Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike & Jackie Pike

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Rose Landry

Additional Tags:

Hanahaki Disease, Non-Terminal Hanahaki Disease, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Good Friend Jackie Pike, Canon Parallel, Denial of Feelings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Author had a lot of fun worldbuilding Hanahaki coexisting with professional hockey players, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), Medical Procedures, 2016-2017 MLH Season, Denial so deep the Evergreen can pass unhindered

Language:

English

Collections:

ICE OUT HR 2026

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-25 Completed: 2026-04-07 Words: 19,317 Chapters: 6/6

for you (my lungs were pulled asunder)

Summary

“Are you – sick? Or…” Hayden trails off, tilting his head in a small shrug. “Or do you have a case of the… y’know. Flowers?”

“What?!” Shane yelps, louder than he means to. “No way. And I’m not sick – it’s just allergies.”

“Allergies?” Hayden repeats incredulously. “Dude, it’s October. In Montreal.”

---

Having a physical manifestation of repressed feelings should make it easier to deal with them. Unfortunately, Shane still has to figure out what his body is trying to tell him – or if it’s just a seasonal affliction after all.

Notes

Thank you to Elany for supporting ICE OUT HR!

A huge shoutout to met for the cheerleeding and to vex for alpha and beta reading 💛💛 couldn’t have done this without you!

This fic is fully written at around 19k and currently being edited. I expect to post twice a week, though it depends a little on life™️and how much I’ll have to edit things.

Spoilery warnings for the medical procedures tag

This fic is set in a world where Hanahaki Disease is a recognised medical condition and treatments exist. There is some medical examination, and Shane takes a pill against his Hanahaki symptoms, which I will warn for separately when it comes up

Title from The Amazing Devil, Wild Blue Yonder

Chapter 1

“So,” Hayden says, tiny Arthur cradled against his chest. He’s looking at Shane, which puts Shane on edge immediately.

Shane swallows against the urge to cough. “So what?” he asks when Hayden doesn’t go on.

“When are you gonna join me in this nightmare?”

“Jeez, Hayd, you wanna get me pregnant, too?”

Hayden drops his gaze, smiling.

“I don’t think I’m ready; I think I still have some good hockey left in me.”

“You’re an asshole,” Hayden says fondly, but – what else can Shane even say in the middle of the Aquarium de Montréal? It seems like an evil place to be ambushed. “You ever talk to that ex of yours? What was it, Jennifer?”

“Uh, Jessica.”

“Jessica! You ever hit that?”

Jeez, Hayden. “Don’t say hit that,” Shane tells him tiredly. There’s not much he can do against the language prevalent in locker rooms, but they’re out and about in their free time, and he expects better of Hayden. Also, maybe it will distract Hayden from this line of thinking he’s going down.

“Sorry, Virgin Mary.”

Unbidden, an image of Rozanov on his knees flashes through Shane’s mind, the way his lips look wrapped around Shane’s cock, the way his hands find Shane’s ass, like he can’t help himself but touch. “I’m not…” Shane starts before he can lose himself in those thoughts. The scratch in his throat is back with a vengeance, strong enough he can feel it all the way down into his chest.

He clears his throat, swallows, swallows again, and gives a single, close-mouthed cough. His chest hurts. Damn. Just what he needs, mere days from the start of the season.

Hayden smiles and takes pity on him. “Here, tag! You are it!” he singsongs and passes Arthur over. It takes Shane a moment to juggle the tiny boy into a secure hold, still comparatively novel even though he’s been back in Montreal – back in the orbit of the Pikes – for over a month now. “Let’s go see Uncle Shane.”

Shane has the irrational urge to ask Hayden for a picture of this moment, to send to –

He swallows past the clog that’s been ever-present in his throat this summer and does not finish that thought.

“Look, I’m just saying, man – if you ever do, you could, like, bring her around, you know? We’d do couple stuff. It’d be fun.”

Jessica hasn’t been in the picture for years at this point. But it’s not her straight brown hair or brown eyes that flash through Shane’s mind when Hayden says couple stuff. Instead, he thinks of strong fingers and dark blond curls, plush lips in a smirk while the lean body arches back. At the Pikes’ dinner table. Which is a ludicrous thought. Christ, what is wrong with Shane? It must be the impending start of the season, the first game against Boston looming a mere two weeks away.

“I’m not…” Shane says, using Arthur’s squirming to trail off while he tries not to drop the boy. Hayden, asshole that he is, doesn’t even take his hands out of his pockets. “I mean, she’s… I don’t see her anymore.” If he sees anyone, it’s Rozanov. Not that they’re seeing each other. “I think she’s engaged, or something.”

But Ilya isn’t, a traitorous voice in Shane’s mind whispers. Rozanov. It’s Rozanov, he reminds himself firmly. They’re hooking up – and yes, they were texting over the summer, more frequent than they had in past years – but they’re rivals. Rivals who hook up sometimes, yes, but rivals nonetheless. Certainly not friends who are on a first name basis.

Shane takes a deep breath, and promptly starts coughing. And keeps coughing, because there’s suddenly something stuck in his throat, his lungs spasming like he’s been bag skated for too long.

He’s dimly aware of Hayden saying, “Woah,” at his side, and then Arthur is gone from his grip, which means Shane can focus on not throwing up from trying to cough up his lungs.

“Here,” Hayden says when Shane manages to stop long enough so he can straighten up again. He has Arthur tucked against him with one arm, holding out a bottle of water with the other. God, he’s such a dad. “You alright?”

“Thanks,” Shane says gratefully as he accepts the bottle. His voice is scratchy, and his chest still hurts, but the water helps. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Hayden’s face does a thing. “You sure? Are you – sick? Or…” he trails off, tilting his head in a small shrug.

Shane takes another gulp of water. “Or?”

Hayden shrugs again. “Or do you have a case of the… y’know. Flowers?”

“What?!” Shane yelps, louder than he means to. The aquarium is almost empty on a weekday like today, but he still can’t help but look around to make sure they’ve not attracted undue attention and will end up online. They seem to be in the clear. “No way. And I’m not sick – it’s just allergies.”

“Allergies?” Hayden repeats incredulously. “Dude, it’s October. In Montreal.”

Shane drops his gaze and shrugs. “Surely there’s some – tree or, or plant that is in season in October.”

Hayden snorts in disbelief. “Look, I’m not a doctor, but – you kinda sound an awful lot like Jackie’s sis did, while she and Marc were figuring their shit out.”

“I’m not. It’s – Jessica isn’t – I’m not –”

“Woah,” Hayden says again, and if his arms weren’t full of baby, Shane knows he’d be raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, man. Just, maybe get this checked out, yeah? Last thing we need is you toppling over on the ice.”

Shane rolls his eyes. He’s been fine, on the ice; and, anyway, it’s probably just anxiety over trying for a threepeat on the Cup that’s had him feel like his chest is too tight. But the ice is separate, special; he would never jeopardise the team.

“If you’re done coughing, it’s still your turn.” They do the whole song-and-dance again until Arthur is back in Shane’s arms. Hayden steps back, giving Shane another look. Shane can’t quite parse it – or maybe he also doesn’t want to. He looks down at Arthur instead.

“Just – Jackie has this friend, right?”

Shane doesn’t sigh, but it’s a near thing. He’s not interested, would rather focus on hockey and the team and hang out with Jackie and Hayden on his own instead of dragging a girl around who doesn’t even exist yet and still makes his skin feel too tight all over and his chest constrict.

He really, truly, cannot wait to get back on the ice – and have a very valid reason for why he’s too busy to date.

Shane isn’t stupid.

He knows about hanahaki – the flower disease, first described in Japan, where it gets its name from – because everyone does. It had featured in those excruciating mandatory health classes, along with learning about STDs and putting condoms on bananas.

Shane had paid attention, because he’d grown up knowing that school was important, even if he did end up pursuing a hockey career; that sexual health was important, especially if he did end up pursuing a hockey career. And STDs are a large part of that.

Not that the flowers are an STD, contagious but contained with a condom. They’re a stupid mental thing, more than anything else, stupidity about girls given physical representation. Shane has never really understood it.

Oh, he gets missing something so much it physically hurts. Real ice and the cold of a rink in the few months he gets off during the summer. His own bed at the tail end of a long road trip. The weightless feeling after getting fucked within an inch of his life, especially at this point of the pre-season. The rush of getting a puck into the net after a drought. The warm welcome of the Pikes’ living room.

All of these missing things sink into his bones, a heaviness that he most notices the moment it lifts. He can’t imagine any of them sinking into his lungs. And, anyway – flowers famously progress quickly. In Flowers by Your Name, Alissa, played by Rose Landry, is bedridden within weeks, until she finally makes the call and confesses to Gale, played by Adrian Dela Cruz. In Blooming Love, Evan Smith’s character is coughing up full flowers within weeks of starting his new job and falling for the smart and pretty scientist played by Landry. Even in Not All That Blooms is Love both Landry’s character and her co-star’s develop the telltale cough within days, though they don’t bring up leaves or petals until months later, in the middle of a tense chase through Manhattan. (Sometimes, Shane wishes Rose Landry starred in fewer hanahaki-themed movies, but at least she’s always a delight to watch on interminable plane rides.)

Meanwhile, Shane has had this scratching in his throat for years. Yes, it’s gotten worse with time, but he’s not coughing up anything. And anyway – he’d know, okay?

He spends the rest of the day at the aquarium mulling it over, trying to remember when it had started. Sometime in 2014, maybe, because it’s not like he’d been paying attention, though he remembers the screening they did for the Olympics and being warned that his blood levels showed an increased risk of contracting it.

Which had been stupid, of course, and then they’d won Gold at the Olympics, and nothing had ever come of it. And if Shane had been a little more vigilant towards new people, especially girls, he’d met then, that’s no one’s business but his own.

But anyway. He’d think he’d know, and he’s definitely not met anyone in those years who stuck out to him, so it cannot be hanahaki. Maybe it’s asthma. Or an allergy after all, because as it turns out, October is still weed pollen season in Eastern Canada.

Regardless, Shane makes an appointment with the team doctor, in part so Hayden won’t get Jackie involved, but mostly because if they’re gunning for a third cup in a row, he cannot afford to be anything but at his best.

“We’ll do the full battery,” Dr. Derksen – Marita, she offered, though Shane feels too weird calling his doctor by her first name to not stick with her title and last name – tells him when Shane shows up for an extended physical a week after the regular season starts. She’s a tall woman with the build of an athlete herself, and Shane wouldn’t be surprised if she played hockey herself. He’s never asked, though maybe he should. It seems like the sort of thing he should know, as captain. “I wanted to do that anyway; your ECG was fine, but the lung function test showed a significant decrease from last year; still above average, but below what we have on file for you.” She looks at him over the rim of her glasses. “It might be a remnant from the cracked ribs last season, so I want you in for an MRI at Montreal General after you get back from the road trip. Especially since you’re marked as an elevated risk for hanahaki.”

Shane swallows convulsively, clears his throat, swallows again. There it is again. That word. The word he hasn’t heard since high school outside of movies, only for it to be floated as a possibility twice in as many weeks. But – he has nothing to fear. There’s no way it’s hanahaki. He’d know.

With a reassuring smile, Dr. Derksen gets her equipment ready. It’s a well-known song and dance: blood draws, a saliva swab for something, a urine sample… not that different from pre-season physical. The referral to Montreal General is new, but that’s an issue for after the road trip, as Dr. Derksen had said. She makes him to another lung function test, too, and a treadmill test, and an EEG for good measure, and altogether it’s a good thing that practise this morning was optional because Shane ends up missing a good chunk of it.

It must show on his face, because Dr. Derksen gives him another look and then chuckles. “Go,” she tells him, “There’s nothing here that would keep you from playing, and we’ll go over the results once you’ve gotten the MRI done.”

“Thanks,” Shane says, and then flees before she can change her mind.

“So. Lily’s just a buddy?”

“What?” Shane clenches his hands against the urge to rub his chest, prickling all of a sudden. It’s psychosomatic and he knows it, a direct consequence of being so close to a possible diagnosis.

“Chill. I know you text some girl named Lily,” Hayden says, and Shane can see the exact moment it clicks in his mind. Damn Ilya – damn Rozanov – for choosing a flower as his own code-name. It’s a miracle, maybe, that he didn’t save Shane as Holly in turn.

