya's hand in his own and raises them both up to his heart.

"Right here," Shane says. "This is where you belong, and it's where you'll always be." And you have nothing to be sorry for, Shane wants to say. I'm the one who should be sorry. Who will spend the rest of my life regretting every single day that I let you feel this way. But it's not time for that conversation yet. It's not time to lay any of that on Ilya. All Ilya needs right now is to know that Shane loves him, and to be taken safely home.

***

Shane brings Ilya home after his suicide attempt.

Notes

this is the sequel/wrap-up to this series. i'd recommend reading either or both of the other two fics first. it hopefully ends on a hopeful-ish note. content notes at the end.

There are nine hours left until the 72-hour hold expires. Technically, a psychiatrist can examine Ilya and let him leave early, but apparently that's not a priority. They'll have to wait it out.

And Shane isn't allowed to wait with him. They're allowed granted half an hour's visiting time, and then someone will come and take Ilya away.

Shane tries to make the most of those thirty minutes, but it's hard. Ilya is foggy, not making a lot of sense. Shane does try to ask Ilya how he feels about the possibility—the likelihood—that they’re getting outed before they make it home.

Ilya mumbles that of course he cares. “‘M selfish, but not that selfish.”

Shane feels like he's been physically struck, hearing that. Like he's the one who's been shot in the chest.

But it's not time to start trying to untangle the mess of horrors that has been growing in Ilya's mind without Shane realizing it. It's time to make a plan.

"That's not what I mean, baby. I mean do you mind, if someone sees us." Because Shane will find a way for the plan to protect Ilya's privacy, if it matters to Ilya, but if not the priority is to get them both back to Ottawa as quickly as possible, and if they get caught, they get caught. Shane just wants him home. Ilya hadn't been able to articulate where he wants to be, so Ottawa made the most sense. Shane wishes they could go to the cottage, where they both have always felt safe, but it's too far from the nearest hospital. Good medical care in Ottawa, and close enough to Montreal that when Ilya is ready, Shane can maybe still play. He can drive two hours each way, that's fine.

"I wish everyone in the world knew you were mine," Ilya says, unguarded and foggy from the drugs. "I would be so happy if you were proud of me like that."

If. If, if if. Shane feels like he's going to be sick. Like he's going to start screaming and not stop until he's locked up here too. "Ilya," he says, praying he's found the right words, praying Ilya can hear them even a little, "I am so proud to be yours. I don't want to be out because I'm afraid, not because I'm ashamed. I could never be anything but proud of being with you." Not even when he was a rookie and so ashamed of himself that he sometimes thought the pressure would crush him alive.

He looks over to Ilya, to see if any of his words are getting through to his boyfriend, but Ilya doesn't even look like he's heard Shane.

Shane leans in close and kisses his cheek.

"No touching," says the orderly who's been watching them from the corner. That's how it ends, the first kiss they've ever shared in public. Being scolded, Shane having to pull away, knowing Ilya might be too out of it from the drugs to even understand why. Maybe thinking Shane pulled away because he's ashamed of him.

Shane reminds himself that he has to keep it together. He has to keep it together for Ilya.

"Is it okay if I call your coach and Sveta, let them know that I've seen you and—" that you're okay is wrong. "How you're doing?"

Ilya shrugs, like he doesn't care. But that's okay. Shane can carry that for him, until he's back to a point where he feels okay deciding for himself.

"Okay, baby. I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna figure out the best way to get us home, and then I'm gonna see you again in just a few hours."

"You're coming back?" Ilya asks.

Shane does not allow himself to feel the way those words deserve. He does not let himself feel the guilt that he has failed so completely that Ilya, even a drugged and disoriented Ilya, could think Shane would leave him here. "Yes. Eight and a half hours from right now. Five hundred and ten minutes. Thirty thousand and six hundred seconds." Shane is going to feel every single one of them pass. "I promise. I'm gonna be right downstairs, okay? Or I'll stand in front of the hospital if they won't let me stay in the waiting room. And then I'm coming back for you."

"Okay," Ilya says. And then, "I'm really sorry. I love you very much, moy—I love you."

Cutting himself off, as though he's lost the right to call Shane his. "I love you too, Ilya. So much."

"You're out of time," the orderly says, in a perfectly bored voice.

"One more thing," Shane pleads, and the uniformed man sighs.

"Fine. One more minute, then."

