Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Coach LeClaire (Game Changers), Cliff Marlow

Additional Tags:

Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Shane Hollander gets hit by Cliff Marleau, Mix of Game Changers and Heated Rivalry Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Outing, Shane Hollander's Parents Discover His Relationship with Ilya Rozanov, Homophobia, (homophobia isn't from shane's parents! just uh everyone else), Angst with a Happy Ending

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of the system breaking beneath us

Collections:

Fulfill A Crave-ing, Brain Twin Collabs, StormVandal's Heated Rivalry works & reclist

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-19 Completed: 2025-12-23 Words: 10,756 Chapters: 3/3

the velocity of seconds

Summary

Ilya barely manages to swerve in time to avoid turning the Hollander-Marleau collision into a three-man pileup. He watches as Marleau stands up and apologizes to Shane — Ilya has no idea if it was a clean hit, but from Marleau’s face, he’s pretty sure it was accidental. And then Ilya waits for Shane to get up.

He doesn’t move.

Marleau glances at him as Ilya skates up to Shane, putting a hand on his shoulder as he says, “Hollander?” When he gets no response, he says it again, this time louder and with a steadily rising sense of dread. “Hollander, come on, get up.”

Notes

We started this before the episode dropped so it's a bit of a mix of book and show canon! (The hit went down a little differently in the episode but we'd already written it like the book, so we're keeping it that way lmao. Also because the show has Shane looking behind him in the neutral zone which I refuse to believe he would do.) Thank you so much to Izilen for all your help. We've written 6k in three days. Feeling deranged. The fic should be about 8k, hopefully! And then expect a Shane POV missing scene as a sequel.

It's not exactly what you asked for, anon, but it's in response to your prompt and the vibes are hopefully the same!

Title from "Acclimating to Discomfort of the System Breaking Beneath Us" by CAConrad.

Chapter 1

Ilya barely manages to swerve in time to avoid turning the Hollander-Marleau collision into a three-man pileup. He watches as Marleau stands up and apologizes to Shane — Ilya has no idea if it was a clean hit, but from Marleau’s face, he’s pretty sure it was accidental. And then Ilya waits for Shane to get up.

He doesn’t move.

Marleau glances at him as Ilya skates up to Shane, putting a hand on his shoulder as he says, “Hollander?” When he gets no response, he says it again, this time louder and with a steadily rising sense of dread. “Hollander, come on, get up.”

Ilya doesn’t want to move Shane in case that could make his injuries worse, but it’s already clear that this isn’t the normal kind of boarding injury. He can see Shane’s face — it’s slack and his eyes are closed. How had his helmet fallen off? Fuck. He’s still breathing, so that eases Ilya’s terror just a tiny bit, but it doesn’t feel like it helps much as he frantically waves to medical staff on the other side of the rink. He assumes the play has been whistled dead, though he has no idea what happened to the puck. He doesn’t care what happened to it — he’s never cared about a hockey game less than right now, caught between vomiting onto the ice and bursting into tears. Through heroic effort, he does neither, and as the medics swarm around Shane, he asks, “Is he alright?”

No one responds, and he says it again, and finally Shane wakes up, opening his eyes and saying something unintelligible. Ilya doesn’t need a medical degree to know something is horribly wrong — Shane’s pupils are uneven and the way his eyes move makes it clear he can’t see Ilya leaning over him. Ilya is shoved back by a medic and can no longer see Shane’s face, but he hears him slur, “We’re not alone. Ilya, they can see us.”

Only Shane Hollander could be concerned about staying in the closet as he’s being put on a spinal board.

“Tell him,” Shane says when Ilya asks the medics, once again, if he’s alright. “Tell him I’m…”

And then he stops talking. As Ilya follows the stretcher, he can see one of Shane’s hands limply hanging over the side, a sick mirror of how he’d found his mother. Shane can’t be dead, though. He had been talking. He has to be alive. Wouldn’t the medics be acting differently if he had died? He asks again whether Shane is alright and, just like every other time, no one answers him. He feels like a ghost no one can hear.

They wheel Shane across the ice to the tunnel that goes to the ambulance bay, and someone stops Ilya as he tries to follow. For a moment he thinks about shoving them — it would be easy to push past, but he stops himself at the last second, recognizing (somehow, distantly) that that would only get the refs involved. Instead he skates over to the benches. What’s protocol, with an injury this bad? He’s drawing a blank. Surely the Metros’ staff must be doing crisis management somewhere in the back. One of them will know what’s going on. He doesn’t stop to think it through any further; he just skates towards the Metros tunnel. Someone calls his name, but he doesn’t pay any attention to who it is, because there’s no way they have the information he needs.

One of the players tries to stop him when he goes through the bench door — Pike, maybe? — but he pushes past him, hurrying (as quickly as he can with skates on) down the tunnel. Thankfully, there’s no one in the corridor, and he wonders what the best thing to do next is. Shane’s parents are in the building, because they always come to home games. They would be coming down here to accompany the ambulance, right? Or at the least they’ll get told which hospital they’re taking him to. Has it been enough time for them to come down? Where would they go once they got here? His thoughts are racing but he takes a deep breath and tries to think rationally. Or, at least, mildly more sensibly. Unfortunately, the second he stops long enough to think, he feels his eyes well up with tears. Not fucking helpful. He inhales hard, blinks rapidly, and starts moving again. The locker room? Maybe a more likely place for the staff to convene than just… out in the tunnel, or maybe Shane’s parents will go to the locker room, or — something.

The locker room is completely empty.

“Fuck!” he hisses. What the fuck is he supposed to do? He feels as though he’s slipped into some nightmare where he’s desperately trying to find someone but there’s no one around. He needs to get his skates off, he can’t move fast enough with them on. He’s sure he breaks some kind of record with how quickly he goes from laced up to standing in his socks. He leaves his skates on the floor and he throws his gloves on the bench in front of… someone’s stall. He looks behind him; it’s Comeau’s. Whatever, Comeau can fucking keep them.

He can’t go back the way he came, so he just keeps moving forward. He slams open the door to the back corridor and starts half-jogging towards where he thinks the ambulance bay is, if Montreal’s arena has the same layout as Boston’s. Then he rounds a corner and Shane’s parents are right there, coming down the corridor. They look up as he approaches, their faces full of hope that then falls to confusion as they realize who it is.

“Have they told you which hospital?” he says. He suddenly realizes he’s still wearing his helmet and takes it off with fumbling hands.

Shane’s father says, “Yes,” at the same time as his mother says, “What? Why?”

Ilya hesitates. Of course they want to know why; he’s not on Shane’s team. He’s not even the one who hit him, either. He has no reason to be standing here, breathing heavily with what he’s sure is a wild look on his face.