“I don’t.” Blood is rushing in Shane’s ears, and he wants to run because if Hayden asks –

“Okay.” Hayden gives him a smirk that makes Shane’s jaw clench. “Go get laid, weirdo.”

Shane’s mouth opens, closes, opens again, and then he decides to just leave before Hayden can interrogate him again. He only starts coughing once he’s in the elevator, and miraculously manages to stop before the doors open on the ground floor.

Shane is still thinking about it, right up until Rozanov opens the door to his very pretty house with gorgeous, full glass walls. It’s a private property, with a long driveway that Shane walks up just to get the nervous energy out of his system that his aborted conversation with Hayden had instilled.

It’s ludicrous, anyway, what Hayden’s implying. Because, for one, Shane and Rozanov have been hooking up for years, and two, Rozanov isn’t a girl. There’s a brief, terrifying moment where Shane thinks maybe it’s because of that – because he’s hooking up with a guy when he should, like a good hockey player is supposed to, be pursuing a girl, but that’s not how hanahaki works. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s the case; it’s always been about confessing your feelings to your crush. Meeting someone and dancing around the inevitable, not an abstract concept.

Even if the thought turns Shane’s stomach. He goes out with the guys, sometimes even lets himself be dragged to the dance floor, but… it just doesn’t work for him. How is he supposed to focus on a relationship when hockey is his top priority? Much better to have this thing with Rozanov, where they’re both clear on what they can and cannot have.

Shane swallows the clog in his throat once last time, brushes his jacket out, and then rings the doorbell.

It’s odd being in Rozanov’s space for more than just sex. Usually, they show up, they fuck, and then one of them leaves. A hookup. Mutually beneficial, mutually impersonal. If you can call something impersonal that involves taking the other person apart – but it’s only ever been about that. Taking each other apart.

Okay, more often than not, it’s been about Rozanov taking Shane apart.

So it’s odd to have Rozanov ask him to stay, to nod off in his bed, to wake in Rozanov’s arms. Odd, but not terrible.

They talk while the food Rozanov prepares for them is in the oven, and it’s – it’s not exactly awkward, but it feels… tentative. Out of their usual depth, or maybe that’s just Shane. But he can’t shake the feeling that they’re on the brink of something else, right then. Something that can’t be, and Shane realises how impossible that is when Rozanov mentions his girl.

There is a girl I like here very much, Svetlana, Rozanov says, and Shane keeps his eyes on the screen showing an old hockey game because he doesn’t know what else to do. Doesn’t know what exactly Rozanov is going for, talking about all these women – about this perfect woman, who is cool, who knows him, who speaks Russian, who seems to love hockey, too – until he asks Shane about his own love life and. Oh.

Reality reasserts itself like a coach yelling at them to get their heads out of their asses and realising he’s zoned out while they’re down by three with five minutes on the clock. Of course. They’re hockey players – this can’t be anything more than hooking up. Which Shane is very much aware of. They’ll both settle down with a wife at some point – twenty-five is already late, for players, but maybe Rozanov also hasn’t found the right one (or is waiting for his Svetlana to be ready to settle down) – and have kids of their own, ready to continue their dynasty. This is Rozanov reminding Shane of what this is and what this is not, and Shane is almost grateful for it even as he has to swallow past the thing tickling the back of his throat, his stomach in a knot.

He is saved by Rozanov’s phone ringing, and the man excusing himself before he answers in Russian. Papa, is the only word Shane can make out, so. Family.

There is little he knows about Rozanov’s family – they’re only hook-ups, after all – and nothing for him to learn with the conversation conducted in a language he doesn’t speak, so Shane takes the opportunity to find the bathroom.

There’s been a cough building in his chest ever since he sat down at the kitchen island, and the door has barely shut behind him before he’s coughing, harsh barks that wrack his entire body. Shit.

Rozanov is back on the couch when Shane gets himself under control enough to leave the bathroom, spinning his phone between his fingers and staring into space. His gaze snaps to Shane’s, an odd expression on his face. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Shane croaks, then clears his throat. “Sorry, just – inhaled a crumb wrong.” It’s a weak-ass lie, and he knows it, but he makes himself meet Rozanov’s eyes as best as he can. “How is your father?”

That makes Rozanov start. “Oh, you speak Russian now, too?”

“I know the word for father,” Shane points out. Papa is not a hard word to recognise, after all.

Rozanov stares at him for long seconds before he finally smiles, slaps Shane’s shoulder, and pulls Shane in so they’re curled up together on the couch. And Shane shouldn’t. They’re just hooking up – fuckbuddies without being buddies in the first place – but Rozanov is still shirtless and smells dark and comforting, and how is Shane supposed to resist that?

“Hollander,” Ilya says, hand reaching for Shane. There is an ocean between them, the waves rushing so loudly in Shane’s ears that he barely hears Ilya’s voice. “Hollander, please.”

Shane hears his own voice saying something as if he is submerged in the water too, whatever words falling from his lips bypassing his brain entirely. He’s probably not even making sense. It doesn’t matter. He has to get out, has to leave, has to forget the sound of his own name in Ilya’s voice.

Has to forget the shape of Ilya’s name on his lips, the way it had tumbled from his mouth in a rush.

It seems like that those two sounds have taken up residence in his brain and his chest, forestalling any coherent thought, keeping Shane from drawing in a breath.

They’re fuckbuddies. They will both have to settle down with wives and kids. They cannot be calling each other by their first names, because that will tip this over into something it cannot be for real. It will tip this over into something Shane actually wants, and he cannot want this, cannot have this.

He comes back to himself, coughing and coughing and coughing until he’s doubled over near the entry to Ilya’s property – to Rozanov’s property, he reminds himself, though he cannot shake the feeling that it’s a losing battle. He knows the taste of Ilya’s name now; how can he ever go back to calling him Rozanov?

Another coughing fit takes over then, fierce and painful until he feels something dislodge in his throat. Finally. He spits on the ground, gratefully inhaling the fresh autumn air of Boston in the middle of October.

His relief is short-lived as his gaze falls on the thing he’s coughed up.

In front of him on the ground is a leaf.

Pale green, veins and edges stark white, and coated in spit and phlegm. A fucking leaf.

Fuck.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

And we’re back! Once more thank you to vex for infinite patience and beta-ing 💛 This contains a bit more worldbuilding (which I am personally very excited about!) and some more Hayden & Jackie (which I am also very excited about). I hope you have fun with this chapter!

The next forty-eight hours pass in a daze.

Shane makes it back to the hotel, somehow weathers Hayden’s concern, takes a shower, and then, because he’s still operating on autopilot or maybe because he’s weak, puts the shirt back on he was wearing before. It still smells like Ilya, the mingled scents of his cologne and aftershave and a hint of musk.

Even so, sleep is elusive that night.

Consequently, the game is a shitshow the next day; it’s not just on Shane, but his distraction certainly isn’t helping. Two cup wins plus the salary cap means that the team has been mostly blown apart, and the fragments of their old core combined with the fresh talent have yet to click. They will get there, but with Shane… compromised, that night is not the night.

Shane cannot find it in himself to care. He says all the right things during post-game media: There’s a lot of potential, we’ve just gotta capitalise on it, and having the other team score on your power play always stings, but that’s why Boston’s one of the top teams in the league, always a fierce competitor, and We’ve generated quite some good chances, now it’s all about following up on them. He somehow even manages not to fumble the obligatory question about Ilya – Rozanov was dominant on the face-off dot today. Any comment on that? a reporter asks, and Shane hears himself chuckle. He always gets under your skin, and I guess today it was my turn. Just gotta get back in the right headspace, tune him out, like there is any hope of Shane not being fully tuned in to what Ilya is doing, like Ilya hasn’t taken up residence in all the nooks and crannies of Shane’s body, the way he’s said Shane still echoing in Shane’s mind..

Hayden’s gaze follows him to the showers and then back to his stall, heavy and concerned. Shane ignores him. It’s none of Hayden’s business, and anyway, what would Shane even say? His mind is entirely blank, any thought drowned out by static, and so Shane does his duty as Captain and joins the rookies for the post-game meal and then makes his round on the short flight back, giving praise and small pep talks as necessary.

It’s a good thing he could do this in his sleep, because when they touch down, he has no recollection of what exactly he’s said.

Hayden catches up with Shane on the way across the tarmac. “C’mon, man – I’ll drop you off at yours.”

“My car –”

“I’ll take it,” JJ cuts in from Shane’s other side, which is really unfair. His two A’s ganging up on him? “I rode with him, so it’s no big deal.”

For a long moment, Shane casts around for something he can say.

“Or JJ can take you in my car,” Hayden offers, softly enough that only the three of them can hear. “Just – you’re in no condition to drive –”

“I’m fine,” Shane lies.

Hayden snorts. “You barely slept last night. Don’t lie to me, man.”

Shane inhales as deeply as his traitorous lungs allow. Fuck. But Hayden isn’t wrong – he’s still half a step to the left of his own body, and he probably isn’t safe to drive.

“Fine.” He digs his car keys out of his pocket and passes them to JJ, and pretends not to see the look of relief that passes between his friends before they split ways to the respective cars.

Something settles inside Shane as he climbs into the passenger seat of Hayden’s respectable sedan. It’s too small too accommodate four children and two adults, Shane thinks to himself, and then snorts a little at the inconsequential realisation.

“Hm?” Hayden asks, one eyebrow raised.

“Nothing.” Shane shakes his his head and leans his head against the blessedly cool window. His eyes are burning, dry and tired, and it’s a relief to just close them and listen to Hayden put the car in reverse. “Just. You’ll need a new car.”

Now it’s Hayden’s turn to huff. “Yeah. Can’t wait. A proper minivan. Or two cars, I guess.”

“Ruby and Jackie in one, you and the rest in the other?”

“Sounds like heaven,” Hayden says, and then falls quiet as he pulls out of the player parking lot.

Within a minute, Shane has dozed off. He wakes as Hayden pulls up in front of his house.

“Look,” Hayden says, eyes staring into the darkness ahead and fingers drumming on the wheel. “Just – will you be alright tonight?”

“What?”

“I mean – alone. In your flat. After…”

“There is no after,” Shane bites out, damningly defensive, and promptly starts coughing.

Hayden doesn’t say anything, even after Shane has himself under control again, but he looks over at Shane, and that’s just as bad. Shane may not be the best at reading people, usually, but he’s known Hayden long enough to decipher this particular expression: it’s worry.

Shane averts his eyes.

After a moment, Hayden sighs. “You’re welcome to crash out ours tonight. I don’t know what happened –”

“Nothing happened,” Shane cuts in. Hayden ignores him.

“– but whatever it is, if you’d rather not be alone tonight, just say the word.”

“I’m an adult,” Shane points out, “I know how to sleep alone at home.” Also, he doesn’t want to explain to Hayden why he’s making a detour to Montreal General tomorrow morning to cash in that referral.

“Yeah, but it’s different after heartbreak.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Shane exhales through clenched teeth and then consciously relaxes his jaw and his fists. “There – was no heartbreak.” Only Shane being weak even when he knows that that’s not something he can be. Not as the best Asian-Canadian player in the league. Not as a role model to so many kids out there. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” Hayden says, and Shane knows that tone from years of talking with Hayden, too: resignation and capitulation, not because he agrees with Shane but because he’s too tired to argue. Shane tells himself it’s still a victory. “But – you’ll come for dinner tomorrow, right?”

I have an appointment with Dr. Derksen, Shane almost says, but then he’d have to explain why, and that would absolutely undercut his insistence that he’s fine, so he keeps his mouth shut. He is fine. And if he weren’t, it wouldn’t be for the reason Hayden seems to think.

“The girls miss you,” Hayden tacks on, because he may seem nice but he’s never been above playing dirty.

Shane unbuckles himself. “Just the girls?”

Hayden rolls his eyes. “I see you every day, jerk. But Jackie’s been having withdrawal, I think, and the twins are clamouring for you, and I’m pretty sure Arthur’s cries have this undertone of soothe me, Hollander.”

“Do they now?”

“Yeah. If you don’t believe me, come and find out for yourself tomorrow.”

It’s not a question. But then, Shane coming over was never a question either. He smiles at Hayden, and it’s the most he’s felt like himself since waking up in Ilya’s arms in Ilya’s Boston house.

Shit.

“See you tomorrow, then,” Shane agrees, and finally climbs out of the car.

“Want me to wait for you?” Hayden asks as he shoulders his bag. His eyes are tight once more, hard to meet. Ordinarily, they’d ride together back to Hayden’s after practice on their off-day, especially when they have dinner plans together.