"I meant it, Ilya. When I asked if you would marry me. I'm sorry it wasn't very romantic, but I did mean it. And I understand if you need time to think, I can ask again when you feel better, I just… I was wondering if you would. Marry me."

Ilya looks at him. For a second, his eyes clear, blue and cloudless as the lake in summer. It takes him a long moment to speak. When he does, though, he says, simply, "Yes."

For a second, it looks like tears are going to fall, but Ilya just lets his head hang again.

The orderly leads Ilya away. Watching him go, his shuffling footsteps, like he's too weak to lift his feet, his head still hanging low, is the worst thing Shane has ever seen.

Second worst. After seeing the text that Ilya had sent him.

Shane is brought into the social worker's office after that, to go over the discharge plan. The woman doesn't even look up from her computer. "You're the boyfriend?"

"Fiancé." First time he's said that, too.

"He's not expressing active ideation anymore, so the doctor decided not to Baker Act him. You're taking him?"

Like Ilya is a package that needs to be signed for. "Yes." He doesn't worry about the string of words he doesn't understand. Ilya will be home soon, and he's alive, and that's all that matters.

"Resources for outpatient care." She hands him a stack of photocopied pages, half-legible. Then looks back at her computer. "ED said the shoulder would heal fine. Note here says follow up in two weeks."

"Okay. I'll make sure he does that."

"Questions?"

Shane has a million questions. Like is he going to be okay and why are you treating him like this, don't you care if he gets better and is there anything I can do to get him out of here sooner and is there any way to undo what I've done to him. No questions this woman could answer, or would want to if she could. Shane had worried that he would have to fight for them to agree to release Ilya, but it couldn't be more obvious that no one here cares what happens to him, as long as he's off the premises before it does.

Instead of asking any of his questions, Shane makes a plan, a mental list. Finish what he has to do here. Figure out how they're getting home. Call the people who need to be called. Pack up his hotel room. Pick up Ilya. Go home.

There are papers for him to sign, about what medications Ilya is on and where to pick up the prescription for more. It's a long list, all of things Ilya presumably hasn't chosen.

Shane goes and gets the prescriptions anyway, in case Ilya wants to continue.

Then he starts trying to figure out how to get home. It's a 22-hour drive, there's no way they make that in one stretch. Setting foot in an airport essentially guarantees they get seen together and, worse, that Ilya gets seen in his current state. They might get away with it in Florida, where they're not public figures, but landing in Ottawa would be the death knell of their privacy.

So he charters a plane. It'll pick them up at a private airport about an hour outside of Tampa at 9 PM tonight. They'll fly, literally under cover of darkness, to another private airstrip, this one in Ottawa, where a car will pick them up and take them to Ilya's house.

It's possible they'll make it without being spotted. Unlikely, but possible. It's the best plan Shane can come up with. On to the phone calls.

He calls Weibe first, because that's the easiest and he's feeling raw and cowardly. Tells him that Ilya is alive, that they're coming back to Ottawa at least for now, and that it will be a while before he's ready to play. Then he takes a deep breath and adds, "I know this throws a wrench in your season. You don't have a lot of depth at center."

"You don't pull your punches, Shane Hollander."

"I'm saying, maybe for next season, you want to try to fix that. It's still two more years until my free agency, but I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to trade me, after this." After a season that Shane is going to sit out most of, and, most likely, the revelation that he is in a relationship with Ilya Rozanov. "I'd waive my no-trade clause for it, and I'm prepared to be as flexible as necessary to stay under the salary cap."

He doesn't bother saying if you'd want me. False humility has never been in Shane's skill set. Any team in the league would want him, except maybe the team that actually knows him.

"I'll take that under consideration. Take care of yourself, son. And take care of Roz for us."

"I swear I'll do my best." Even though Shane is evidently not cut out for the job of taking care of Ilya, the most important thing he's ever tried to do in his life.

He calls Sveta next.

She answers immediately, although it's 3 AM in Moscow. "How is he?"

"Not… himself. They have him on some pretty serious medication. But he's not badly injured physically, and they're letting me take him home tonight."

"Where is home?"

"Uh, I was thinking Ottawa. Ilya… wasn't exactly up for weighing in."

"Do you think you can keep him safe there? How sure are you?"

"I don't think he's going to try again," Shane says, "But I don't know."

"Should he stay in the hospital?" she asks.

"No," Shane responds immediately, automatically. "No, it's like a prison in there. There's no way he gets any better as long as they keep him there. I'll figure out a way to take care of him at home, to make sure he's okay."