“Is he alright?” he asks, half stalling for time and half desperate to know the answer.

“No, Rozanov, he’s not alright.” Mrs. Hollander’s voice is shaking too hard for her to sound as sharp as he thinks she’s trying to. “What is going on? What are you doing back here?”

“They wouldn’t tell me.” There has to be a way to get them to understand without telling them everything. “On the ice. I ask if he’s okay and no one answers. So I came to find out which hospital.”

“Isn’t the game still going?” Mrs. Hollander says, and Ilya stares at her for a moment, confused. Why is that relevant?

“Probably,” he says. There must have been a game delay as Shane was stretchered off, but they would have started again.

She scoffs, her eyes overly-bright; Mr Hollander puts his hand on her shoulder, looking between her and Ilya. “Go back to your team, Rozanov.”

“I need to see him,” Ilya says, wishing he could explain the dread he’d felt at the sight of Shane’s slack hand hanging off the stretcher in some way that would still seem appropriately distant, or make his mouth form the words ‘is he alive?’ without the horror of speaking that into being. They don’t look like parents who have been told their only son has been taken to the hospital to be officially pronounced dead, and that should dissipate all his terror, but it has such an iron grip on him that he feels like he’s going to suffocate.

They’re not listening to him — Mrs. Hollander is shaking her head in apparent disbelief, and without saying another word to him, they start to walk past him towards the locker room.

His only chance of knowing what’s going on — whether Shane’s even alive — is walking away from him, and he doesn’t think about what he does next. He thinks a hell of a lot about it later, but in the moment, it’s the only thing on his mind.

“Please,” he says, raising his voice as he catches up. “Please, I love him.”

He’d had no intention of saying that; he hears the words coming out of his mouth more than he says them, but he can’t take it back now. But at least it seems to have done the trick. There’s a sharp inhale from behind him, but he doesn’t even think about turning around, because Shane’s parents are finally seeing him. They’re shocked and confused but they look like they might believe him, against all odds.

“Rozanov,” LeClaire barks, and it’s almost like Ilya can’t control his body as he looks behind him. His coach is clearly furious, and it’s even more clear that he’d heard Ilya’s confession. The realization sends a hard jolt of panic through his body, which does not play well with the panic he’d already been feeling. “Get back on the bench.”

He doesn’t answer — he can’t answer. Feeling rather as though he’s starting to float out of his own body, he manages to turn back to Shane’s parents. If he’d looked half-crazed before, he can’t imagine how he looks now. He makes eye contact with Mrs. Hollander, who has a whole series of emotions warring against each other on her face. She hesitates a moment and then says quietly, “Montreal General,” as Shane’s father ducks into the locker room and returns with Shane’s bag. He nods his thanks, and the Hollanders rush off down the corridor, leaving him alone with LeClaire.

“What is this?” LeClaire’s lip is curled in disgust, and Ilya can’t bring himself to look at him, directing his gaze instead at the wall behind the coach’s head. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, wanting nothing more than to turn and just go, find a taxi outside the arena or something and get to Montreal General — but he has the sense that if he were to try to walk away from LeClaire, it wouldn’t go well. “Some kind of joke? I should be out there coaching the game that you apparently don’t give a shit about and instead I’m chasing the team captain around the arena. What’s the punchline, Rozanov?”

“I have to go,” Ilya gets out between gritted teeth. He can feel a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“You can’t fucking leave in the middle of a hockey game,” LeClaire says.

LeClaire isn’t out of shape, but he’s shorter than Ilya and certainly won’t be the winner if this gets physical. Ilya stands there, clenching and unclenching his fists, weighing his options. He’s interrupted by footsteps behind him, and, much to his surprise, Mrs. Hollander reappears.

“Ilya,” she says, which draws his eyes to her immediately. “Come on, we’ll drive you.”

LeClaire snorts derisively. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, Rozanov, but I’m not warning you again. Get back on the ice. Now.”

Finally, Ilya manages to make eye contact with him. He stares at his coach, barely resisting the urge to spit at him. Then, without a word, he throws his helmet down onto the ground and walks out, Mrs. Hollander almost jogging to keep up.

“Rozanov!” LeClaire shouts. “I’ll put you on waivers!”

Ilya is almost entirely sure LeClaire won't put him on waivers. But even if he does, Ilya’s one of the best players in the league — he won’t be wanting for offers.

They’re silent in the car. Ilya should maybe start some kind of conversation — he desperately wants Shane’s parents to like him — but he can’t think of anything to say. Now probably isn’t the time, anyway.

It’s as they’re pulling into the hospital parking lot that Mrs. Hollander finally speaks. “Your shoes,” she says, and Ilya drags his gaze away from the window to find her staring down at his sock-clad feet. She’s been crying — her eyes are red.

He nods slowly. “There was no time.”

“Mm.” She looks up at him properly then, though she’s not quite making eye contact. “How long?”

She doesn’t specify, but he knows exactly what she’s asking. He swallows hard. He shouldn’t answer. It’s not his place to have done this.

“How long, Rozanov?” she repeats, her voice breaking on his name.

“Eight years,” he says quietly. He had thought about counting from some other date — when he had fallen in love, perhaps? — but he knows deep down that he’d fallen in love at the International Prospect Cup, however much he refused to recognize it at the time. She closes her eyes and inhales sharply through her nose. He looks back out the window, and they don’t say another word to each other until they reach the emergency room.

Someone recognizes them — maybe the fact that Ilya’s still mostly in his uniform helps — and they’re brought through the doors into the rest of the hospital immediately. The nurse accompanying them says, “Your son is having a CT right now, but you can wait in the room we’re going to put him in.” She’d looked at Ilya when she first met them, but apparently decided to ignore him, which is probably the right decision. She has too many hospital things to think about, he’s sure.

It’s a private room, of course, and Shane’s helmet and gloves have been placed on a table by the wall, his skates on the floor beneath them. There are only two chairs in the room, so Ilya hovers awkwardly and then leans gingerly on the edge of the table. He takes off his elbow pads, hockey socks and shin pads but leaves on his actual socks. Is he supposed to have shoes? He knows patients walk around in socks, but maybe he’ll get in trouble.

Fuck that. He’s in enough trouble as it is.

Ilya looks studiously at his hands as he pretends he can’t hear Shane’s father say, “He’s going to be alright, honey,” to his wife. “The nurse didn’t seem worried.”

“She probably has no idea what his condition is,” Mrs. Hollander says, her voice thick. Maybe Ilya shouldn’t be here. Maybe he should have stayed at the game. This is too private. He’s too cowardly to tell Shane he loves him, at least in English; what right does he have to listen to his parents worry about him?