Today, Shane shakes his head and focuses on pulling on his socks, first the left one and then the right one. Hayden is still standing there, making no move to leave.

Finally, Shane looks up at him again. “I have to see the doc.”

“Oh.”

Shane grimaces.

“Because…?”

Shane grimaces again, shrugs. Now that he knows, it had been hard not to notice how quickly he’d gotten out of breath. Undoubtedly Hayden, already suspicious, hadn’t missed it either.

Now, Hayden drops his gym bag back into his own cubicle and sits down next to Shane, half turned towards him. “Shane…” Hayden exhales and purses his lips.

“We’ll talk later, okay?”

Hayden’s eyes flick towards the scant few guys still milling around in the room before he acquiesces. “You sure you don’t want me to wait for you?”

Shane rolls his eyes and stands so he can pull on his pants. “I’m a big boy,” he tells Hayden, “I can talk to the scary doc on my own.”

Hayden huffs in amusement. “Fine. Come by whenever you’re ready – you can help us wear out the monsters.”

“I’ll text you.”

Dr. Derksen is waiting for him when Shane slips into her office, hands folded in front of her. Her glasses are nestled atop her head, though she pulls them down as Shane closes the door behind him.

“Shane, right on time. Take a seat, please.”

Shane gives her a soft smile. “I try not to waste your time.”

“How very conscientious of you. Then let’s get right down to business. How are you feeling?”

Shane takes a deep breath that falls short of filling his lungs, and then exhales as quietly as he can. He shrugs. “Fine, I guess?”

One eyebrow climbs up to Dr. Derksen’s forehead. “No… noticeable occurrences?”

Shane thinks of the white-veined leaf, crushed under his boot and hidden in the immaculate lawn of Ilya’s property. He swallows and then gives a half-shrug, half-shake of his head. “Not really?”

“Hm.” Dr. Derksen shuffles through papers in front of her. “I’m asking because Montreal General has sent over the imaging results.” She looks at him, serious but not unkind. “It’s pretty clear cut.” She slides a page over, though Shane keeps his eyes on her. He is pretty sure he already knows what she’s showing him. “A case of stage two Hanahaki Disease. It’s started in your trachea here” – she points at a spot on the image, and Shane’s eyes flicker down before he looks back up at her – “and is spreading down into your lungs, as seen here. No bloom yet, but we have a few leaves that we can make out here and here, and some soft-tissue damage that suggests there was a separation of a leaf recently.”

She falls quiet, looking at Shane.

“Does that sound familiar?” she finally prompts.

“Oh,” Shane says, looking down at the image again without really seeing anything. “Uh – I guess.”

Her mouth twists into something that might be a smile, but Shane can’t quite focus on it. His mind is buzzing, not with thoughts but something else, something that spreads through the rest of his body until he’s numb all over, only the tips of fingers and toes – and his lips, fuck – tingling.

Hanahaki. Fuck. And he’d known it was coming, had known since he’d seen that damning leaf on the ground two days ago –

and, fuck, has it only been two days?

– it’s still something else to hear her say it.

To know, without a doubt.

“… you hearing me?” Dr. Derksen’s voice filters in. Shane blinks against the sudden dark spots in his vision. Hanahaki. Fuck. “Shane, I need you to breathe, please. On a count of four – yes, that’s it, you’ll be fine. It’s all good. You just need to breathe.”

She talks him through it until his vision is clear again and his limbs stop tingling, though the numbness doesn’t recede.

“But – I didn’t fall in love with anyone recently,” Shane tells her desk. His voice sounds thin to his own ears, young. Weak. “Or, like. Ever,” he adds belatedly. He’d know if he had, right?

Dr. Derksen sighs. “You know that unvoiced romantic love isn’t the only cause for hanahaki, yes? It is, at its core, a representation of something eating away at you. This would be something for you to talk about with Dr. Kelway, but for now – yes, it is often romantic feelings, but there are so, so many possible reasons. Anxieties you’re trying not to think about, big secrets… it’s not as common, but those absolutely also lead to hanahaki.”

She gives him a moment to digest this. Anxiety? Big secrets? Shane almost laughs. If that’s the case, then why isn’t everyone afflicted with flowers?

“Shane,” Dr. Derksen draws him out of his thoughts after a moment. “There is, of course, full patient-doctor confidentiality about this, so I will not relay any of this to the coaches or management. It’s only a stage two, so we observe roots digging into your lungs but no blooms yet, so with the right treatment, this shouldn’t affect you too badly.”

“Great,” Shane says weakly. In front of him, the imaging result stares back accusingly. Now that he’s properly looking at it, he can see his own chest like a ghostly outline, with a system of tendrils spiralling down from his throat into his lungs. They are coloured bright green, presumably for his benefit so they are easy to make out against the grey-scale image. It’s enough to turn his stomach. “So, uh… what are my options?”

Always ask that, his mother drilled into him. Before you make a decision, always have them give you all the information. With a sudden, gut-wrenching jolt, he wishes she was here. That she’d help him navigate this mess, that she’d cradle him in her arms and tell him everything will be fine. Shane pushes the feeling down. He’s a grown man; he can handle a case of the flowers. And anyway; if his mom was here, she’d want to know why he’s feeling like this, and she wouldn’t take I don’t know for an answer. Even though it’s the truth.

“I want you talking to Dr. Kelway at least once a week,” Dr. Derksen says, “in addition to the normal performance coaching you already see him for – right?” When Shane nods, she gives him a brief smile and continues. “We’ll have to see how quickly it’s growing – the best solution would be to fight this at its core, but if it’s already taken root, that’s probably easier said than done.”

She lays out his options in quick and efficient detail. Not that there are many actually viable ones. Shane’s mind is whirling as he listens to her talk about chemotherapy and medication, though he tunes out as soon as she says medical leave.

“And if I… want to keep playing?” he interrupts her, even though it’s very rude.

She pushes her glasses up her nose and regards him for a moment. “We’ll be able to keep it in check with steam therapy, probably,” she finally says, “if you take your appointments with Dr. Kelway seriously to get to the root of this.” She smiles to herself at a joke Shane can’t follow with his thoughts in disarray. “And there’s the option of temporary eradication once flowers start blooming.”

“Temporary… eradication?”

“Weed poison,” Dr. Derksen says with a sigh. “It’s – not pleasant. Not as bad as chemotherapy, but still very much poison to bank the spread of the flowers. You’d be out for a day or two, but it could reduce symptoms by up to forty percent.”

“Up to?” Shane asks. “So… what’s the lower bound?”

Dr. Derksen tilts her head. “Long-term exposure can lead to resistances. The only way to fully get rid of this, I’m afraid, is to confront the root cause. Everything else is just… band-aids.”

Being out for a day, in return of his symptoms lessening significantly. It’s not even a proper question. “So… when can we start?”

Dr. Derksen raises her eyebrow at him. “Start what?”

Will she actually make him say it? It seems like it. “The…” Shane swallows. Even though he knows it can’t be true, he feels the plant matter in his chest. “The weed poison.”

The second eyebrow joins the first. “Not until you have your first bloom. It works best on flowering Hanahaki – that’s stage three – and I’m loathe to start building up a resistance this early.”

“Are there no other options?”

“None that wouldn’t require medical leave. We can look into them in the off-season; the mildest would decrease your reaction times and increase your risk for internal bleeds, among other things, which is not a good combination. But we can revisit that then, once we know how your sessions with Dr. Kelway are proceeding. Who knows, maybe we won’t actually need them.”

She’s saying it like it’s a foregone conclusion, that Dr. Kelway will be able to work a miracle when even Shane doesn’t know why this has started. What exactly is someone else supposed to accomplish? Pull facts he isn’t aware of himself from his brain? Of course, he’ll do his best to cooperate, but he doesn’t actually believe in miracles.

But he smiles and nods, and pretends that his chest doesn’t constrict even further at the knowledge that for now, they’re only waiting for him to get worse.

“They’re looking into it.”

Hayden looks over at Jackie and then back at Shane. His brows are slightly knitted together, his hand half-way across the table like he’s reaching for Shane. Shane tucks his own hands into his lap, far away from any accidental – or otherwise – touches.

“Shane,” Jackie says softly, Arthur held securely in her lap. It seems lovely, having a tiny human shield. Not that Shane is hiding. He’s just – he doesn’t want to worry the Pikes. They have enough going on with three small children and Jackie’s pregnancy. “You know you can share anything with us?”

“Of course.” Shane smiles, pushing his peas around on his plate. They’re his least favourite of the green vegetables, but Jackie always tries to have at least two veggies in their meals, and today it was broccoli and peas.

“This includes whatever this is,” Hayden adds, his voice equally soft. A room over, Ruby and Jade squeal, but Hayden’s gaze only flickers once before he’s looking back at Shane. No rescue from that front, it seems. “Just – we’re worried, okay?”

“You don’t need to be. It’s just – I’m a little under the weather.” As if on cue, Shane coughs. It’s a mild fit, compared to what he’d been dealing with after making his escape from Rozanov’s, but it’s damning all the same.

So is the silence that follows.

“Shane –”

“I have it under control.”

“So there is something to have under control?” Hayden doesn’t crow about it. It might be easier if he did.

Shane swallows and takes a sip of his ginger ale. It’s lukewarm by now, but that’s on him for ignoring it for so long. “Look,” Shane finally says and looks up. He can’t quite meet Hayden’s eyes, but there’s a point on his nose that’s close enough. “It won’t affect my play, and –”

“I’m not worried about your play!” Hayden stops abruptly and takes a deep breath.

Besides him, Jackie sighs. “Shane. We’re not – we’re not management, or the trainers, or your coaches… we’re your friends. If you’re sick – whether it’s flowers or something else – we care about you. Not because of your performance, or your points per game, your outreach, but because you’re you. Our kids’ Uncle Shane.”

Shane winces. Before he can say anything, Hayden tacks on, “We will always have your back, but it helps to know what we have your back against.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, and then, “Even I don’t know what it is.”

Jackie hums sympathetically. “So it’s not flowers?”

Shit. Shane hates lying to the two of them; he’s already doing that more than he’s comfortable because of Rozanov. Well. Not because Rozanov is forcing him, but because of his role within Shane’s life. And this isn’t about Rozanov. Even if it did start in his living room, over a discussion of girls. So… “It is,” he admits. “Just – I meant it. I don’t know… how I… acquired it.”

Hayden raises both eyebrows in response, though finally Shane’s salvation comes in the form of two tiny forms barrelling into the room. “Unca Shane!” Jade yells, skidding to a stop while Ruby just fully launches herself at Shane. God, he loves these two menaces.

He smiles and scoops her up into his lap while Jade looks up at him solemnly. “So you two remembered I exist?”

“We always remember!” Ruby insists, squirming in his hold. “Silly Unca Shane.”

“Yeah, silly Uncle Shane,” Hayden parrots on the other side. There’s still something heavy in his gaze, but he doesn’t reopen the conversation.

“Well,” Shane says as he gets up, Ruby on one hip and offering his free hand to Jade, “seems like I’m being summoned.”

Jade grabs his hand instead of letting him scoop her up, already pulling him along. “What does ‘summoned’ mean?”

“That you came to get me,” Shane says to her, throwing one last look over his shoulder at where Hayden has begun stacking their plates. “And – don’t worry, okay, Hayd? I’m seeing Kelly about this. To help me get to the bottom of it.” He smiles, and hopes it comes out more reassuring than it feels. He has his doubts, considering he himself has no idea what has caused this, and they’re just waiting for Shane to get worse. But Hayden and Jackie are already worried enough as-is, and Shane is seeing a professional, so he keeps those doubts to himself. No use burdening his friends with that knowledge, after all.

Hayden meets his eye and nods once. “You probably don’t want the room to know?”

Shane shudders at the thought of that much scrutiny and attention on him, the gossip that would spread. “Yeah, no.”

“We’ll have your back,” Hayden promises once more, and then Shane finally lets Jade drag him to the den where she and Ruby had been playing.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

I am woefully behind with replying to comments but I will! I promise! I cherish every single one of them, RL just demanded a lot of my attention.

Anyway – on to a chapter I was looking forward to a lot :D

Shane mulls it over during weights the next day. His first hanahaki-related session with Dr. Kelway isn’t until next week thanks to his normal performance coaching and a pair of away-games, but it’s not like he has that much else to think about.