"He trusts you, I will have to trust you." There is a pause. "Okay. I have bought my plane ticket. I will be in Ottawa in thirty-two hours. Three transfers, should be a horrific nightmare. I will see you then."

"You're coming?"

"Of course I am coming."

Shane's body floods with relief. The other person Ilya trusts most. Right now, he can't believe he was ever jealous of her. He's just so grateful that he won't be bearing this all alone. "Thank you, Svetlana."

"You may call me Sveta." Then she says, her voice almost gentle, "I am glad that Ilyusha has you."

She shouldn't be. Not when it is so obvious that Ilya deserves someone so much better. Someone who wouldn't have failed to see that he was suffering so much that he didn't even think it was worth it to live. Shane will have Ilya's blood on his hands for the rest of his life, and nothing he does will ever erase it. He knows that. "I'm gonna do my best to deserve that," he says, because it's all he can say.

There's one more call he has to make, and he really doesn't want to. It's been a brutal three days. Racing across the country, searching the city wildly for his boyfriend, not knowing if Ilya was alive or dead, and then seeing him like that.

The thought of dealing with his homophobic asshole of a coach right now is basically unbearable. Then it occurs to him that he doesn't actually have to do that, and that there's probably someone else he owes a call to.

He feels like a child, asking his mother to fight his battles for him as a man of twenty-nine, but he can't deny the relief that floods him when he hears her voice on the other end of the phone.

"Honey, are you okay? You weren't at the game last night."

Shane doesn't start crying at the sound of his mother's voice. But it's a very near thing. "Um. I'm… safe, I guess. Not really okay." He takes a deep breath. He won't tell his mother what Ilya is going through, not until he has Ilya's permission. Shane's parents are some of the only support system Ilya has in Canada, and, although Shane is entirely sure his parents would want to be there for Ilya, he doesn't know if the Yuna Hollander brand of Problem Solving As Care is what Ilya needs or wants right now. Shane knows it's not what he needs himself. "I'm in Tampa Bay, waiting for Ilya to be discharged from the hospital. He got… hurt, pretty badly, right after his game here. He's allowed to head home tonight, but he's not going to be okay, probably not for a long time."

"Oh, Shane. Oh, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you call sooner?"

He hadn't been able to bear the thought of it. Of articulating aloud what had happened, of her sympathy, of her insistence that everything would turn out right. And he hadn't wanted to tell her why he was so sure Ilya needed help, because Ilya deserved his dignity. "I'm sorry, Mom. Everything's been… it's been chaos."

"I'm on my way there. You said Tampa Bay?"

"No, no, we're coming home tonight. Flying privately. We'll be home before midnight."

"Okay. What can I do?"

He takes a deep breath. "I need you to call Montreal and tell them I'm out."

"For how long?"

"Indefinitely. Probably the rest of the season," Shane says flatly. If things are going well, by the start of summer, maybe he'd be willing to let there be a closed door between him and Ilya for five minutes at a stretch. He's certainly isn't going to fly off on a roadie and leave him alone for days on end.

"Shane, it's only January. Your contract—"

"I'll pay whatever fines. If they want to put me up on waivers, that's fine. If they want to try and buy out my contract and fire me, good luck to them. If they want to sue me, I've got plenty of fucking money. I am out until Ilya is better."

"I know you're worried about your boyfriend, but—"

He's never been so angry at his mother, not once. He knows she's overly invested in his career, but this is something else. "Ilya almost died, Mom, okay? For two and a half days I thought he had died."

"You're not the only person who can help look after him, Shane. Whatever care he needs, nursing staff, his friends could—"

"His parents are dead. He hasn't spoken to his brother since their father's funeral. He has exactly one friend outside of hockey, and she lives, guess what, in Boston, a place he left behind for me. I'm his only family, and he needs me. Not just care, not some stranger. He needs me, and that's what he's going to get." It's much too little, much too late. Shane hadn't been there for him for so long, while Ilya was slowly falling into a life-threatening depression. "Mom, if anyone can get my career through this, it's you. That's why I'm asking you to do it. But if you can't, if I never play again because of this, that doesn't change my decision. Ilya comes first." Ilya's life comes first. It has to.

He hears her take a sharp, steadying breath.

"Okay. Of course it's your decision, honey. And I want to help you and Ilya however I can. I'll call the team and see what we can figure out. Then should I meet you at Ilya's?"