But if he leaves the room, someone will instantly recognize him. Even if he takes off his jersey, he has a very recognisable face, and as Montreal’s golden boy’s rival, everyone knows him. Fuck.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s sure someone must already have recognized him. Some nurses must watch hockey, right? And the nurse that had brought them to the room had looked at him oddly. She’ll tell someone, why wouldn’t she? There are probably rumours flying all over Twitter already. Has the game ended yet? Did they win? What has LeClaire said to the press? He’s glad his phone is back at the arena, because he doesn’t want to know.

Why is this CT scan taking so fucking long?

Mr. Hollander clears his throat and addresses Ilya directly. “I suppose this isn’t a one-sided crush, is it?”

Ilya almost laughs, but at the last moment remembers that a hysterical giggle is not the image he wants to present to Shane’s parents. “No, is not.”

There’s a brief silence where Ilya goes back to looking at his hands, and then Mrs. Hollander asks, “Why?”

“Why what?” Ilya says, genuinely confused.

“Why are you two even a…” She waves her hand a little and says, “...thing?”

Ilya shrugs. “Why are you and your husband together?”

Mr. and Mrs. Hollander exchange a look Ilya can’t decipher, and he tries not to panic about it. He’s already at capacity for panic.

“We haven’t been positioned as rivals since before the MLH.”

Ilya shrugs again. “You know him. How could I not fall in love with him?” Surely they can see how incredible Shane is. How easy it is to love him.

Mrs. Hollander seems lost for words at that. Her breathing hitches again, and her husband squeezes her hand. Ilya looks away again, wanting to give her some semblance of privacy. He’s glad she’s not looking him full in the face when she asks her next question.

“Is he…” Her voice is wobbling dangerously. “Does he… love you?”

Ilya lets out a bark of laughter that isn’t amused at all. “If he ever did, he won’t once he finds what I’ve done.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s supposed to be a secret. Us. But I thought —” he begins, and to his horror, his voice cracks. He hadn’t been thinking, because all he could think was that Shane might be dead. “I thought maybe he… I was so afraid. What else could I do?”

“Did you want to keep it a secret?” she asks.

“Of course. I am Russian. I cannot go back there now. I can never play for national team again.” He’s surprised by how much this hurts — he’d already told Shane that he didn’t plan on ever going back to Russia, now that his father is dead, but that’s different from knowing he can’t.

Mrs. Hollander looks chastised, which was not his intention. He’s even fucking this up.

Before he can fix it, Shane gets wheeled in, accompanied by a doctor. His face is badly bruised — it was red on the ice and it’s already turning a mottled purple — and one of his arms is in a sling. But he’s awake. His eyes are open and everything. Suddenly, all the adrenaline that had propelled Ilya out of the arena comes crashing down on his head, leaving him dizzy.

Shane smiles in a way that makes it incredibly obvious that he’s extremely high — although perhaps it’s enough of a tell that he’s smiling at Ilya at all, not yet thinking of what it means that Ilya is in the room. The doctor does a double-take, the way the nurse had earlier, but refocuses herself quickly and addresses Shane’s parents. “Are you alright with Shane’s medical information being discussed in present company?”

Ilya is already pushing himself to his feet and taking a step towards the door when Mr. Hollander says, “It’s fine.” Mrs. Hollander looks like she’s about to protest for a moment before closing her mouth and nodding.

The two aides make impressively short work of transferring Shane from the gurney to the bed. He can’t seem to keep his attention on anything for long; his gaze lands on Ilya, promptly drifts towards the doctor, and finally lands on his parents, all without the smile leaving his face. Ilya desperately wants to take his hand, but he’s already done more than enough damage today. Instead he goes back to leaning against the table that Shane’s things are on.

“Shane has a severe concussion and a broken collarbone, but there’s no bleeding in his brain or damage to his spine, which we were concerned about. It’s difficult to say with certainty how long it will take to recover from the concussion, but his collarbone alone will take six to twelve weeks. He’ll need to wear a sling for the duration, and his regular doctor will be the one to determine when he can take it off.”

Six to twelve weeks — he’ll miss the playoffs. Fuck, he’s going to be devastated. Mrs. Hollander is nodding and trying to smile, but the look on her face says that she’s realized the same thing.

The doctor and Shane’s parents keep talking, discussing details and care needs, but Ilya quickly loses track of the conversation. There are too many English words he doesn’t know, and he’s distracted by the realisation that it’s pointless to tell Shane what he’s done right now, with how obviously loopy Shane is. He might not even remember any of this in the morning. He certainly won’t be able to grasp the severity, or how much he should hate Ilya. And perhaps Ilya wants to postpone seeing Shane look at him with the kind of unbridled loathing he deserves. Instead of trying to follow the conversation, then, he takes to staring at Shane. Shane’s not looking at him, but not in the way that he normally doesn’t look at him. This seems much less intentional, and more dictated by how out of it he is.

When the doctor finally excuses herself, Ilya stands to leave, which draws Shane’s attention. “Ilya! Why are you here?” He’s beaming at him. Shane almost never looks at him like that.

Ilya freezes for a moment, then says, “I will visit in the morning, Hollander,” without looking at him. He hurriedly collects his discarded gear and nods at Shane’s parents, though he doesn’t meet their eyes. “Thank you,” he tells them, and practically runs out of the room.

He gets the front desk to call him a taxi, which arrives quickly enough. His hopes that the driver won’t recognize him are dashed the second he gets in and sees the air freshener in the shape of the Metros logo dangling from the rearview mirror. The driver doesn’t say anything at first, but eventually, once they’re some distance from the hospital, he pipes up. “I heard what happened on the radio,” he says in a thick French accent. “Tabarnak, man. What a fucking game lâ.”

“Yes,” says Ilya, although he thinks the driver is understating things. “Did we win?”

The driver looks at him strangely in the rearview mirror. “Non.”

Great. That makes everything a lot worse.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

We've been blown away by the response to this so far! We're really pleased with how this story turned out and we hope that you all like the rest of the fic too. Here's Chapter 2, and the final chapter should go up within a few days. :) Enjoy!

P.S. Emma wildly underestimated how long the final word count would be! We ended up at just under 11k :')

The night goes by very slowly.

Ilya wishes he could have just spent the night at the hospital — which is ironic, given that he’d bolted the second Shane spoke to him. But if he were at the hospital, he could always check that Shane is breathing. He could put off the consequences of his actions a little longer. Maybe he could even pretend everything is going to be okay.

At the hotel, there’s no such possibility. He doesn’t even make it to his room before LeClaire corners him in a hallway and gives him one of the biggest dressings-down of his entire life — quite an impressive feat, all things considered. It sets the familiar, sick feeling of shame churning in his guts. “I would bench you for the whole fucking playoffs if we didn’t need you on the ice,” he shouts. “Don’t bother going home when we get off the plane. Go straight to the fucking rink.” At least this answers Ilya’s fears that he really would be placed on waivers immediately — he’d been certain he wouldn’t before, but the taxi ride gave him too much time to think.