The season is only just getting into the swing of things; they’re starting to hit their stride with the new guys and the old core finally starting to click, and the rookies are losing the starry-eyed reverence they always start out with. It’s a normal season. Even the absences – Gally half as wide as Rourkes had been in the same stall, three down from Shane’s; hearing Drapeau with his French accent rather than Mitty with his angular Finnish from the goal – are starting to feel normal.

And yet Shane’s body is betraying him.

It doesn’t make sense. He has everything he could ask for: won the Cup twice, features on billboards and on TV, gotten a full house of MLH awards with the Calder, the Art Ross, the Hart, Lady Byng (for his Role Model Status in the league), and the Conn Smythe… The only thing he doesn’t have, as Rozanov reminded him, is a girlfriend. A wife. Someone to have and raise kids with.

The thought makes Shane’s chest constrict which – is that really it? Is the problem that Shane is twenty-five and still single, that he hasn’t settled down yet?

It would make sense. A lot of guys on the team are settled with a wife and kids. Not all of them; some, like Gags and Berkey, are serial womanisers, but even with them it’s understood to be only a matter of time until they settle down or finally knock a girl up. Which is a bleak outlook, if you ask Shane, but he’s their captain, not their dad. They can make their own mistakes.

And maybe it’s also his cue that this dabbling with Rozanov that he’s been doing ever since he entered the league is a mistake he’s made and should move past.

The thought turns Shane’s stomach, but that’s also normal. He’s a creature of habit, and like it or not, Rozanov has been one of his worst habits right from the start.

But he’s twenty-five, single, and needs to stop making excuses. Even his body is saying so.

So when JJ calls later that night to invite him to a night out with the X-Squad cast? Shane takes it as the sign it’s supposed to be and heads out.

“Text me,” Rose Landry says, and kisses his cheek. Her hand trails down his arm, and Shane’s breath catches – not on leaves and freshly growing flowers, but the thrill her soft fingertips, a hint of perfectly manicured fingernails sends through him.

“I will,” Shane promises, holding himself back from catching her hand in his. “And – see you tomorrow?”

“If you text me.” She winks, her smile gorgeous, and gives him a gentle push. “Now – go. Unless I can entice you to stay a little longer?”

“We do have a game tomorrow. I’m sorry.” With an apologetic shrug, Shane takes a step back. He can’t make himself look away from her, the way her pretty hair falls around her face. She’s pretty, and she’s still smiling at him, and the tickling in his chest is buried under elation at having met Rose Landry.

“Then don’t let me keep you. I think Montreal would be rather upset with me if your performance suffered.”

Shane chuckles, his cheeks flushing. He’s heard enough locker room jokes that he’s wired to react like that to the mention of performance, even though it’s probably not what she meant.

“Good night, Shane Hollander.”

“Good night, Rose Landry.” Shane smiles at her again, and then finally tears himself away and makes his way to the car waiting for him.

As promised, Shane texts Rose as he’s getting ready for bed, moving through his well-worn routine with his phone still in one hand. He doesn’t expect an answer right then, not with the party still in full action downtown, but Rose surprises him by replying immediately.

Shane falls asleep still smiling.

For the game against Detroit the next evening, Rose shows up in a HOLLANDER #24 jersey, proudly presenting it to the camera when it catches her. The crowd goes wild, and Shane can’t help but smile up at her. She’s here, for him – rarely has attention felt as good.

When they go out after the game, he doesn’t even mind the flashes that catch them on their way to a cab – together – though he’s beat enough from the game that they only make out a little before Shane starts yawning.

“Gonna go brush my teeth,” he murmurs and kisses her temple, her cheek, her plush lips. She smiles up at him, soft and happy, and he makes it all the way to the bathroom before a new coughing fit overtakes him.

Rose is… she’s perfect.

Their schedules make meeting up challenging, but they text every day, and Rose invites him out for lunch or dinner whenever it fits somehow, and – things are great.

And yet Shane still finds himself with an increasingly scratchy throat, like it had been while building up to the first leaf. It doesn’t make sense. He’s happy, for once, because Rose is pretty and cute and perfect, and when the guys tease him for being on his phone and he feels himself blush, he ducks his head but doesn’t want to die.

Because Rose is, above all else, safe. Correct. Maybe not someone to settle down and have kids with – she doesn’t strike him as the type who’d put her career on hold to have children, not that they’ve talked about that – but definitely someone he could bring around to extended team dinners and have up in the family box at his games. Not that there’s much opportunity for that with her busy schedule, but the point stands: he could. For the first time in his adult life, he can be honest about who he’s seeing.

Which makes the leaf he coughs up during another dinner with Rose and Miles and the rest of the crew all the more impossible. What else does his body want?

“You alright?” Rose asks quietly when Shane returns from the bathroom, the traitorous plant matter safely flushed down the toilet and his eyes dabbed clean of any stray tears. The movies definitely don’t show just how fucking uncomfortable hacking up plant matter really is.

“Yeah, of course,” Shane says, and kisses her cheek. She smells like something floral – not roses, though he can’t name what it is, either – and for once, the scent turns his stomach.

With another searching look, Rose finally leans in and presses a chaste kiss to Shane’s lips, before tuning back into the conversation around them. Shane finds her hand under the table, and between the tightness of his chest and the overwhelming scent of flowers, does not retain a single word that is spoken around him.

“Everything okay?” Hayden asks as Shane leans against the boards, trying to convince his lungs that air is their friend.

“Yeah,” Shane croaks out, because it’s all that he can manage. The drill was an intense one, and so was yesterday’s game, and everyone’s winded… and so it hopefully isn’t too obvious how much of Shane’s weight is on the boards, how hard his body is fighting him on such a simple act as breathing.

“Oy, Cap!” Berkey – Jason Berkes, JJ’s usual partner in the first D-pairing – slides to a stop in front of Shane, spraying him with ice shavings. “Already tired? Is love making you soft?”

Shane snorts. “You wish.” Even at what feels half his usual lung capacity, he’s probably faster than the majority of the team. Not that he wants to prove it right then. “Just trying to give you a chance to shine, too. This is practice, not a game.”

The guys within earshot laugh, while Berkey just shrugs and starts gliding backwards, tapping his stick on the ice. “Then c’mon, man, gimme a chance to practice.”

“Fine,” Shane says. It’s only another half hour until he can see Dr. Derksen and get another round of steam therapy. Not that he should need it again already. But then again, when has his body ever obeyed should?

“I don’t like this.” Dr. Derksen frowns, which feels like it should be against a number of unspoken doctor’s rules.

Shane inhales calmly, because these days, inhaling deeply is as prone to setting him off as anything, and looks at her.

“You’re progressing far faster than I’d hoped. Have you talked with Dr. Kelway?”

“Of course.” Not that it has been very useful so far – Kelly is an excellent performance coach, but talking with him about other topics has felt like pulling teeth. Or coughing up vegetation, something which Shane is all too familiar these days.

The steam treatments he gets before and after games help, and so does the adrenaline on the ice, but he can feel Hayden’s worry seep into him through several layers of pads when they’re on the bench together. Coach’s concern, too, is obvious in the long looks, the shortened minutes on the ice.

And Shane, for once, is powerless to change it.

“At this rate, we could be looking at a first bloom within weeks.”

“Hm,” Shane says, because it doesn’t sound so bad to him. Not when the alternative is coughing until he starts retching so he can finally, blessedly loosen a single leaf. A bloom means weed poison, and that means more relief than dealing with it leaf by leaf.

Dr. Derksen sighs and shakes her head. “It shouldn’t be progressing this quickly,” she says again. “And you know of nothing you’ve changed since it started getting this much worse?”

Rose flashes through his mind, but it can’t be that. She’s the answer, after all; has to be, because what else could it be? He’s finally seeing someone he can be honest about, has stopped lying to his parents when they ask him about someone special, can finally share in jokes with the guys – what more does his body want? “Nothing I can think of,” Shane says. “I mean, I’m seeing someone new, but – she’s… she’s perfect.”

Dr. Derksen looks at him for a moment. “And no one else you’re thinking about?”

“Of course not,” Shane says immediately, torn between being startled and a little affronted. He’s not like that, would never cheat on Rose. He wouldn’t let himself.

“Hm.” Dr. Derksen types something into her computer, and then looks back at Shane. “There’s one other type of steam medication that I want you to try. You can’t do it right before games because it counts as performance enhancing, but with your diagnosis in the system, you’re good to have it on off-days. If that doesn’t help…” She inclines her head instead of finishing the sentence.

She doesn’t have to. Shane can fill in the blanks himself: if that doesn’t help, they’re once again waiting for him to get worse so they can make him better. What a mad, mad world.

“Dude – you’re killing yourself.”

Shane reflexively glances around them, but it’s only the two of them in this corner of the charter plane waiting area while their plane is getting refuelled before their next flight. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m exaggerating?” Hayden gives him a look so full of disbelief even Shane can parse it. “Dude, you – you nearly collapsed on the ice this morning! After you saw Derksen beforehand! What the fuck are you doing?”

Shane’s jaw locks, and he has to consciously unclench it. “I’m handling it.”

Hayden scoffs.

“Drop it,” Shane tells him before Hayden can say anything, though he has to stop and carefully breathe through his urge to cough.

“Shane –”

“I said, drop it.” The urge to cough is near omnipresent these days, and Shane is at a loss. Rose was supposed to fix this. Rose was supposed to be the solution, and instead Dr. Derksen had tutted again this morning, shaken her head, and told Shane to see her after this trip. It’s only a one-game affair to play the Admirals before they’re back in Montreal, in and out, and then they’ll be at home for a whole week.

It should be a reprieve. Instead, it just makes Shane’s chest constrict in a way that has nothing to do with hanahaki and everything with the fact that their next game will be against Boston.

“You know you can talk to us about anything?” Hayden says, long after Shane had thought the conversation over.

Shane bites the inside of his lip until he tastes blood that doesn’t come with the aftertaste of something floral. “If I any clue about this,” he finally gets out, more clipped than intended but still far calmer than he feels, “I would be telling you.”

“Oh,” Hayden says, and then adds nothing else.

Yeah, oh.

After a moment, Hayden leans close, his shoulder a heavy and familiar weight against Shane’s, and busies himself in his phone.

Shane keeps his gaze fixed on the almost invisible splotch in the paint job of the hangar wall and resolutely does not think about love, secrets, or flowers, be they roses or lilies or something else entirely.

“Your girl in the audience tonight?” JJ asks without looking up from taping his stick, focused in the way the room always gets before a game against Boston.

It takes Shane a moment to realise it’s him the question is aimed at. “Uh,” he says, thumbing out of the chat titled Lily, damningly silent for the past few weeks. See you soon, Rozanov’s last message still says.

Shane can’t think about how that had gone. He shakes his head at JJ’s question. “They’re still doing reshoots. Meeting her afterwards.”

JJ hoots and checks Shane’s shoulder, and then goes to grab his gloves so they can get on the ice for warm-ups.

The game is a shitshow.

Shane shows up, he plays, but he only has the vaguest recollections of the game afterwards. What sticks in his mind is Rozanov: seeing him across the ice for the first time since– since Rose; the way Rozanov hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t even chirped on the face-off dots. It had been unsettling in its own right for the first few puck drops until Shane had gotten his footing and stopped giving up the draw to the Raiders.

Even without Rozanov’s gaze, he can feel his presence like a physical weight. It settles next to the flowers in Shane’s lungs, the peripheral awareness that used to herald excellent sex and now just feels like shackles dragging Shane under.

They’re nothing.

They can’t be anything.

And yet, Shane knows where Rozanov is; is unable to stop knowing whether that player in his periphery is Rozanov or someone else.

Drapeau shuts the Raiders out, but it takes Shane all the way to the club Rose texted him to stop feeling like he lost tonight.

It’s Marleau Shane spots first, across the club. He’s easy to recognise: taller than most of the patrons in this club, with shiny dark hair that looks effortlessly handsome even after midnight on a game day. He is grinning widely as he dances with a pretty woman. In his orbit, Connors is dancing with a group of girls and guys, entirely unconcerned with anyone looking on.

Shane tries to ignore them. Just because Marleau and Connors are there doesn’t mean there’s anyone else with them, of course; just because Marleau and Connors are almost always inseperable from Rozanov doesn’t mean they’re inseparable tonight.

So Shane tries to focus on Rose, tries to move with the beat Miles is clearly trying to feed him at his back, and carefully breathes past the itch in his throat.