"Let us settle in first. I'll talk to Ilya, figure out a plan." He pushes down the anger. His mom doesn't know what's happening, it's not fair to treat her like she's being callous. "Thank you, Mom."

All Shane's planning goes to shit. They're papped before they even get off hospital grounds. He'll learn later that the camera wasn't even waiting for him; a moderately well-known pop singer had OD'd backstage at her concert and was in the same hospital detoxing. But when Shane came out of a side door, supporting a stumbling Ilya, both of them wearing sunglasses and baseball caps and looking very much like undercover famous people as they slid into the backseat of a waiting black car, they must have been recognizable as worthy subjects for a gossip blog, even if Floridians generally couldn't spot hockey players on sight.

Shane doesn't know any of this, of course. The black car drives them down an endless series of freeways. It's only about forty minutes away, but feels much further.

"How are you feeling, baby?" Shane tries.

"I am sorry," Ilya replies, every word obviously laborious. They'd given him a big dose of some of the drugs they had him on (haldol, klonazapam, and when Shane looked up what those were and what they did he almost panicked) and he was even more disoriented than he had been before. The English language seemed to be slipping away, too. "I did not mean for this. To be, uh, obuza."

Shane has been studying Russian, but he doesn't know that one. "I don't know what you mean. I'm sorry."

"Is like… a thing you are carrying. Very heavy."

A burden. Shane doesn't translate it out loud. He couldn't bring himself to say the word, even to refute it. "You are easy to carry, Ilya. I carry you in my heart, everywhere I go. Just…" his voice breaks, but only a little. "Just like you said."

Ilya's left hand, which had been folded onto his lap, drops to the seat of the car. Shane hopes he's interpreting the gesture correctly when he takes Ilya's hand in his own and raises them both up to his heart.

"Right here," Shane says. "This is where you belong, and it's where you'll always be." And you have nothing to be sorry for, Shane wants to say. I'm the one who should be sorry. Who will spend the rest of my life regretting every single day that I let you feel this way. But it's not time for that conversation yet. It's not time to lay any of that on Ilya. All Ilya needs right now is to know that Shane loves him, and to be taken safely home.

Ilya sleeps, peacefully enough in spite, or perhaps because of, the drugs. Shane had half-carried him in the house, held him up in the shower, washed his body, his hair, toweled him dry, changed the bandage (over his bullet wound), gotten pajama pants on him. Ilya had been half-cooperative, half-conscious, limp and uncomplaining. Now he is asleep. In his own bed, alive, and asleep.

Shane is not sleeping. He isn't even really trying. He's just lying there, listening to Ilya breathe. Counting his breaths, watching his chest rise and fall, looking at the clean white bandage on his bare shoulder, straining to listen for the beat of his heart. Reminding himself that Ilya is alive. Ilya is alive. Ilya is alive.

Everything else is an unimportant detail. They're out, now, apparently. His mother had called to tell him photos had leaked, Hockey Superstar Shane Hollander seen escorting Arch Rival Ilya Rozanov from Tampa Bay Hospital, and did they want to release a statement. None of that matters, because Ilya is alive.

"Once Ilya is a little better," Shane said.

"It's better to get on top of it."

"I don't care."

And that was the end of the conversation. Shane's phone had exploded with shocked messages from all kinds of people, and he didn't care. The commissioner of the MLH had called, and he didn't care.

All he cares about is right here. Ilya is asleep. In his own bed, alive, and asleep. Shane cares about every breath, and every heartbeat, and nothing else in the entire world.

Shane doesn't get any rest that night. Once he's sure that Ilya is thoroughly asleep, he gets up and goes through the house. He finds the razors, the kitchen knives, every bottle of pills and puts them in a bag and slings it over his shoulder. It won't leave his sight until after he's had a chance to buy a lockbox for anything Ilya could use to hurt himself. He pours most of the cleaning supplies down the drain. He takes the keys to all of Ilya's cars. He checks every room, every drawer, every cabinet, to make sure that there isn't another gun.

In the morning, he helps Ilya get up and eat breakfast and get dressed. He's only halfway coherent. Shane had asked his mother to do some research, and apparently the drugs might take three days to really leave Ilya's system, although he should be starting to get more lucid by the end of the first day.

Today he's mostly trying to apologize to Shane. Mumbling it, garbled and almost impossible to understand, every time Shane gets him food, or tells him to drink some water. Again and again, Shane tries to tell him that there's nothing to apologize for. Ilya doesn't even seem to understand. He looks back at Shane, eyes blank, when Shane tells Ilya how much he loves him and how glad he is that Ilya is here, that Ilya is alive.