There’s no way the whole team isn’t hearing this through the walls. They must all already be fucking furious, and hearing that he’s basically getting away with it scot-free isn’t going to help.

LeClaire does drop his voice, though, to make his final point. “If you hear from the press,” he hisses, looming closer and jabbing his finger roughly into Ilya’s chest to make up for no longer shouting, “you say: No. Fucking. Comment.”

When he finally makes it to his room, it’s to an extremely cold reception from Kane. Probably that’s the best he could have hoped for — he’s a little surprised that Kane didn’t start beating the shit out of him the second he walked in. The things that he left at the arena, with the exception of his gloves and skates, have been dumped unceremoniously on one of the beds.

He tosses and turns all night, unable to think of anything but Shane. Had his parents told him that Ilya had outed them? Had they told Shane who Ilya had outed them to? At seven, he gives up on the pretense of sleep and gets dressed. He buys a nondescript baseball cap at a shop near the hotel and gets a taxi to the hospital. In the back seat on the way there, he forces himself to open YouTube and watch the press junkets from the previous evening — he needs to see how bad the damage already is so he knows what to tell Shane.

It’s pretty hard to watch. Neither team had sent any players out to speak to reporters, which is a small mercy — he can’t imagine most of his teammates would’ve willingly held their tongues about him if presented with a microphone and a chance to air their grievances. LeClaire, though, had made little effort to hide his anger.

“Coach LeClaire, I’m going to ask what we’re all thinking. Ilya Rozanov exited the game immediately following Shane Hollander’s injury and never returned to the ice, or even the bench. Can you explain what happened?”

“I have no comment except to say that the Raiders wish Hollander a speedy recovery, and that Rozanov will be facing disciplinary measures for his actions.”

“But why did he —”

“Look, I don’t have any further information for you about Rozanov. All I can say is that the rest of the team put up a good fight, and we’re looking forward to the playoffs starting next week. No further questions.”

Well… it could probably be worse, but this still isn’t good. Obviously the strategy is to try to keep a lid on things, but this will probably just fuel speculation. But speculation is probably better than outright confirmation. Right?

Just in case, he watches Theriault’s interview as well. The Metros’ coach looks exhausted; he keeps pinching the bridge of his nose and tiredly rubbing his eyes. No, he doesn’t currently have an update on Hollander’s condition or a timeline for his return. No, he cannot comment on Rozanov’s exit from the game. Something about his phrasing, though, gives Ilya a sinking feeling that he’s been looped in. His answers sound too similar to LeClaire’s — it’s like both back offices got together to coordinate damage control.

The cab finally pulls up at the hospital, thankfully without the driver trying to make conversation this time. Even though he knows which room Shane is in, he charms the woman at reception into letting him visit outside of hours, claiming he has an early plane to catch. Like everyone else in this goddamn city, she’s a hockey fan, and lets him break the rules.

When he reaches the right floor, he has to sit on a bench and breathe, steeling himself for what’s about to happen. Shane will probably still be high, and may well not understand the gravity of the situation, but Ilya can’t leave this to a phone call. After what feels like an age, Ilya makes his way to the room.

Shane is propped up in bed, a breakfast tray in front of him that’s clearly just been delivered, judging from the steam rising from it. When Ilya enters, Shane grins at him. His smile isn’t quite as loopy as last night, but he’s certainly not entirely with it, either — not if he’s looking at Ilya like that.

“You came back,” he says, and he sounds pleased. His parents can’t have filled him in, then, or if they did he’s forgotten. He does apparently remember that Ilya was already here, though, so perhaps they just kept quiet.

“Of course I came back.” Ilya wants to walk back out the door and vomit in a pot plant, but instead he says, “I need to talk to you. About… I fucked up.”

Shane blinks at him. “What? Did you hit me? I thought my dad said it was Marleau.”

“No, it was Marleau.” He shoves his hands in his hoodie pockets, pulls them back out again, takes off his stupid baseball cap and holds it limply by his side. God, he can’t even look at Shane, how’s he supposed to tell him? “How… are you doing?”

“I’m out for the playoffs, which sucks, but I’m told it could’ve been a lot worse. And my head hurts, but it’s kind of a miracle that I haven’t been out with this bad a concussion before.”

This is where Ilya should probably tease him, say something about his good head or something else completely inappropriate to the setting, but he can’t bring himself to. The very fact that he doesn’t speak, just kind of nods helplessly while staring a hole into the floor tiles, seems to remind Shane where this conversation started. “What do you mean, you fucked up?”

“When I was here yesterday, the game was not over yet.”

“Was it called off?”

“No. I… I left. Without permission. My coach is furious, and my team probably too, because we lost.”

“Whoa.” Shane completely fails to hide a smirk at that news. He’s still not picking up on how fucking bad this is. “How much trouble are you in?”

“Doesn’t matter. Enough.” He doesn’t mention his fears about waivers. “I was… do you remember what happened?”

“No,” Shane says. “I just remember waking up in the ambulance.”

“You lost…” Ilya tries to reach for the English word. They had used it in the videos he’d watched in the cab. “You lost conscious when you got hit, and then you woke up and tried to talk to me. But you lost conscious again and I… I thought you might be dead.” It sounds so… silly when he says it out loud like that, almost childish, but it certainly hadn’t felt that way in the moment. What could he say, that seeing Shane’s hand hanging limply over the side reminded him of his mother? That’s no excuse for what he’s done.

Shane is staring at him intently, looking much less cheerful than he had a minute ago; Ilya gets the impression that he’s having to put some effort into concentrating on the words he’s hearing.

“Well,” he says after a moment, when Ilya doesn’t continue, “I’m not dead. Clearly. So, what, you left the bench to come check on me and now you’re out for a few games or something? Might I remind you that I’m missing the playoffs, asshole?” There’s no heat to his words — he’s going for playful. Ilya needs to stop dragging this out, because every smile that Shane gives him twists the knife in just a little further.

“No. I left the ice through Metros tunnel when I couldn’t go to the ambulance bay. I found your parents. I begged for which hospital you went to. They didn’t want to tell me, because I am your biggest rival, Ilya Rozanov, and I hate you. Why would I be more than normal amount of concerned about you? I didn’t even hit you. And I didn’t know how to convince them, and I knew someone would come after me, and I… panicked.”

“You panicked,” Shane repeats slowly. Now he’s starting to look concerned.

“I told them that I am in love with you.”

That gets through even the drugs they have Shane on, and Ilya watches as the blood drains from his face. “What?”

“And my coach heard me.”