And then the crowd parts, and for a moment, everything – the music, the crush of bodies, the smell of sweat and too many different notes of perfume and cologne and aftershave – falls away.

Rozanov is here. And he’s clearly not waiting around for Shane.

It’s definitely him, with a terrible shirt that looks like it’s been sewn from a leopard’s skin and his curls a mess, and his strong hands, so very capable of taking Shane apart with the barest touch, wrapped possessively around a blonde woman’s waist.

Her hands are sliding up Rozanov’s shoulders while he’s kissing her like he wants to devour her, which Shane has first-hand experience of, because Rozanov kisses him like that.

No. Not kisses. Kissed. Because it’s certainly not Shane he’s kissing right now.

The world crashes back into Shane with a jarring presence.

He can’t breathe.

He’s trapped between Rose and Miles, and he can’t breathe, is choking on the vines and leaves in his throat. He kisses Rose like that will save him, but all the while he can’t help but see the way Rozanov is kissing his way down the woman’s neck, how they’re grinding together indecently, right there at the edge of Shane’s vision.

It’s sickening. It’s a punch to the gut, turning Shane’s stomach, and for a moment he swears he can feel every single leaf consuming his airways, every last root that’s digging into his lungs.

It’s a miracle that he manages to swallow past the lump.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Shane gets out, hoarse and too quiet but close enough to Rose’s ear that she nods, and then Shane slips through the crowd like he’s being pulled by invisible strings.

The crowd pulses around him, dulled as if they’re under water, and he doesn’t mean to look but he can’t help it, can’t seem to tear his eyes away as Rozanov sucks the woman’s earlobe into his sinful mouth. Not even the nausea can keep the sweep of arousal at bay while Shane stands there and stares. He’s a statue, hollowed out and overgrown, frozen to the spot.

Rozanov looks up.

His gaze meets Shane’s and that’s another sucker punch. He keeps dancing, hands and lips roaming over the body in front of him but eyes locked with Shane’s, and Shane can’t do anything but stand there, helplessly frozen to the spot by a mixture of arousal and nausea and a tickle in his throat.

He can’t stay here. He has to get out, because he knows that once he starts coughing, he won’t stop, and he – he can’t.

He can’t.

With a half-swallowed cough, Shane manages to tear himself away, and makes it all the way outside and down the street before he starts coughing and coughing and coughing until he finally feels something come loose.

He bends over, still coughing until he’s retching, and then finally spits out a mouthful of something soft. On instinct, he catches it in his hand, though the sight nearly makes him retch again:

On his fingers, pale blue and pretty if it weren’t for the strings of pinkish red clinging to the spiky petals, is a proper bloom.

And most damning of all, it matches the colour of Rozanov’s eyes in the dimmed lighting of a hotel room almost perfectly.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

What’s that – a new chapter and it’s not even Sunday yet? With this fic now fully edited, I will be stepping up posting to every other day, which means today (Fr)/Sunday/Tuesday, so it will be complete on April 7th 🎉🎉

Slightly spoilery warning for medical content

Shane is taking medication against his hanahaki in this chapter, which is described from his PoV as he suffers. I don’t think it is super graphic, but if that is a squick, skim/skip the paragraph starting with “The next sixteen hours pass in a haze” to the next horizontal rule

Rose finds him outside the club, after Shane has calmed down and thrown the incriminating evidence as far away as he can with his hands still trembling from the exertion. At least it isn’t visible from where it’s landed.

“Everything good?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, his voice hoarse. But he can’t pull her in, can’t kiss her as a distraction, because his mouth still tastes like blood and greenery, so he has to talk. At least the urge to cough has subsided for now; even swallowing is painful in his shredded throat, so he doesn’t want to imagine what coughing would feel like. “Just – got a bit loud.”

“Do you want to leave?” She smiles at him, her hand brushing the back of his.

He turns his instinctive flinch into a gesture that captures her fingers, squeezing them once so he doesn’t stuff his hands into his pocket. Every breath rasps over the torn-open bits in the soft flesh of his mouth, and he could kill for a pain killer. Or one of Dr. Derksen’s steam inhalators; they’d been surprisingly good for short-term relief. Maybe he should ask her for one for home-use. Though how he’d explain that to Rose or any of his teammates…

“Shane?”

“Sorry.” He smiles at her and squeezes her fingers again, then jerks his head in the direction of the door. “Let’s get one more drink before we head out.”

Rose laughs, the beautiful, tinkling sound that makes Shane grin reflexively, and they keep holding hands all the way to the bar, where Shane washes down the taste of iron and something earthy with a shot of burning alcohol he doesn’t look too closely at.

And when they finally make it home and into bed, it’s probably the unfamiliar quantities of alcohol that make the sex uncomfortable. At least it’s not an incriminating coughing fit.

The weed poison is an unassuming pill. A small capsule, dwarfed in the palm of Shane’s hand, with a smooth coating that’s half blue and half red. Metros colours, though he’s pretty sure that part is just coincidence.

It comes with a small inhalator and an vial of a clear liquid that he’s supposed to steam and inhale a couple of hours after taking the pill. Dr. Derksen had instructed him to call up a friend to keep him company.

So now here Shane is, staring at his phone on the table in front of him, and trying to psych himself up to hit dial.

The contact open in front of him probably should be Rose’s. Or his mom, maybe, who’d drop everything in a heartbeat to come keep him company. It’s neither. Because they don’t know that Shane has contracted a case of the flowers. How would he even bring that up? Oh, Rose, my love; yeah I’ve been choking on flowers for months before meeting you?

It sounds pathetic in his own ears. And his mom… Shane loves her. He really does. But she tends to tackle things, and he’s not ready to be a thing that’s tackled. He gets that enough in hockey, he doesn’t need it from his mom.

So his phone is open on Hayden’s contact, because if there’s anyone in this world who Shane can stomach seeing him at his weakest it’s – well, it’s Hayden, of course. Or Jackie. Definitely no one else, and the hesitation when he thinks about it is just a by-product of having to choose between Hayden’s straightforward, easy approach and Jackie’s concern. Who else would he call?

It’s pretty ridiculous that he’s sitting here and fretting over this, he tells himself.

He exhales, braces himself, and finally hits call.

“I don’t want the kids to see me,” Shane says when Jackie tells him to just come over. “Not – not like this. Shit. Sorry, this was a stupid idea; forget it.”

“Shut up,” Hayden says, and Jackie adds, “Shane, of course one of us will sit with you, that’s not even a question. I’ll see if my mom can take the girls on short-notice, but otherwise one of us will come over to yours. Our usual nanny, unfortunately, is out on a date today.”

The two of them chuckle, which makes Shane smile, too, if just for a moment. Still… “You don’t – I can do this alone.”

“No, Shane.” Jackie is all serious again in a heartbeat, her tone brooking no argument. “If Dr. Derksen doesn’t want you alone, we will not leave you alone. Stop worrying. And – thank you for trusting us with this.”

Shane shrugs helplessly even though they can’t see him. “Don’t – don’t thank me for this.”

Jackie tsks, and then tells Hayden to take Shane off speaker again so she can go make arrangements, and that’s that.

The next fourteen hours pass in a haze of vertigo, nausea, and a general full-body discomfort that blurs everything else in Shane’s mind. It’s not even pain. It’s something deeper, more visceral; something crawling through his veins and seizing his lungs until he’s suffocating on air.

He’s vaguely aware of Hayden at his side, replaced by Jackie’s smooth fingers and higher voice later, but it’s a dim data point, more like the audience during a game while Shane’s body fights through triple overtime.

Every breath scrapes from his nose through his throat down to his ribs, tiny shards that rub him raw. Maybe it’s also remnants from exhales that came out as more than just air, which is probably a thing that has happened. He thinks it did.

He isn’t sure.

All he knows is that there’s pain, low and insistent rather than sharp, but he knows how to tune out sharp pain; he doesn’t know how to tune out this. Moments of reprieve come when Jackie or Hayden – trading off after a pattern he cannot follow – fit the inhalator over his nose and his lungs remember they work, and it’s only Hayden’s or Jackie’s fingers digging into his biceps that keep him from gulping in air until he faints.

Throughout it all, there’s always the familiar lilt of his chosen family around him. The words are beyond reach, but the voices are there, the only tether Shane has out of the cage built by the poison.

And if there’s a hollow where the absence of angular vowels and sharp consonants echoes, it’s an undercurrent that is drowned out by the poison – the salvation – burning through Shane’s body, expelled with every dead stem and crumbling leaf from Shane’s lungs.

When Shane comes to, it’s dark outside. His body hurts, both inside and out, and his head is pounding. Breathing, too, is an agony, and he doesn’t quite dare move otherwise.

Fuck.

If weed poison isn’t as bad as chemo, he doesn’t want to know what chemo would be like. He makes a mental note to look into donating to a cancer ward.

He shifts, and the groan that scrapes out of his throat burns like he’s tried to deep throat a cactus. The taste in his mouth also supports that.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Jackie steps into view a moment later, clad in loose silk pyjamas and with her hair braided away from her face. She’s pale in the dim light from the hallway, but even so, there is a smile on her lips. Shane smiles back, which makes the corners of his mouth crack. The pain is almost welcome in how familiar it is. “Don’t try to move too much, this has taken quite a toll on your body.”

That’s truly an understatement, but Shane doesn’t want to try to articulate that.

With Jackie’s help, he manages to sit up and drink some Gatorade. It might just be the best thing he’s tasted.

“You’ve been out for a little over fourteen hours,” Jackie tells him unprompted. “It was… something. I don’t know how much you remember, but …”

“Enough,” Shane rasps. Maybe he did deep throat that cactus.

Jackie chuckles. “Yeah. That… did not look pleasant.”

Shane braces himself for the inevitable question, but Jackie just strokes his forehead.

“I’m no expert, but it looked like you got rid of quite a bit of plant matter, so hopefully that’ll help.”

It better, Shane thinks, but takes another sip instead of voicing that. His hands are still shaking.

“If you’re up for it, I can help you to the bathroom for a shower and see about getting the sheets changed – don’t argue with me, Shane, seriously – or Hayden can tag in.” She narrows her eyes at him, and then shakes her head decisively. “Actually, no; Hayden is absolutely tagging in. The last thing we need is to have gotten you through this, only for you to brain yourself in the shower.”

It should sting. Chafe. But Shane is just tired, right then, and the thought of getting to shower off all the dried… things he can feel on his skin sounds heavenly. He can always freak out later, he thinks drily, and briefly marvels at how calm he feels now, at the tail-end of the weed poison.

Shane nods.

“Awesome.” Jackie grins at him again, and then goes off to fetch Hayden.

They stay with him until noon the next day, and not once ask why he’s had to resort to weed poison when he’s very publicly seeing Rose Landry.

Maybe it would have been kinder had they asked, because then, at least, the question wouldn’t keep knocking around in Shane’s head.

By the time Shane meets Rose for dinner, he almost feels like himself again. His throat is still a little sore, but according to Jackie and Hayden, that’s not surprising. Apparently, he’d coughed up quite a lot of spiky greenery, and his body still aches like he’s had a good workout. But he can breathe properly again, and his smile comes easy when he spots Rose at a table, waiting for him.

It’s just the two of them tonight, in a quiet, upscale restaurant that feels private enough Shane can feel his shoulder drop at least an inch. Rose looks good with her hair down, wearing a black, lacy top that shows off her shoulders.

That is, quite possibly, the last good thing about the evening.

“I can’t help but feel like you’d rather be kissing… Miles,” Rose says, and, “A problem is something you can fix,” and “We’re not meant to fit,” and she’s gentle, and kind, but her words still lance Shane open like a zero on a test, like hearing another’s name announced first overall, tearing open an abyss in his chest that has tears shooting into his eyes as he stares down at his doom.

And then Rose starts asking. If Shane’s ever been with another guy. If it was different. If it was better.

Shane nods, and nods, and nods, and it might be his imagination, but his breathing comes easier than it has in months.

So when Rose is quiet for a long moment and finally asks, “And… is your… shortness of breath and… coughing… related to that by any chance?”, Shane shrugs, closes his eyes. Nods.

“Shane…” Rose trails off. “Are you – how bad…?”

Shane shrugs. “I… got my first dose of weed poison a couple of days ago,” he admits, and that, too, is strangely freeing. Even though he is too aware of the implicit admission: that he underwent the harrowing experience and didn’t tell her, his girlfriend. But, well. That ship probably has sailed after tonight anyway. “So… it’s better. Right now.”