Shane doesn't make him take any more of the medication, not when Ilya pushes it away the first time Shane offers it. He hopes that's the right decision: it seems to be making Ilya feel so unlike himself, and not any less depressed. He doesn't know how much of the emptiness is the drug and how much of it is the depression. But of course if he wants to go back on the medication, Shane will support him. It's his life, his recovery. Shane is just here to help, and to do whatever he can do to keep Ilya safe.

He doesn't start the conversation about more treatment, therapy or a psychiatrist or anything. He just coaxes Ilya to eat, and takes a walk outside with him half-slumped against his shoulder, and ignores every attempt of the outside world to intrude on the tiny patch of safety he's trying to carve out for them both.

By midway through the next morning, Ilya's eyes are clearing up, and when he looks at Shane, he seems to actually see him. That's a relief.

What's not a relief is what he says, which is, "You don't have to be here."

"What?"

"You don't have to be here, just because you feel sorry for me."

Shane stays calm. It's really important that he stay calm. Ilya needs that from him, and Ilya is going to get it. "I'm here because I love you, Ilya. That's the only reason."

Ilya looks at him for a long time. Shane has never wished so much that he could actually read other people's expressions. He's usually okay at it when it comes to Ilya, but this one is a mystery. Into the silence, Ilya says, "You're telling the truth."

"Of course I am."

"I'd know if you were lying." He almost smiles. "You're a terrible liar."

"I am." The sound of Ilya teasing him might be the best thing Shane has ever heard. He sounds so normal, for a few brief seconds.

Then Ilya asks, "Are you angry at me?"

Shane takes a moment before he answers. Because he wants to be honest. "I don't know," he says, finally. "Maybe, a little bit. Or maybe I will be, when it's not all so shocking. For right now, I'm just happy you're here and we're together."

"Why?"

It's an easy question to answer. "Because I love you. And I don't think I'd survive losing you."

He doesn't intend for that to make Ilya panic, but it does. He's hyperventilating right away. "You don't—Shane, you can't—you—"

"Fuck. Hey, hey, it's okay. I didn't mean…" Except maybe he did. Not necessarily that he would do what Ilya had done, that he would actively try to end his own life. Just that he is not sure that life would feel at all worth living without Ilya. He's not sure he could ever feel alive without Ilya.

But Ilya doesn't seem to hear him. For a long time, he just gasps silently for air. He doesn't even seem to feel Shane holding his hand, trying to ground him, trying to find him as he is lost, once again, in the tunnels of his own terrified mind.

Shane's phone is blowing up. They've been outed. His worst fear.

Well, he'd thought it was his worst fear. It turns out his worst fear is losing Ilya. Everything else feels completely unimportant in comparison. His PR person is sending him hourly digests of the best and worst things everyone is saying online and pitches on how they could spin it. His mother keeps calling—to say what, Shane doesn't know. His coach calls to tell him he's benched.

He answers that one. "I'm on leave," is all he says. "Do whatever you want."

He's never been rude to a coach before. Never said anything except yes, Coach and of course and thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for letting me be here even though I don't belong. As if being allowed in the room was a fucking favor. As if Shane hadn't earned it ten times more than everyone else, by being the best, always the best.

Theriault is obviously shocked. He stammers into the phone incoherently. Shane hangs up. It feels, he realizes distantly, good.

Rose and Hayden are checking in. JJ isn't. The team chat is silent. Probably everyone is talking about him in person, speculating about whether or not he's a traitor.

As the day goes on, Ilya asks some logistical questions: has anyone been in touch with his team, why isn't Shane in Montreal, who knows what happened. Shane does his best to answer thoroughly and honestly. His urge is to tell Ilya not to worry about any of that right now, to assure him that Shane is handling all of it and that all Ilya needs to think about is getting better. But he doesn't want to condescend.

The commissioner of the fucking MLH calls him. Tells him that they have a statement ready to go, about how the MLH values good sportsmanship and Shane was just helping out a fellow player in need because he happened to be in the area. "Maybe we say you were visiting a girlfriend who lives in Florida," he suggests. Deny that the hospitalization was for mental health reasons. Deny that he or Ilya is queer. Certainly deny that they're in a relationship.