Shane looks like he’s going to vomit, and Ilya would give him one of the vomit bags next to the bed but he can’t move any of his limbs.

“I don’t know if Thierault knows what happened, but I think he might. Your parents know we are…” He can’t say together, because that’s far too presumptuous, especially now. “...involved. And that we have been for years.”

“What the fuck, Rozanov.” Shane’s voice comes out in a hoarse whisper. Ilya can see him shaking from here. “What the actual fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, great. Great, you’re sorry. That fixes it.” There are tears welling in Shane’s eyes, and Ilya wants nothing more than to go over and wipe them away. He wants to run his fingers through his hair, and kiss his face, and reassure himself that Shane really is alive and going to be okay. But he can’t. He just stands there. “What did my parents say?”

“Not much,” Ilya says. “They only asked how long. I said eight years.”

Shane closes his eyes, and he takes a shaky breath. “What are we going to do?”

“I have a plan,” Ilya says firmly. He’d come up with it in the middle of the night, staring at the hotel ceiling and trying to imagine every way that this disaster could play out. There’s no way they’re both getting out of this unscathed, but he’d realized at some point that maybe Shane still can. “Is simple.”

Shane scoffs, but doesn’t stop him. He’s listening.

“Everyone — your coach, your team, the media, fucking whoever — they will ask you why I left the game. You just have to tell them that you don’t know. Who fucking knows why Rozanov does the shit he does, right? If my coach told your coach what he heard, he will ask you about this. You will just say, oh, coach, I had no idea. He’s insane! Who does he think he is!”

“What if he doesn’t believe me?”

Ilya thinks for a moment. “I hope he will. It’s not really even a lie, yes? You had no idea. But if not, then suggest to him that this is the best way to play it to media, if they hear about it. Or hear rumours. Maybe go back to dating Rose Landry. She can keep secret. Your parents, too — they will not say.”

“Of course they won’t fucking say,” Shane says. “Because they understand how important this is.”

“And I do not? If LeClaire tells the wrong person, I can never go back to Russia again.”

“You said you weren’t going to!”

“I know, but it’s… I will never play for Russia again. They will never let a fucking pidor play for their team.”

“You should have thought of that before you outed us, then,” Shane says.

There’s a lump quickly forming in Ilya’s throat. This is going about as well as he could have expected, but that doesn’t make it easier. He has to pause for a long moment before he can be sure that he can speak without his voice trembling. “Yes,” he manages eventually, “and that’s why I’m telling you I’m taking the fucking hit on this, Hollander. I can’t get out of this, I’m fucked. But you can.” Ilya doesn’t mention that if he loses his job, he’ll have to go back to Russia and face whatever punishment the government deems fit for him. Shane has far less to lose, but Shane didn’t get them both into this.

When he chances a glance at Shane, Shane’s chin is fully trembling. They make eye contact, just for a brief second, but Shane breaks it. “Okay,” he says, so quietly Ilya can barely hear him. “Fine.”

“I should go,” Ilya says. There’s no point imposing his presence on Shane any longer, and he needs to get back to the hotel. “Goodbye, Hollander.”

Shane doesn’t respond. Ilya doesn’t look back as he leaves the room.

Ilya spends the next two days waiting for the other shoe to drop. He gets bag-skated within an inch of his life once they get off the plane, and his teammates clearly all hate him, but maybe — maybe — if he can get them anywhere near the Cup, everything could still turn out close to okay.

But he just can’t shake the feeling that it’s not over, that any second he’ll be exposed. They lose game one, but only just, more thanks to their goalie standing on his head than anything else; they get barely any shots on goal and it ends 1-0. Afterwards, they finally put him in front of the press, which seems insane but maybe they figure it would be more suspicious not to. It starts off normal enough — what does Ilya think they need to do to get into the groove of the playoffs, was he concerned about how close the game was, is the team ready for the grueling run they’re about to make — until Deadspin asks the question he’s been dreading.

“In the last game of the regular season, you left the game when Shane Hollander got injured from a hit by Cliff Marleau. Why?”

For a moment, Ilya just gapes like a fish, forgetting all his media training and the answer that’s been drilled into him. “Hollander has been such a big part of my game throughout my time in the league. I was shaken too much when he took such a serious hit. I panicked, which I shouldn’t have done, and I definitely shouldn’t have left the game. It’s my responsibility as captain to leave that sort of concern off the ice, and I failed. I thought his injury was far more serious than it was, but that was a mistake, and it’s a relief to hear he’ll be back next season. He’s my favourite to play against because it’s always a joy to beat second best player in the league. After me, of course.”

Normally that sort of line would elicit polite laughter from the reporters in the room, but this time you could hear a pin drop. None of the reporters seem to know what to do with a sincere answer (or, at least, a partially sincere answer) from Rozanov. After a beat, one reporter hits him with a follow-up question: “But you never returned to the ice. Where did you go?”

… Well. There’s absolutely no way to answer that question that won’t be suspicious.

It’s in this moment that he finally remembers LeClaire’s instructions: no fucking comment. “No comment,” he blurts out, far too late, and has to resist the urge to slam his head back against the wall.

Afterwards, LeClaire pulls him aside yet again — an occurrence Ilya’s quickly getting very sick of — and stares him down in silence for a solid thirty seconds before asking, “So do you want the press to figure out you’re a faggot? I thought you knew enough English to understand when I told you not to comment, but clearly I was fucking mistaken and you’re a complete moron.”

Ilya doesn’t bother to argue. The coach kind of has a point.

They don’t put him on press availability again after that, even though there’s rampant speculation that there’s something rotten in the locker room, given their abysmal performance against Colorado. It’s a relief — it means he doesn’t have to answer for it when they get absolutely decimated in game two.

None of his teammates are really speaking to him, and obviously he doesn’t dare to text Shane. He hasn’t answered a text from Svetlana since the night Shane got hurt, because she’s far too good at reading him and he doesn’t want to deal with it right now. But that means he has nothing to do and no one to talk to in between practices and games. He’s just… alone, bored, anxious, restless, and he can only work out so much before his body physically won’t let him anymore. After game two, he makes the mistake of opening Twitter for the first time in a week, and he takes to spending most of his free time on there, searching his own name and Shane’s.

There are plenty of videos posted of Shane’s injury. Ilya loses sleep the night of the game two loss, watching them over and over again. There’s one in particular that he hopes to god Shane never sees — rather than just a clip of the professional broadcast, it seems to have been taken by a fan in one of the front rows who was near the accident, and rather than focusing on Shane’s prone body laid out on the ice, whoever was filming had followed Ilya with their camera. His face is ashen and his eyes are frantic, and he’s sure that anyone who sees it can tell — how can they not know, seeing this? When they can see his lips moving clear as day — Is he alright? Please, is he okay? Shane —

The journalist side of Twitter is a little less focused on the mystery of his actions at the end of the season and more invested in speculating that the reason for Boston’s poor performance, and the source of the much-speculated-about locker room tension, is Ilya, though the players have all refused to say anything about it. The journalists aren't wrong, either. Ilya hasn’t put up any points, mostly because no one passes to him, but partly because he’s making sloppy mistakes. His stupidity puts him in the box far more than usual, and Colorado’s power play wipes the floor with them. They lose game three in a shutout.