“Shane,” Rose says again softly, and she’s so clearly struggling for words that Shane drops his gaze again. “I’m – did I make it worse?”

“What?” His gaze snaps back up to her. “No, this was –” he casts a look around, but there’s no one sitting close to them, no cameras out. He swallows, averts his eyes again. “I mean… maybe. But – I thought it would help,” Shane tells the table in front of him. When he glances up, Rose is still looking at him the way she has all conversation: calm, open. Understanding. “That…” He sucks his lips between his teeth as he tries to figure out how to put this into words. He’s never done it, never had to actually say it. Hayden and Jackie had had their own theories, but Rose is simply looking at him, patient to hear him out. “That my body was telling me I should… that I should not prefer to be the hole rather than… the peg.” He cringes the moment the words are out of his mouth, but Rose just laughs, looking delighted.

“Wow,” she says, so genuinely happy that Shane abruptly stops wishing the floor would swallow him whole. “That is the best thing any gay boyfriend of mine has ever said to me.”

That is a revelation in its own, and for a while, they both let that distract them. Then, Rose sobers. “Shane. Your preferences… they’re normal. Your body wouldn’t rebel against that. But… I have to ask. Is there… anyone… special in your life? Someone who’s… maybe not a woman?”

Shane looks at her, and doesn’t know what there is to day. His silence, of course, is damning in itself. If there wasn’t, he’d just say so. Finally, he nods, down and up again. His eyes stay open, because if he closes them, all he can see is blond curls in the strobing light of that club, the way Rozanov’s hands and mouth had roamed over that woman’s body.

“Do they know?”

Left-right-neutral. A single shake of his head.

“Do you think you should have…?”

Now, Shane does close his eyes. “I had to try,” he whispers. “And– I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Sorry?” Rose asks, and the tone in her voice makes him look at her again. She is the picture of incredulity, and right then, Shane can admit that it makes her look achingly close to a certain Russian Shane cannot forget. “Shane, this – I’m so glad I got to know you. That is such a gift, because I genuinely like you. Even if we’re not… compatible.” She winks at him, and it brushes a little more tension off his chest, makes his breath come a little easier.

Not in the hanahaki-way. Just in the guilty-way, really.

Rose takes his hands. “Now. I haven’t seen you in days, and I absolutely know you have an opinion on the Boston-Detroit game last night, so. Please tell me why Nikiforov thought that pass was a good idea?”

Shane laughs and squeezes her hand in return. “I’m sorry,” he tells her with a grin, “I’m the best hockey player in this league, not a mind-reader for shoddy plays from players played above their line.”

Rose gasps, delighted by his sudden snark, and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into normal conversation after that. It’s really a shame that she isn’t it for him, because he could really grow to love her. Just not the way he thought he was supposed to.

Life post-Rose is strangely light.

It probably shouldn’t be; Shane may not have ample experience himself, but he’s grown up in locker rooms. He’s seen what getting broken up with does to people.

But maybe, he’s an outlier in this, too.

“Or maybe being honest with me has helped against your case of the flowers,” Rose points out a couple of days later when Shane wonders about it out loud. She’s lying on his couch, clad in a comically oversized pair of sweats and an equally large Montreal Metros shirt, feet bare in front of him. She looks cosy. Soft. At home in a way that makes Shane’s chest constrict with something warm, something that has nothing to do with said flowers.

“I had that before I met you.” He puts down the smoothies he’s just fixed up – with protein powder for himself and almond milk for her – on the low couch table, hesitates, and then takes a seat on the couch when Rose pulls her feet back. A moment later, they reappear in his lap, and he drops his hands to them, automatically starting to kneed them.

“Yeah, but – you hadn’t told anyone.” Rose props herself up on one elbow and takes a sip of her smoothie, sighing in pleasure. Shane can’t help but smile. “So, you know…”

She isn’t wrong. If this secret is what had been weighing on him… “I have been able to breathe better,” he allows, and reaches for the remote to put on some hockey.

Things are easy with her, too, now that he’s no longer pretending. She won’t be in Montreal much longer, and is clearly sick of filming, which is why she’s crashing his apartment tonight instead of being out of town.

“Aren’t you bothered that people will… talk?” Shane asks during intermission, keeping his eyes on the TV.

“Hm?” Rose asks, the sound sleepy. When he glances over, her eyes are almost entirely closed.

“About – you, being here. Bowing out of going out.”

“Oh.” She chuckles. “Let them.”

Shane falls quiet, fingers digging into the arches of her feet to small groans. “I feel like I’m using you.”

Rose raises one eyebrow and squints at him. “Absolutely yes, you forced me into your flat to do such terrible things as giving me a foot massage and making me a smoothie.”

Shane laughs a little. “No. Letting people think…”

“Fuck what people think,” Rose tells him again and rearranges her feet so he’s paying attention to the other one. “Filming will be over soon enough, and then you can still break the news, without having to justify why you’re still hanging out with me.” She pulls a face, presumably at people’s idiocy. “And I meant what I said – I like hanging out with you. Watching hockey with you is genuinely great. And I can always go out dancing back in LA.”

“With better dance partners.”

“With more comfortable dance partners,” Rose corrects, and then they both fall quiet as the intermission ends and the freshly surfaced sheet of ice fills the TV again.

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

Happy Easter!

We’re actually diverging from canon in this, which was exciting to write :D Finally reaching the “okay but how would the trajectory of canon change with the addition of hanahaki as a ✨ thing ✨”-portion of this AU!

I hope you also enjoy reading this 💛

“So, you introduce Rose to the parents over Christmas?” JJ asks, which is an innocuous enough question. “Or did you go to hers?”

“No,” Shane says, and then, because maybe he’s learned his lesson about lying, he adds, “we, uh, actually broke up before Christmas.”

“You let that escape you?” Gags asks, aghast, mid-folding his pants.

“Rose is still a person,” Shane says sharply. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

“Jeez, man, next you’ll tell us you remained friends.” Gags scrunches up his face, further detracting from his charm.

Shane gives him a sharp look. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s always a lie. Never happens,” Gags says rather flippantly.

“Just because you’re not able to keep a female friend…” Hayden cuts in, which nicely shifts the ribbing from Shane to Gags.

“Thanks,” Shane says later.

“Don’t mention it.” Hayden gives him a peculiar look. “Just– I thought you’d… tell me. Us.”

Oh.

Shane shrugs. “It… I don’t know. I didn’t feel like… talking about it.”

Hayden’s gaze flickers down to Shane’s chest, then back up to his eyes.

With a soft chuckle, Shane rubs a hand over his chest. “Yeah. I’m… I’m working on it. Sorry.”

“So you broke up amicably?”

“Yeah. We… weren’t compatible. But she’s pretty awesome.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still so hung up on Boston Lily that not even Rose Landry could pull you out of it.”

The denial is already on Shane’s lips when he pauses. He meant it when he said he was working on the lying thing. And he can’t tell Hayden the whole truth – not in the middle of the training facility where anyone could overhear, but… “Maybe,” he admits.

He’s almost to the doors to the parking lot when Hayden finally squawks behind him and hurries to catch up, complaining about Shane being an asshole.

Maybe there’s something to be said about being honest.

The season races on with the relentless drag of 82 games in eight months, which means Shane blinks and it’s time for the All Star Game.

Time to be honest, for once.

Dr. Derksen had cleared him to play with a smile – “It’s not gone,” she’d told Shane over an ultrasound of his lungs that had revealed that there were still flowers growing in his lungs, though they were far from the pre-poison levels, “but it’s looking as good as we’d want. I could put you on IR if you’d rather recuperate, but medically speaking, I don’t have to keep you here.” Shane had thought about Tampa, about spending a game on the same team as Ilya, and smiled. “I want to go,” he’d told her, and that had been that – and so Shane makes himself look as presentable as possible and ventures into the fray.

And while Ilya tells him We can’t be anything, Shane returns from Tampa in excellent spirits. Ilya may have said they cannot be anything, but he’d still shown Shane his softest parts. Had opened up about his family, had let Shane comfort him. That’s something. It has to be something.

“Wow, the All Star Game really did you good,” JJ says when he comes in for practice. Shane is already fully dressed, re-taping his stick.

It’s only when JJ pokes his cheek that he realises he’s smiling. Good lord.

But what is there not to smile about? He can breathe better with every passing day, it seems, and while that’s far from the miraculous instant recovery others have reported after coming clean about the roots of their hanahaki, he’s clearly heading in the correct direction.

“What can I say?” Shane taps JJ’s ass with his stick. “A couple of days in the sun, playing just for fun…”

“Well, fun’s over,” Berkey says from the doorway. “We have a cup run to repeat.”

“Don’t jinx us!” someone else cries, and Shane is still smiling as he goes back to his prep.

To him, it feels like the fun is just about to begin.

“So, things with Boston Lily are back on?” Hayden greets him before the game.

“What?”

“Dude. You’re beaming.”

“Oh.” Shane tries to wrestle his expression under control for a moment and then gives up. It’s just Hayden, after all. “It could be unrelated.”

Hayden gives him a dry look.

“Okay,” Shane says, because maybe he’s a little bit drunk on having seen Ilya again. Sex with him has always been amazing, but now… there’s a different flavour to it. Something more. Something that makes him think about Ilya, in his space during the summer, about lazy days together. “Yes, they… I think they are.”

“I’m glad for you, man. Maybe we’ll get to meet her someday.” Soon, Hayden’s voice implies.

For a moment, Shane imagines telling him, I’m gay, right here and now. Which is stupid, of course. They’re on the road, about to play a game, with Jackie hours away. Even if she’d forgive him for telling Hayden without her, what then? Hayden would ask to see him, and what would Shane say then? That they will, in a couple of hours, on the ice?

“We’ll see,” Shane says instead, and does not search for the tell-tale scratch of leaves in his throat.

Shane does not usually dither, once he’s made up his mind.

Still, he goes back and forth on whether to tell Jackie and Hayden several times over the next couple of days, except – they’re his best friends. Rose figured it out herself, and he’s told Ilya for very obvious reasons and because it wasn’t exactly entirely news to him, but after that? It has to be Jackie and Hayden. It should be.

Shane wipes his sweaty hands on his pants and stuffs them under his thighs. He’s idling on the Pikes’ driveway, and he can’t stay here much longer without arousing suspicion, but he just… he wants to run.

Not because he thinks Jackie and Hayden are homophobic. But… he doesn’t know if they aren’t, does he? It’s not something he’s talked about with either of them before. They’re decent, though, and Hayden’s never joined in with the egregiously homophobic slurs. He hasn’t said anything against them either, of course, but the same goes for Shane.

Shit.

He’s been over all of this more than once since they returned from Boston, and he knows what he should do. What’s the right thing to do. What he wants to do, most important of all.

With one more deep breath, Shane makes up his way to the house and rings the bell.

“Shane!” Jackie greets him with a hug, which he returns gratefully. “So good to see you.”

“Thanks for having me,” Shane replies automatically, and then winces.

Predictably, Jackie rolls her eyes. “Always, you dolt. Now come in – I’m just about to put the food in the oven; it’s that casserole that you liked last time.”

“Thanks.” Shane follows her inside.

Jackie rolls her eyes again, expanding the gesture to her shoulders and head so Shane can tell even though she’s in front of him. God, he loves her, too. “Don’t thank me – it’s from the personal chef. Seriously, wrangling three kids more or less on my own is more than enough.”

“And yet you’re adding a fourth.” Shane ducks his head when Jackie sends him a playful glare, and lets himself relax into this for a couple of minutes.

He doesn’t even have to engineer anything: the girls are off playing princesses and knights, while Arthur is lying under the age-appropriate educational, colourful arch that survived the twins and will hopefully survive for Four, too, and so it’s just the three adults in the kitchen.

Shane swallows and wipes his hands surreptitiously on his pants again.

“So,” he says, his voice strange to his own ears. He clears his throat, and keeps his eyes on the salad that Jackie has half-prepared already. “So,” he starts again. His voice is steadier now, though it’s nearly drowned out by the thundering of his pulse in his ears. How stupid. It’s just Hayden and Jackie; they’ve been his friends since he came to Montreal. He’ll have to believe they’ll still be his friends after this, if only because his knees feel like giving out at entertaining any other notion.