"Absolutely not," Shane says. Maybe he should wait and ask Ilya how he wants to handle it, but Ilya has said that it was partially the stress of keeping everything between them secret that led him to— so he doesn't wait to ask. It's his turn to be the one to say, out loud, that he loves Ilya. That they are everything to each other. "We're in love. Since we were eighteen, by the way. Kick me out if you want. My mother would get a lot of joy out of suing your ass."

He hangs up that call, too.

He should probably care. There should probably be something in him that gives a shit that his career could be over, that he's disappointed his team and made life so much harder for everyone who works for him and failed at the goal his mother has been fighting for since he was a child. It should probably mean something to him that all of that might be gone.

All he cares about is that, once he's given up and turned his stupid phone all the way off, when he checks in if Ilya needs anything, Ilya says, "I think I'm kind of hungry."

An answer. A need he can fill. Nothing else matters. They drive to McDonald's together, and Ilya eats an entire cheeseburger and a medium order of fries and, for a second, almost seems to be enjoying himself. That's the only thing Shane cares about, is seeing Ilya look up at him while he takes a slurp of his Coke, seeing Ilya's eyes with a little bit of light in them, seeing just one corner of his mouth start to curve into a smile.

Shane sets up the lockbox. Puts everything Ilya could possibly use to hurt himself in it. Ilya watches him do it, without protest. When it's done, he says, again, "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing, Ilya," Shane replies. Not even gently. "You're sick. You need help. I love you, I'm helping you. We don't have to talk about it anymore."

"I think we do," Ilya says. "I think, uh, this kind of sick, it is not…"

Shane makes himself wait, patiently. Does not let himself interrupt or prompt Ilya to say more, no matter how much he wants to.

"I cannot even promise you," Ilya says, his voice cracking, "that it will never happen again. You are doing everything for me, and I cannot even do this. I wish so badly I could. Reassure you. Take one thing away. So you do not have to worry. I scared you. I hurt you. I am sorry. But I cannot say I will never hurt you like that again. I wish I could. But it would be a lie."

It's the most words Ilya has said in a row since Shane found him at the hospital, and every single one of them is unbearable. Shane starts with the most urgent part. "Are you thinking about trying again? Like, right now." He is pretty sure there is nothing Ilya could use to hurt himself in the house, but it's not like Ilya is a prisoner here. And a gun may be a lot harder to get in Ontario than in Florida, but there are all kinds of ways that Ilya could come to harm, if that's what he wanted.

Ilya shakes his head. "Now I am… okay is wrong word. Mostly I am tired. Too tired."

Too tired to try to hurt himself. Should Shane be glad of that?

"I am not… planning. Now. I do not know what will happen next."

"That's okay, Ilya. We only have to get through today, right?"

"I do not want to hurt you, Shane. I love you. So I will try. This is the best I can do."

Shane reaches for his hand. "That's enough. That's all I need."

So he's the one who's lying.

On the third day, Svetlana arrives. She looks stunningly put together for someone who has been traveling for almost seventy-two hours. She is very, very beautiful, one of the most beautiful women Shane has ever seen in real life. if they were meeting under other circumstances Shane would probably feel nauseatingly jealous: that this was Ilya's best friend, that she had been in his life so much longer than he has, that they'd had sex with each other over the course of years and years.

Things being as they are, Shane throws his arms around her.

She is tentative, but she hugs him back.

"Ilya is sleeping. Come on, let me get you settled in."

He carries her bag to her room. He thinks of arriving at the cottage, taking Ilya's bag for him. Leading him into the house where they would become what they are now. He thinks about how lucky he is. How lucky he still is, to have Ilya in their bedroom, asleep, alive.

When Ilya is awake and has had a scant few moments to adjust to consciousness through the fog that the drugs still leave him in, even though they're mostly out of his system by now, Svetlana immediately starts talking to him in very rapid Russian. Shane doesn't understand a word, but her tone is unmistakeable. She's furious.

It's not like Shane isn't angry at Ilya too. Of course he is.He'd even said as much, when Ilya asked. How could he not feel a little angry, when the man he loves so much had tried to leave him? But the anger is irrational and unhelpful and he's been doing his best to put it away for later, when Ilya is better.

Svetlana does not seem to feel the same compunctions.

Ilya is not yelling back at her. His tone is low and resigned.

After a while, she switches to English, presumably to include Shane. "Okay. Time for a plan."

That's when Shane learns that this wasn't the first time.

Ilya has never acted on the feelings before. That's what he explains, haltingly, defensively, with Svetlana occasionally interrupting for a sidebar in Russian (presumably whenever she feels like he is being insufficiently honest about the past). He's never tried to hurt himself deliberately.