When he opens Twitter that night, the first thing he sees is a post from a Globe journalist:

@JasonDyer Boston’s chances aren’t looking good. They’ll need to win the next four games to move into round two. Have we ever seen Rozanov like this before? His game has been a mess since… whatever that was in Montreal. Maybe connected?

His heart starts hammering in his chest, and he quickly opens the replies. The first several are from other journalists — Hard to say without knowing what exactly happened there. Some clarity from Raiders leadership would be nice and other comments of that nature — but they quickly get more vitriolic.

@mason8910 Simple — Rozanov just doesn’t give a shit, and Boston’s built their whole team around him without making sure they have the depth to survive without him. Whatever his issue is, he’s clearly fine with making it the Raiders’ issue too.

@chillwave_chirp I’ve been saying for years that Rozanoff is a pissy bitch LOL about time it comes back to bite Boston in the ass

@guardiansgoalie Russians can’t even play good North American hockey, I don’t know why anyone’s surprised. What the fuck kind of player gets cozy with the enemy?

@tampa_fan47 he’s too busy sucking shane hollander’s fucking dick to remember how to play

That last tweet has a lot of likes. Ilya swears under his breath and clicks into its replies. Predictably, they don’t make him feel remotely better.

@raiderbaiter Lol please. everyone has off games sometimes its normal. rozanov can still beat hollenders ass any day

@tampa_fan47 I dont think thats what rozanov wants to do to hollanders ass dude lmao. bro must be pussywhipped to just walk off the ice like that

@raiderbaiter 😂 cant wait for the metros to play boston again next year so u can see how wrong u are. Ur boy will bend over and take it from rozanov the way he always does.

He closes the thread and searches Shane’s name, his hands shaking a little as he tries to type as fast as possible, wanting to check just in case — what? His phone got hacked, or something? They’ve never been stupid enough to make a sex tape, and there are no photos of them actually having sex, and they delete any photos they send each other immediately. Anyway, there are no screenshots or anything coming up in the search results — there is, however, a tweet with several still shots of Metros v. Raiders games over the past few years and the title “TIMES ROZANOV AND HOLLANDER LOOKED AT EACH OTHER FOR A WEIRDLY LONG TIME ON THE ICE: A THREAD” that has over a hundred retweets, at which point he closes the app and throws his phone across the room into a wall.

Ilya scores in game four for the first time in the series, which brings him the first smiles from his teammates he’s seen in over a week. They win that game, and Ilya thinks maybe their luck has changed and they can win it in seven… but they’re out the next game. At least they don’t get swept.

Locker clean-out day is never cheery, but it’s downright frosty this year. Ilya’s determined to be in and out as fast as possible without giving fucking LeClaire time to pull him aside and call him a faggot again, and he’s well aware that no one wants a captainly pep talk from him right now, so he just keeps his head down, throws all his shit into his bag, and makes for the door — at which point he almost barrels straight into Sebbin when he steps in front of Ilya to block his path.

“You’re in a fucking hurry,” he says. It does not sound friendly.

Ilya opens his mouth to say… something, but before he can come up with a response, Kane snorts. “Get out of his way, Sebbin, he probably has a plane to Montreal to catch.”

Slowly — reluctant to turn his back to Sebbin, but wanting to look Kane in the fucking face — Ilya turns around. “What.”

“You heard me. At least, I’m assuming that’s where you’re going — last time your team needed you and you bailed, it was to go rushing off after your little boyfriend, so I figure it’s the same deal now.”

Ilya’s almost entirely sure Shane’s in Ottawa with his parents, but he’s certainly not going to tell anyone that. That’s not Kane’s point, anyway. Anything Ilya could say right now would probably just make the situation worse, so he bites down hard on his tongue and tries to communicate shut the fuck up, Kane with his face.

But his silence has the opposite effect as intended. Kane lets out a low whistle and takes a step closer. “Wow, not even going to deny it, huh? Dubek, I owe you $50. I really thought he’d at least try to come up with a better explanation. I gotta tell you, though, Rozanov, we’ve all been racking our brains and somehow that’s the least insane option we can come up with for why you fucked off like that.”

“Plus Coach turns a little green any time someone mentions Hollander,” Dubek adds from the other side of the room.

Well, here’s the other fucking shoe. He should’ve known it wouldn’t just be anonymous assholes on the Internet. He should’ve known that everyone would be talking. Who else has heard this rumour so far? How long will it be until fucking everyone has?

“Y’know, I’ve been wondering about Hollander,” says Sebbin from behind him. He seems to have gone back to packing up his locker, so Ilya’s probably not at imminent risk of a beatdown, but that doesn’t make him feel much better. “I mean, do you think the rest of the Metros have figured it out too? Maybe that’s why Hollander hasn’t done any press since the hit.”

It’s all Ilya can do not to start shouting. He wants to punch these assholes in their stupid fucking faces. He can barely even think over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. But there’s exactly one sensible thought still front and centre in his mind: even though he’s completely fucking fucked, Shane doesn’t have to be.

With some effort, he lets out a bark of laughter. “Oh, this is very funny,” he says, looking between Kane and Sebbin with his eyebrows raised. “You think Mr. Montreal Perfect Golden Boy is my boyfriend? Really? No. He is straight boy, it is a tragedy.”

He takes the opportunity afforded him by the shocked silence and gets the hell out of the building. God, he’s fucking done for.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

Ilya holes up in his house for twenty-four hours feeling extremely sorry for himself. Right after he gets home from clean-out day, he pours an entire bottle of vodka down his kitchen sink because he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t he’s going to be found dead of alcohol poisoning in short order. He deletes Twitter from his phone, reinstalls it just in case any of his teammates decide they feel like dropping a bomb on the sports world, and then deletes it again when he realizes that if that happens he’ll find out fast through other means.

Should he tell Shane about the rumours? Give him a heads up? Maybe Shane has blocked his number. If he were Shane, he would’ve blocked his number. Fuck. And even if he hasn’t blocked Ilya’s number, certainly learning about the rumours would stress him out. Ilya doesn’t want to do anything that could hamper Shane’s recovery. He doesn’t need any added stress right now.