“Shane?” Jackie prompts softly. Her hands have stilled on the cutting board, and now she places the knife down neatly to turn to him. Hayden, too, sets down the glasses he’d pulled from the cupboard.

“Uh – I wanted to tell you –” Shane digs his fingers into his palms, letting the the sensation centre him. He can do this. He has done this. “I’m gay.”

For a moment, there’s silence in the kitchen.

Then, Jackie cries, “Oh, Shane!” and a moment later, her strong arms are wrapped around him. Hayden is a beat behind, wrapping both of them up in his thicker arms, and something inside Shane gives. Maybe it’s another stalk withering, he thinks. Or maybe it’s weeks of tension rushing out of him all at once.

Whatever it is, Jackie and Hayden are there to hold him up, murmuring reassurances and words of support that Shane barely hears.

“Thank you for telling us,” Jackie says. Then, she visibly starts. Shane braces himself for a question about his love life as Jackie looks at Hayden and then back at Shane. “Does that mean –”

“The flowers,” Hayden says slowly, and, oh. Oh. “Were they because…?” He sounds stricken.

Shane feels his shoulders go up again, which nets him an exasperated noise from Jackie and another cuddle huddle. He closes his eyes and tries to get his shoulders to relax, but he feels almost trapped. Jackie would let him go, if he said anything, but somehow being out in the open all by himself feels worse, all of a sudden. “I think so. Maybe. I thought…” He swallows. “I thought it was my body trying to tell me I… should finally go and find a girlfriend.” It’s the truth, after all. And maybe being gay is what his case of the flowers was all about. A big secret.

Except Ilya’s name is still carefully hidden behind Shane’s teeth, their phone call across a whole ocean a couple of days ago carefully tucked to his chest.

Then again, the flowers have abated with every time he’s shared this part of himself; and it’s not like he owes everything to the world, does he? Even if Jackie and Hayden are among the best parts of his world. The parts he’s chosen.

“Oh, Shane,” Jackie says again. Her voice sounds choked up, though she doesn’t even make a quip about pregnancy hormones. She just stays leaning against him, and with every breath they take in tandem, Shane feels his shoulders lower a fraction. “We would have helped you, if we’d known.”

“I didn’t know, either,” Shane points out, and hugs Jackie close when a sound suspiciously close to a sob escapes her.

“Fuck, man,” Hayden says.

Shane shrugs, but it’s a sentiment he shares. “I’m sorry it took me so long to… admit to myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jackie says into his chest and swats at him, half hitting Shane and half Hayden. Hayden doesn’t even protest. “I’m just glad you trust us with this.”

“Of course,” Shane says, and hopes the heaviness he feels at everything he isn’t saying is just normal emotional bullshit and not a resurgence of his hanahaki.

“Ready to face Boston?” Hayden asks as they cross the parking lot ahead of the final face-off between them and their biggest rival.

“Couldn’t be readier.” Shane grins, already filled with a giddy sort of elation that he’s trying to hide. He’d gone home with Hayden for lunch with him and Jackie, trying to distract himself from what would come after the game, which worked decently well. Now, the anticipation is back in full force.

Hayden chuckles. After a few more strides, he glances over at Shane with his eyes narrowed a little.

“Hm?”

“You know,” Hayden says conversationally, “the only thing I don’t get is Boston Lily. Isn’t she– oh god, she’s a guy, isn’t she?”

“Shut up!” Shane hisses and glances around them at the empty parking lot.

Hayden rolls his eyes. “Relax, man. It’s just us, freakishly early.”

“Drapeau is probably there already.”

“Yeah, but he’s a goalie, he’s probably mediating over the ice.”

Shane snorts but doesn’t comment, because it’s not like Hayden’s necessarily wrong. Goalies, man; they’re just weird.

“Seriously, though – were you seeing a guy in Boston? For – for all these years?”

There isn’t really a way to deny this without lying again, and Shane’s hesitation is probably answer enough. Finally, he tilts his head. “Yeah.”

“God, only you…” Hayden chuckles and shakes his head. “As long it’s not fucking Rozanov.”

Fuck. Shane chokes on his breath and spends the next minute coughing as he tries to clear his airways from the spit he’s almost inhaled while Hayden semi-helpfully slaps his back. “What the –” Shane starts once he has his voice back.

“Relax, dude.” Hayden raises both his hands in surrender. “I’m just joking.”

“Very funny,” Shane replies, and then sharply turns back to the arena, trying to outrun his racing heart.

Behind him, Hayden mutters, “Okay, weirdo,” but he catches up to Shane with a few quick strides, smirks once more, and then launches into a detailed description of the beautiful goal he’d score, straight through Marleau and Rozanov’s skates.

By the time they’re on the ice for warm-ups, Shane’s heart is beating out of his chest for a very different reason. Ilya is already at centre ice, stretching on the Raiders’ side of the red line, and not even Hayden’s joke can keep Shane from gliding up to him. “We still on for tonight?”

Ilya doesn’t quite look at him as he switches sides, but he does nod. Shane surveys the mostly-empty stands. “1919,” he says, almost surprised he gets the words out with the way his racing heart turns his tongue leaden. “That’s the code. For the front door? I’ll text it to you.” He can’t look at Ilya.

“Front door? Brave,” Ilya drawls, but it doesn’t have his usual vitriol that he pulls out on the ice. Shane’s eyes flick down again, just for a moment. Ilya isn’t smirking, but he’s also not looking particularly sad. Mostly, he just looks empty.

“Fuck you,” Shane replies instead of anything more incriminating. He can always cajole more out of Ilya after he’s mellowed from orgasm.

“Later.”

Shane’s heart skips, this time with anticipation, and he pushes away, back to the boards. Hayden looks up at Shane’s approach. “What was that about?”

“Oh, just – offered my condolences,” Shane says.

“Oh… yeah. That’s nice. Fuck, I should have done that.” He looks over at where Ilya is stretching, and for a moment Shane has a nightmare vision of Ilya and Hayden dropping gloves before the first whistle just because Ilya cannot refrain from riling Hayden up, who is way too susceptible to Ilya’s taunts. “What did he say?”

“Told me to fuck off.” The lie comes easy, straight from Shane’s fantasy of that parallel world.

“Jesus, what a dick.” This time, when Hayden looks back at Ilya, the whole dropping-his-gloves thing looks more likely than Shane would like.

“He’s not that bad,” Shane says. “It’s mostly an act.”

Hayden looks back at Shane, mouth open, but whatever he sees on Shane’s face makes him stop. Something odd flashes over his face, and his eyes flick back to Ilya before landing on Shane.

For a moment, they look at each other, Hayden still as a statue and Shane’s heart back in overdrive. Fuck, Shane thinks.

“No,” Hayden whispers, glove flexing on his stick. The colour drains from his face comically, and for a moment, Shane is afraid Hayden will fall over right there, brain himself on the boards.

“Hayd–” Shane starts, desperate to fix the cracks between Hayden and him.

“Shane– please– fuck. Tell me it’s not…”

“Hayden,” Shane begs, because they’re still at the bench, still in an arena steadily filling with fans.

Hayden’s mouth snaps shut and he pushes away from the boards to finish his warm-ups. Shane does the same, moving through the familiar motions on autopilot until the routine takes over the panicked part of his brain.

Hayden knows.

He didn’t finish his sentence, but there’s no doubt about it. Hayden knows, and they’re less than half an hour out from playing a game. Against Boston. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Shane can feel Ilya’s gaze on him from the other side of the rink, but he resolutely avoids his eyes. There’s no use in riling Hayden up further, no use in pushing him closer to the edge that could be catastrophic for both Shane and Ilya. Better to not chance setting Hayden off, really.

As usual, Shane is the last one off the ice, tossing one of the warm-up pucks to a child at the glass, but then he cannot stall any longer. It’s not a surprise when Hayden is waiting for him in the tunnel, well-away from both the cameras and the locker room door. His mouth is hard, but his eyes are wide. Shane can’t make himself meet them.

“Seriously?” Hayden whispers. “Rozanov?”

Shane closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he answers, equally quiet. “Hayden, I swear –”

“Don’t, Shane.” Hayden shakes his head and exhales. “I – we’ll talk later, okay?”

Later. Fuck. Shane nods, because there’s not really anything else to do.

“We have a hockey game to win.” Hayden’s smile is crooked, but it’s a smile, and he taps the blade of his stick against Shane’s butt as he nods towards the locker room.

“We have a hockey game to win,” Shane echoes, though it feels like he’s just going through the motions now.

Hayden turns with jerky movements, stomping his way to the locker room, and Shane gives himself one more breath, one more moment to wallow, before he pushes the last ten minutes into a corner of his mind, well-partitioned from everything else.

They have a hockey game to play, and he cannot afford any distractions.

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

The final chapter! I hadn’t believed this fic would be this long when I set out to write it; my other take on this premise was only 1300-odd words after all, and this is more than ten-times that. But I loved exploring Shane’s headspace in this, and at least it’s not 42k like my Post-Lockout fic, which covers a similar span of time, I think 😂

Anyway. Enough of me yapping, please enjoy the final chapter!

There is not a lot that Shane remembers from the hit. His memories from the aftermath are hazy in the way they get from heavy meds and concussions – not that Shane has had any of this degree of severity before.

But he’s pretty sure Hayden was there, Ilya with him, which is such a strange combination that it must have actually happened, because he wouldn’t be able to dream that up himself.

He’s pretty sure he asked Ilya to come to the cottage.

He’s pretty sure Hayden said I’m sorry, more times than Shane has ever heard him, even though he’s a born-and-raised Canadian boy. He hadn’t left any gaps for Shane to ask what he’s sorry for.

They taper off the heavy-duty painkillers once they’re sure his collarbone is as in-place as it can be and won’t require surgery. Within a couple of hours, the world steadies, until Shane can look over at Hayden’s form slumped in the visitor’s chair and not see double.

“What are you sorry for?” Shane asks. His voice is more of a croak than anything else, but it’s understandable enough.

“For– for reacting so poorly that you were distracted,” Hayden tells him tonelessly. His eyes are rimmed red, and the stubble on his face makes the dark circles under his eyes look so much worse.

Shane may love him.

He definitely loves him when Hayden levers himself up and helps Shane take a few sips of water from a cup on his bedside table.

“Did you hit me?” Shane asks.

“No?”

“Then you have nothing to be sorry for. I’ve put worse distractions aside since I was eight years old.” Yes, Shane could have done without Hayden silently freaking out, but it would do him a disservice to pretend it’s the reason he got hit. At least he’s pretty sure it wasn’t. Again – the hit itself is lost in his mind, so he doesn’t know what had happened. He’s survived six years of games against Ilya and all the distractions that came with their illicit affair; he can’t see himself letting Hayden freaking out influence what Ilya’s needling never had.

Hayden scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m still sorry.”

Shane grimaces. “You’re forgiven,” he says instead of arguing more, which takes the wind out of Hayden’s sails as he’d hoped. For a moment, a not-quite-comfortable silence stretches between them. Shane grasps around for something to say. “Is this why you brought Ilya here? As a sorry?”

Hayden rolls his eyes, which conveniently makes him not meet Shane’s. Shane shouldn’t be so relieved about that, but he is; the world is just a little too present now that the haze of the painkillers is receding. “I brought him because he looked like his life had ended in front of his eyes,” Hayden says bluntly. “Shit, you – it looked so bad.”

“Hayd,” Shane says, reaching out with his good hand. After a moment, Hayden takes the offered hand and Shane pulls, gently so as to not upset his collarbone but insistently.

Hayden clearly considers resisting, and then chooses the graceful approach rather than letting Shane yank him close. Good boy.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Hayden tells him, eyes closed as he lets his forehead rest against Shane’s forearm. “Just– fuck. I’m sorry for– for how I reacted.”

“You brought him to me,” Shane repeats, because it still feels a little unbelievable. “You went out of your way to collect Ilya Rozanov so he could see me. Hayd – you’re a good friend. The best.”

There’s silence for a beat, and then Hayden is crying. And Shane, still just enough blissed out that he’s not freaking out, pets his hair and lets him.

Shane’s parents show up just as he’s about to get discharged, which is a blessing right up until it comes to medication.

The nurse hands over the expected pain killers with dosage instructions, and then pulls out the vials Shane knows so well: refills for the anti-hanahaki inhalator. Fuck. “And these to be used twice a day. Mr. Pike informed us you have an inhaler already?”

“Shane?” Mom asks.