"But I think about it… a lot. Since I was a child. Even before my mama." He isn't looking at Shane as he says this. "And I think, sometimes… driving fast, drinking too much, sex I should not be having, all of this is… not trying to hurt myself. But not caring."

Is that really how their relationship started? Because Ilya didn't care about himself? Is that what Shane was to him at first, just one more way to gamble with his own life?

To Shane's horror, he realizes that there is also a part of him that is relieved to learn that Ilya has struggled with these feelings before. Long before he met Shane. Maybe it's not all Shane's fault, all his failures and his neglect as a partner that drove Ilya to this point.

"And never," Svetlana says, "Does he go to therapy, or talk to doctor, or try medicine. Even though I tell him there are things he can do, things that will help. He promises me, he swears—on your dead mother's grave, Ilyusha, don't think I have forgotten—that if it ever gets very bad, he will call me, he will let me help him."

"I am sorry," Ilya says, tonelessly.

"Well. I do not trust you, now. There is no more, you will call if you need something. You are getting help whether you like it or not. And I am not letting you out of my sight until I believe that you are better, because I love you and I am not going to let you kill yourself. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Ilya says. "I will talk to a therapist. Try medicines. Whatever you want. I am sorry."

Shane wishes he would stop apologizing. He wishes he would not treat his recovery like a penance he owes to the people he loves. But if that's what it takes for him to accept help, he will leverage even Ilya's guilt. Anything, if it means he'll get better.

Svetlana and Shane's parents accompany them to the courthouse. Shane feels terrible. Ilya deserves a beautiful wedding. People gathered to celebrate them. Champagne popping. Dancing all night. He would love that.

Ilya says it doesn't matter. If he gets to be with Shane, he is happy. Nothing could be better than Shane promising him a future together, he says. The kind of romantic thing only Ilya can come up with, except now it's breaking Shane's heart. Because has Ilya spent the last three years not knowing they would have a future together? Had Shane somehow failed to make Ilya understand that all Shane wanted was for them to have the rest of their lives together, that he would give up anything to make that happen?

He wishes he could make the kind of grand romantic gesture Ilya deserves. To declare in front of the world what Ilya is worth to him. But he can't wait until Ilya is well enough to plan a wedding, not if he's willing to do the legal part in a courthouse. Shane is never, never going to endure what he went through while Ilya was missing, never again. They can have a reception later, when Ilya is better. Next summer, maybe. For now, they need to get married, and that's all there is to it. If Ilya gets sick, Shane has to be the one who can take care of him. He needs it to be enshrined into the law that he's Ilya's person.

Yuna tried to convince him to wait, at least a little while. She's also crushed, that there will be no party, no celebration. When that angle of argument does nothing to convince Shane at all, she tries to bring up that he should talk to his lawyers, sign a pre-nup. Crazy, apparently, not to do it with the amount of wealth they're both bringing into the marriage.

"Mom," Shane says, "We only need two witnesses. Svetlana and Dad. You don't have to be there. But if you want to come, it's going to be to support us."

"Of course, honey. I'm sorry."

Ilya deserves a room full of people cheering and dancing. To look gorgeous in a perfectly tailored suit. To kiss Shane too long at the altar and to write vows that make them both weep.

They get married in the county clerk's office. It feels about as romantic as renewing a driver's license. The kiss they share is chaste. They sign some paperwork.

Afterwards, David suggests they all go out for lunch, but Ilya is tired. Shane takes him home.

Ilya starts therapy. There is only one Russian-speaking therapist in Ottawa and she doesn't pass Svetlana's extremely stringent screening. So Ilya meets virtually with someone who works out of Montreal, which feels somewhat ironic. He takes his therapy calls from his office, twice a week, while Shane and Svetlana go to the other side of the house so that he can have as much privacy as possible.

He sees a psychiatrist, too. Shane goes with him to that appointment, which is in-person at a clinic downtown. The doctor is appalled at the combination of drugs they put him on in the hospital. "Not surprised," she clarifies, "but appalled." She starts Ilya on an antidepressant, with warnings that it could affect all kinds of things—his appetite, his sleep, his sex drive—and will take several weeks to work. "The main thing to watch out for is that it can increase energy before it increases mood. That's dangerous, in people who are dealing with suicidal ideation."