He goes to his home gym and works out too hard for too long, until his limbs are jelly and he knows he’s going to regret it tomorrow. He watches an absolutely crap movie on TV and tries not to let himself wish that he had someone to make fun of it with. He could call Svetlana, but he doesn’t want to impose his mood on her, and he doesn’t want her to ask him about fucking Jane again. He gets in his bed and tries to nap, just to pass some time, but he can’t fall asleep.

Around 4 PM, his phone buzzes. He glances listlessly at it where it’s discarded beside him on the couch (he’s watching another movie, somehow more crap than the last, but at least this one is in Russian), and then snatches it up when he sees the message on the screen.

Jane
Can I call you? [4:07 PM]

He almost drops his phone in his rush to respond, groping with his other hand for the remote so he can turn the TV off.

Lily
Yes. [4:07 PM]

“Hello?” Ilya says after the phone rings a single time.

“Hi,” Shane’s voice says, and he doesn’t sound panicked or like he hates Ilya, which is better than he could have hoped for.

There’s a moment where neither of them know what to say. Shane called him, and Ilya doesn’t want to assume familiarity he no longer has, so an awkward silence stretches between them until Shane says, “Can you come to Ottawa?”

“What?” Ilya says. Had he heard him right? “I’m still in Boston.”

“Yeah, I figured. Can you come to Ottawa, though?”

“... Why?” Ilya frowns, slowly getting up off the couch. He suddenly feels too restless to stay seated.

“Well, because I can’t come to Boston.”

“What?” Ilya says again, more confused this time.

“I’m not allowed to fly yet. Or drive.”

“Yes, right, but… why you would want to come to Boston?”

Ilya hears Shane huff on the other end, frustrated.

“Because I want to talk to you. In person.”

“Oh.” Ilya wants to ask what about, but he’s afraid of the answer. “Okay. Yes. I can come to Ottawa. I will come… now?”

“No, don’t come now,” Shane says, and it sounds like he’s smiling, but that’s definitely wishful thinking. “It’s already four o’clock. Come tomorrow.”

“Okay. I will come tomorrow.” Ilya finds he can’t do anything but repeat Shane’s words, because forming English sentences is beyond him. He was so sure that Shane would never speak to him again, but here he is. Does Shane have a house in Ottawa? Or is he staying with his parents? Will Ilya get to see Shane’s parents’ home? His stomach drops as he thinks about meeting Shane’s parents again, this time with them knowing exactly how much he hurt Shane. Shane has said his mother follows hockey really closely, hasn’t he? Has she seen the rumours?

“Good. See you then. Bye, Ilya.”

Ilya barely croaks out a, “Goodbye,” before Shane hangs up. What the fuck.

He arrives in Ottawa the next day in the early afternoon. He’d managed to fall asleep the night before, but he’d woken up around five and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep, so he’d figured he might as well get on the road. There’s no way he could deal with the airport right now, and the drive is a manageable one. He’d picked his least obnoxious sports car, packed some essentials and a change of clothes into a backpack, and brought protein bars and water so that he wouldn’t have to stop anywhere to eat.

He crosses the border at Montreal, and the crossing is busy enough that the agent waves him through with little fanfare, though he does hear someone say, “Was that Ilya Rozanov? What do you mean, who is that, Dave? Jesus Christ.”

Shane had texted him his parents’ address the night before; when Ilya gets over the bridge, he pulls over to send a reply.

Lily
In Montreal now. Driving. See you soon. [11:09 AM]

Jane
See you soon :) [11:09 AM]

What the fuck.

Traffic is light all the way to Ottawa. Ilya can’t decide if it’s a miracle or a taunt from the universe. He has no idea what’s going to happen when he sees Shane, and he can’t figure out if he’s terrified and wants to put it off for longer, or if he wants to break the speed limit to get there as fast as possible. When he does finally pull up outside the house, he stays in the car for a long moment, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel and trying to breathe normally. Whatever Shane is going to say, it can’t get worse, right?

He forces himself to walk up the drive and knock on the front door. It’s a relief when Shane answers; despite how anxious Ilya is about seeing him, he’s objectively the least frightening option. Shane smiles as he invites Ilya in, sending a pathetic current of hope through him that he tries his best to quash. It doesn’t do to get one’s hopes up.

“You’re here a lot earlier than I expected,” Shane says. He looks much better than he had back at the hospital; his arm is still in a sling, but the bruises have healed, and he’s certainly more alert.

“Sorry,” says Ilya.

“No, don’t be. I’m glad to see you.”

You are? Ilya wants to ask, but restrains himself. Canadian niceties, probably. Best not to push it. Instead he just bobs his head in an awkward nod.

“Sorry, um — you wanna sit down? Can I get you anything? Water, coffee, pop?” Shane nods down the hallway and sets off, checking over his shoulder that Ilya is following. He brings Ilya into the living room; for a split second, he’s worried that Mr. and Mrs. Hollander are going to be waiting in there. He doesn’t want to see their faces at the sight of him. Thankfully, the living room is empty.

“Uh, no drink, thank you.” Only because it’s too early to ask for beer; Ilya would really like some liquid courage about now.

Shane nods and gestures for him to take a seat. He does so, but Shane stays standing, shoving his hand into his pocket and rocking on his heels a little.

“Thanks for coming,” he says. “How was your drive? I mean, pretty smooth, seems like.”

“Fine…?” Ilya says. “Look, Hollander —”

He doesn’t necessarily intend to use Shane’s last name, but that’s just what comes naturally to him when he’s feeling this uncertain. He catches it, though, when Shane flinches a little in response.

“Uh, Shane,” Ilya corrects himself. He’d been planning to ask what the hell is going on, but now Shane has stopped looking at him. Fuck. He fucks everything up.

“How are you feeling?” he asks eventually, when he can’t take the awkward silence anymore. “Are you okay? Head hurts less?”

Shane clears his throat a little and finally looks him in the face again. “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, it’s rough sometimes. My mom’s been pretty intense about keeping me away from screens, but when I do look at my phone it gives me a pretty bad headache before too long.”

“You not looking at phone is probably good thing,” Ilya says with a shrug, trying very hard to sound casual. “You’re not missing out on anything good.”

“I guess I’m not.” Shane stops rocking then, and looks at Ilya very seriously. “Are you okay?”

“I’m out of playoffs in first round, I’m fucking great.”

“Ilya, I’m serious.” Shane appears to hesitate for a moment, but then he crosses the room, stopping between Ilya’s knees. He lifts his hand to Ilya’s face and softly brushes his thumb under his eye, and Ilya doesn’t even dare to breathe. He’s not even sure he remembers how to. “You look like you’ve been sleeping like shit.”

“You sleep well right after you get knocked out of playoffs?” he says, whispering as though talking at full volume will scare Shane off.

Shane’s hand is still on his face. He’s dropped it to rest on Ilya’s jaw, and he’s rubbing circles with his thumb. “You’re lying,” he says. “You don’t have to do that.”