“Yes,” Shane says, resigned.

“What are these?”

“Oh,” the nurse says helpfully as she packages the vials, “a medium strength hanahaki poison, to be used with a steam inhaler.”

“Hanahaki?” Mom asks, her voice brittle.

“Yes. It’s currently well-controlled, but a coughing fit is the last thing Mr. Hollander will want for the next few weeks. There’s also a cough suppressant that’s safe to take, or heavier drugs if the spread cannot be contained. We’d usually not recommend that, but it’s imperative that his collarbone not get jostled for the next six weeks until it’s had a chance to heal.”

“I see,” Mom says. “Thank you.”

She isn’t looking at Shane, her eyes glassy as she stares at the plain box the nurse has stowed those damned vials in. She doesn’t say a word until the nurse has left. Her smile is just as brittle as her voice earlier when she finally looks at Shane, before it firms up just a smidge too much. “Well. Let’s get you home, hm?”

Shit, Shane thinks, but he doesn’t have it in him to say anything else, so he just quietly follows her out to where Dad is waiting with the car.

His parents don’t ambush him right away.

Still, Shane can’t stop thinking about it. He’s reminded every time he sets up his inhalator, every time he has to clear his throat and sees Mom’s eyes linger on him.

But they don’t say anything. Not yet.

The thoughts keep knocking around in Shane’s head regardless, and so he’s quiet a couple days after getting home, listening to Ilya rant about the last game he’d played and all the stupid mistakes they’d made. The Raiders had lost 4-1, which is a painful loss this close to the playoffs, so Shane lets Ilya talk and hums and makes sympathetic noises. Thoughts are knocking around in his head, ones he can’t quite put into words yet.

“What is on your mind?” Ilya asks suddenly, barely pausing between insulting a turnover their d-pair had allowed and the question so that it takes Shane a moment to pivot.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

Ilya makes an impatient noise. “No sorrys; I can hear you think from here.”

Shane exhales. “I… I think I want to tell my parents. That I’m gay.”

For a long moment, Ilya is quiet. “You are safe, yes?”

“Of course.” Shane pauses. “I know… They’re very progressive.”

Ilya snorts.

“Very open. Don’t mind gay people. I just…”

“You are scared?”

“Maybe. I shouldn’t be. But…”

“It is scary,” Ilya says, his voice soothing, “but you are brave.”

“I don’t feel brave.”

“They love you,” Ilya says with a conviction Shane didn’t know he felt. “And even Pike did not lose his mind, and your parents sound smarter than him.”

Shane can’t help but laugh. “Careful, with the way you keep chirping him, I might get jealous.”

Ilya squawks, and starts ranting about how that is unfair of Shane, and Shane closes his eyes and just lets himself listen and bask in Ilya’s voice.

Coming out to his parents is easier said than done.

They raise the topic delicately, once, asking about Shane’s medication and if he needs help with the inhalator, which he does not.

It would be a great segue, except all words he might have had suddenly turn to dust in his mouth. It’s three simple words; two, if you contract them. I’m gay. But he can’t shake his mother’s voice, her reminders that so many little kids are looking up at him, that he’s a role model, that he’ll have to smile and bear the looks and just be better.

This is not smiling and bearing and being better.

So instead of opening his mouth, he fits the mask over his mouth and nose and fiddles with the settings on the machine. By the time it’s done, Dad asks if Shane wants to listen to a podcast with him before Mom can say anything else. Mom huffs and leaves the room, but she returns with coffee and cookies and doesn’t broach the topic again.

Or rather, she doesn’t broach the topic again that night.

They’re in the kitchen, just the two of them baking banana bread like they used to when Shane was very small, when Mom sighs.

“Just,” she says, like it’s a conversation they started a while ago and she’s picking back up now. Maybe they had. “I don’t – I can’t help but wonder why… why you felt like you couldn’t come to us with this.”

“Mom?” Shane asks, his voice breaking on the syllable.

Mom glances over at him, a complicated expression on her face. “I looked up hanahaki again,” she admits, and Shane thinks shit. Before he can panic, his mother turns to him fully, grasping his fingers. “I just – I never wanted to give you the feeling that you couldn’t come to us with anything, honey.” She bites her lip, and shit, her eyes are welling up now. Fuck. “Whatever – whatever it is, you don’t have to hide this. You can tell us anything and – and I’ll still love you. Hell, I’ll help you hide the body if necessary, you know?”

“I know,” Shane says, and fuck, now his own eyes are welling up, too. “I know, and just – I tried, Mom, I really did, but – I’m gay. I’m sorry.”

There. It’s out. Blood is rushing in Shane’s ears as he watches his mother process what he’s just said, and then she drops his hands and pulls him into a proper hug, still mindful of his sling. “Oh, honey. Darling. Shane – you have nothing to be sorry for. Thank you for telling me. I love you. It’s me who’s sorry – that we gave you the feeling you couldn’t tell us, that you carried this with you until you were choking on it. I’m sorry, honey.”

“I forgive you,” Shane says thickly, because he’s dizzy with relief and chock full with how much he loves his mother and because she raised him to let the other person know if he accepted their apology. “I love you, too.”

Mom keeps hugging him until both their eyes are dry. She is smiling when she steps back, giving Shane a sly look. “So. Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” Shane says, because it’s the truth. Or – it mostly is, but…

“Shane–”

“It’s not – it’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Shane says hurriedly, because the relief of having shared this with her is real, but the dread of who it is he is maybe seeing is very much real, and also… “It’s just – it’s complicated. I don’t know. I’m not – I don’t want to keep this from you, just – I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, honey. We’re here whenever you’re ready, okay? And you don’t have to introduce us to – him,” she smiles at her own stumble at the pronoun, her eyes a little wet but warm like her hand on his arm, “if you don’t want to. Just. Your secrets are safe with us. Always. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Shane says, and maybe it’s his imagination, but it feels like another stalk in chest withers and frees up the space for air.

And then Scott Hunter wins the Cup and kisses another man on the ice and Shane barely manages to get up from the couch before Ilya is calling him.

Shane stumbles back into the living room still in a trance after they’ve hung up, unsure what they talked about aside from Ilya’s voice saying I’m coming to the cottage, I’m coming to the cottage, I’m coming to the cottage. It plays on repeat in his mind, too good to be true except that it’s very much real, and – god. God. Ilya is coming to the cottage.

“You alright, son?” Dad asks.

Shane nods. “Yes,” he says hoarsely. His eyes find Mom’s. “Remember what you asked me?” He takes a breath. “If I’m seeing someone? I – I think I am. Give me – give us a few days and – I think I might have someone to introduce to you. He’s coming to the cottage.”

“At your own pace, Shane,” Dad says, a promise to Shane and a warning to Mom, and Shane can’t help but grin. It’s echoed in Mom’s face, big and free and full of excitement.

Because Scott Hunter has won the Cup and kissed another man on the ice, and it means that maybe, just maybe, Shane and Ilya have a realistic future, too.

Ilya ends up making the drive to Montreal instead of flying, to keep his presence in Canada on the down-low. Both Montreal and Ottawa are hockey-crazed enough that the chances he wouldn’t be recognised are nearing zero. He shows up in his least flashy sports car, which Shane still rolls his eyes about, though he keeps his comments to himself as they transfer Ilya’s luggage to Shane’s far more sensible Jeep before parking Ilya’s car in Shane’s usual spot.

Of course Ilya chirps him for the car.

And then they’re on their way to the cottage, and Shane cannot believe that this is his life. Ilya Rozanov, coming to stay at Shane Hollander’s private cottage for two weeks. Who would have thought this would ever happen?

“So about this let’s be honest,” Ilya says later, after they’ve showered off the drive and the jizz and gotten off again in the shower, all wet and laughing and languid.

“Hm?” Ilya is a heavy weight against Shane’s side, drawing lazy patterns into chest that are just this side of ticklish.

“You are so easily out of breath. Why?”

For a moment, Shane stops breathing. Trust Ilya to ask the heavy questions.

“Shane?” Ilya is hovering over him, face creased with worry. Shane cups the back of his head and pulls him down, kissing Ilya until he feels himself be calm again.

“Sorry.” Shane presses another kiss to Ilya’s lips. “Just— I, uh. I… may have had a case of the flowers.”

Ilya raises both eyebrows and tilts his head a little. “Flowers? Hollander, what are you trying to say?”

Fuck, do they not call it that in Russia? “Uh – hanahaki. You know, the— growing flowers in your lungs because, uh, you’re stupid about feelings or secrets or something?”

Ilya’s eyes grow impossibly bigger with every word. “You have that?” he asks, hands frantically sliding over Shane’s torso as he shimmies down, like he can see the flowers in Shane’s chest. “Shane, you— are you sick? Are you getting treatment? Why—”

“Ilya,” Shane says, sharply enough it snaps Ilya out of his burgeoning panic. He flops down onto Shane, a tension in his frame that makes him tremble slightly. Jesus, you’d think Shane was dying. “Ilya, come here. No, up here.” With minimal coaxing, Ilya crawls up so he’s on top of Shane, keeping his weight carefully off him.

Shane rolls his eyes and pulls Ilya down onto him.

“Shane –”

“I’m not delicate.” Shane glares at him. “And— it’s okay. I got treatment for it, before Christmas, but— I’ve… been getting it out.”

Ilya rears back. “Getting it out? Surgery—”

“Ilya.” This time, it’s exasperation Shane puts in his voice, gratified when it snaps Ilya back into the present just as quickly. “I’m fine, okay? No surgery, no more meds, not since my collarbone healed, and – no more lies, you know? I… had a few things to come to term with. About myself. About us.”

There’s a shadow of a laugh playing at the corner of Ilya’s mouth before he visibly blanches. “Shit. Did— Solnyshko, did I make it worse?”

Shane snorts and pulls Ilya down for another kiss. Ilya resists for a moment, but when Shane slides the tip of his tongue against Ilya’s lips, Ilya melts into the kiss.

He leans his forehead against Shane’s when they part. “Honest, yes? So… did I?”

Shane snorts again. “Yeah, no, it started… a while back, but I didn’t actually know it was hanahaki until – until at your house.”

Of course Ilya rears back again. The sudden motion drives the air from Shane’s lungs, but it’s worth it for the mock outrage, so sweet above Ilya’s visible relief, that Ilya levels at him. “How did you not know?”

“I thought it was allergies!” Shane defends himself.

“Allergies?” Ilya boggles at him.

“Yeah, well.” Shane shrugs again, his cheeks flush with his embarrassment. Put like this, it really does sound stupid. “But… I got there in the end.”

“I am glad. And now you have me make sure you are honest.”

Shane smiles up at Ilya, helpless to do anything but turn his head so he can capture Ilya’s lips in another kiss. “Yeah. And I’m glad for that.” Another easy press of lips, and then Shane meets Ilya’s eyes as best as he can. “I love you, yeah?”

This close, he can watch Ilya’s face transform in real time: how his eyes widen ever so slightly, pupils dilating visibly; how the skin around his eyes creases as he starts smiling, with his eyes and his cheeks and his mouth. His mouth, which falls open a little a moment later. “I love you, too. Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Shane blinks. Something clicks in his mind, because—

“That’s what you said. In Russian. Didn’t you?”

Ilya tilts his head a little, his skin growing red. Shane refrains from licking at the blush at the last second. “I think I have loved you for so long.”

“So have I,” Shane admits, and then grins. They are here, at his cottage, in love and honest about it.

Ilya beams down at him, too, and then covers Shane’s body with his own again so they can make out properly, unhurried and content because they have two whole weeks here.

Things aren’t yet entirely perfect. Shane still has to introduce Ilya specifically to his parents, something he’s dreading. He probably should tell Rose. He’ll have to meet Svetlana, something he is also dreading, for rather different reasons than Ilya meeting his parents. They’ll still be playing for rival teams in the MLH. Shane will still need to get checked whether his hanahaki is really fully gone.

But for now, they have two weeks at the cottage where nobody will disturb them. Where they can just be, together and honest and in love.

And everything else can wait.

Chapter End Notes

And that’s a wrap! Thank you to everyone who followed along with this 💛 It was a blast and I’d love to hear your thoughts about this story even if I’m still super behind with replying to comments but I will get there!!

Fun fact: I got vex’s edits back… which pointed out that in all my release of tension, I had fully forgotten to add a love confession 😂 my aro ass projecting, I guess But! I hope it was a fitting way to tie this all off in the end 💛