Then why are you giving him this medicine? Shane wants to scream, but he knows everything has risks. he does know that. he just wishes it weren't true. He wishes that he could be sure, somehow, that he was moving Ilya firmly in a direction towards safety.

But there is no certainty. Only this strange muddled path they're on together.

It's not exactly how Shane would have imagined spending his honeymoon. Driving his husband to a variety of doctor's appointments because they've all agreed he shouldn't have the car keys. Having his husband's best friend and former fuckbuddy living in heir house. No sex whatsoever. But he is spending it with Ilya, so it's worth it.

Ilya, who is a little bit more like himself with every single day that passes. Who has started smiling again, and sometimes making jokes. He is still apologizing constantly, much too often, but he's also started saying some things that sound more like himself. Teasing, occasionally, and often, romantic. At first it was like he wasn't sure he was allowed to tell Shane he loves him. Now he does, again. Now he holds Shane in their bed while they sleep. Ilya is still sleeping about twelve hours a day, and Shane hardly at all, but they still get to hold each other.

On the fourth night after they get married, Shane is in Ilya's arms. He has his face smushed against Ilya's chest and Ilya's strong arm wrapped around his waist. He can hear Ilya's heartbeat and smell his distinctive scent and all at once he is sobbing.

He tries desperately to stop the crying. He knows he shouldn't be doing this. It's unfair to Ilya, who is already carrying more than he can bear. Shane is supposed to be being strong for him. But once he's started crying, he can't stop. The sobs are so hard his whole body shakes. He can't breathe.

"Sorry," Shane chokes out. He doesn't want to make Ilya feel even guiltier than he already does. He doesn't want to put anything else on Ilya's shoulders. "I'm sorry, baby."

But Ilya doesn't start apologizing, doesn't pull away or say something horrible about how he doesn't deserve Shane. He just tightens his arms around Shane and presses a kiss into the top of Shane's head. "Shh, moy lyubimyy. It will be okay. I am here. I have you. I am here."

For now, Shane thinks, and cries into Ilya's chest until he runs out of tears.

In the wake of the scandal, Montreal trades Shane to Ottawa. He'll be a Centaur starting at the beginning of next season, assuming he and Ilya go back to playing. He'll only play if they can do it together.

The news seems to make Ilya happy, though. "On the same team?"

"Yeah. I'll be leading the second line, probably."

"No, no," Ilya disagrees. "I will tell Weibe he should move me to your wing. We will play together, we will be unstoppable."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to," Ilya says. "Shane, you have given me everything I ever wanted. We will be on the ice together. Husbands. Not a secret anymore. I am so lucky."

Shane wants to ask if it's working. If Ilya can feel lucky, too. Feel happy, at least happy enough that he wants to stay alive. That he wants to get to have this life they're building together. "I love you so much," he says, instead. "We're gonna have such a good life together, Ilya. We are going to be happy."

Ilya smiles at him. It just barely reaches his eyes. "Yes," he says. "I think so."

He feels so good, in that moment, so flooded with relief at the sight of Ilya's smile, that Shane does something really selfish. He asks, "Can you forgive me?"

Ilya flinches back like he has been struck. "What do you mean?"

"That I didn't know. I didn't see how much you were hurting." Shane takes a deep, shaky breath. His lungs burn like he's been skating for hours. "You were begging us to come out, and I blew you off, because I was scared. I knew how lonely you were, but I didn't…" I failed, Shane wants to say, to scream, because how can Ilya not understand this? How is he not furious, that Shane failed him, over and over and over again?

Shane was so bad at loving Ilya that it nearly killed him. Can he ever have forgiveness for that? Does he even deserve to ask for it?

Ilya takes both of his hands and raises one to his lips. He kisses each of Shane's knuckles, tender and intimate. "Listen to me now," he says, and he sounds more certain than he has since before the hospital.

Shane looks up at him. He listens.

"You did nothing wrong."

"I—"

"I told you to listen, my Shane." A gentle scolding in that tone of voice Shane has never been able to say no to. "You did nothing wrong," he repeats, pausing after every single word. "You have said it yourself, I am sick. Is not my fault. Is not your fault either. You did not make me this way. I think is the way I have always been. But you are helping me."

Shane feels himself start to cry. He feels all the more selfish for doing it.

Ilya pulls Shane into his arms and holds him hard. "It is not your fault," he says, again and again. "I am here. It is not your fault." And then, quietly, a promise, a promise they both hope he can keep: "I will not leave you. I will never choose to leave you."