The only thing Ilya wants to do is grab his hand and kiss his palm — only because he couldn’t risk pulling Shane down into his lap right now, what with the sling and all — but he doesn’t dare to move.

Shane doesn’t speak again for a moment, seemingly waiting for Ilya to say something. But when Ilya stays silent, Shane huffs out a sigh. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk, then just… listen. Alright?” He actually waits for Ilya to nod his assent before continuing. “Dubek texted me about what happened at your guys’ locker clean-out yesterday. He was telling me like I was going to find it really funny or something, like the idea that you would be interested in me was a big joke that I would laugh at.”

Oh, god, this is about the rumours after all. Ilya feels sick. He somehow manages to keep his eyes on Shane’s face, even though he desperately wants to look away — like if he can come across as stoic, it’ll preserve some shred of dignity.

“I owe you an apology,” says Shane.

Ilya blinks in shock, but then quickly sets his jaw. Shane’s feeling guilty because of fucking Dubek, that’s what this is. He reaches up and pulls Shane’s hand away from his face, pushing it against Shane’s body.

“No. You owe me nothing. You were right. When they were moving you onto stretcher, you know what you said?” Ilya knows he doesn’t, since he has no memory of anything until the ambulance. “You were worried people would see us and know something. I ruined everything, even though I knew how important it was to you. You wake up from getting boarded so hard you fucking pass out, and you still worried about it first.”

Shane closes his eyes, as though trying to call the memory up. He admits defeat quickly though, opening them again and saying, “I don’t remember.”

“I know,” Ilya says, and to his horror, his voice cracks. He wishes he could forget. “But I do.”

“Yeah.” Shane shakes his hand loose from Ilya’s grip, but only to lace their fingers together, drawing Ilya’s gaze away from Shane’s face down to their hands out of sheer surprise. “I’ve seen videos since I’ve been home, y’know? Of the collision. It’s pretty fucking scary to see, even though it’s literally a video of me and I’m going to be fine. And there was this one video I saw online where… I could see how fucking scared you were.”

Ilya knows exactly which video he means — the same one he’d been really hoping Shane wouldn’t see. The one where it’s obvious how much Ilya couldn’t keep it together even as Shane was actively begging him to. It’s literally Ilya’s job to keep his cool on the ice. Players getting their bells rung is just part of the game, and it shouldn’t be any different just because it’s Shane. The fact that it is different doesn’t mean that it’s okay for it to look that way.

“So, yeah, I owe you an apology,” Shane continues. “I was messed up and not thinking clearly, and I freaked out and got hung up on completely the wrong part of what you were telling me.”

The wrong part? There weren’t any other parts! “What do you mean?”

“You said you love me.” Shane finally drops Ilya’s hand, but only to put his fingers under his chin and tilt his head up so he’s looking at him again. He’s smiling at him, and Ilya has no idea what to do with himself in the face of it. He’s missed Shane’s smile so much it hurt.

“Was not the first time,” he says with a shrug, trying hard to sound casual and completely failing.

“Uh, yeah it was,” Shane replies with a warm laugh. “I know my memory’s not that reliable the last couple weeks, but I think I’d remember that.”

“No,” Ilya insists, although he has no idea why he’s pressing the point. “I told you on the phone. ‘I’m so in love with you.’” He says it in Russian, even though Shane literally knows, because it still feels terrifying to say out loud, let alone to Shane’s face.

Shane frowns and says, “When did you say that? It sounds familiar.”

“On phone in Moscow,” Ilya says.

“That doesn’t count, I don’t speak Russian.”

“Yes. That was the point. I was coward.”

“Ilya —”

“What? Is true.”

“I didn’t say it either, so if you’re a coward, then we both are.”

Ilya doesn’t respond, instead turning those words over in his head. He has to be not understanding something, because he can only come up with one possible meaning and there’s no way it’s correct.

Shane grabs his shoulder suddenly, then frowns in apparent contemplation. “Okay, I need your help,” he says. “Um, can you like… put your hands on my hips? And like, just kind of hold me upright?”

“What,” Ilya says, although he obliges.

“I’m trying to straddle you,” Shane says, experimentally lifting one of his knees onto the sofa. “It’s a lot harder to do with one arm than you’d expect. Balance or something, I don’t know. But I need to be kissing you now, so.”

“Oh my god, Hollander, you are ridiculous,” Ilya says automatically, even as his heart starts pounding in his chest.

“Shut up!” Shane leans harder onto Ilya’s shoulder and manages to get his other knee up, Ilya sliding one hand around to his back to keep him from toppling over as he wiggles into place. He actually feels like crying when his fingers slip under Shane’s shirt and touch his skin. “There, see?” Shane says triumphantly, and then presses right up against Ilya and crushes their mouths together.

There are a lot of questions Ilya should probably be asking, like are you saying what I think you’re saying?, but up until about five minutes ago he’d been completely sure that he would never get to kiss Shane again, so he can’t bring himself to do anything but hold Shane tightly against his body and kiss him back.

After far too little time, Shane pulls away to breathe — from the great gasping breaths, he must have damaged more than Ilya was aware of when he got hit. As much as Ilya wants to just start kissing every other centimetre of Shane’s body, he should probably take the opportunity to get some clarification. Unfortunately, that prospect is terrifying. Fortunately, Shane beats him to the punch.

“It kind of terrifies me how in love with you I am,” he says in a rush. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I freaked out, again, and I’m sorry I let you leave that hospital room without just fucking telling you. I’m sorry I let you think that your plan was a good idea. I’m scared, but that would never be worth losing you. And it’s not worth what you’ve been putting yourself through, either.”

Ilya closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, Shane is still close enough to kiss.

“Then what do we do?” he asks.

Shane shrugs. “I don’t know. We figure it out together.”

That sounds too good to be true, but everything that’s happened since he arrived in Ottawa has. “The rumours might not go away,” Ilya says. “I probably made it even worse already by not defending myself.”

“Not defending yourself?” Shane’s mouth twitches at the corners. “You called me Mr. Montreal Perfect Golden Boy and said it’s a tragedy I’m straight.”

“Wow, Dubek really filled you in. Svoloch'.”

“Yeah, you kind of made a bit of a scene,” Shane says, but he’s still smiling. He’s still straddling Ilya’s lap. He’s not angry. He doesn’t hate Ilya. He’s in love with him. “It’s okay. I promise. We’re gonna figure it out.”

Shane kisses him again, and Ilya lets himself believe it.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you all so much for reading! We've been absolutely blown away by the response to this. <3 Stay tuned for Part 2 of the series (Shane POV!) which will be up probably... early next week? And let us know if there's anything else you'd like to see :)