Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Minor David Hollander, Minor Hayden Pike, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, POV Alternating, Shane Hollander's concussion, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Coming Out, Sentinal Ilya Rozanov, Guide Shane Hollander, Implied/Referenced Suicide, (Irina baby)

Language:

English

Collections:

Fandom Trumps Hate 2026

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-16 Completed: 2026-08-22 Words: 12,765 Chapters: 3/3

like a time bomb in a storm

Summary

When Ilya set his blades on the freshly surfaced sheet of the Bell Centre at the feet of mostly empty seats, he could breathe for the first time in what felt like weeks. Everything still seemed louder than it had been before he’d been called back to Moscow, but it fell away with the familiar motions. The equally familiar smell of well-used hockey equipment, the reassuring tightness of his gear – forget breathing; Ilya felt like he was waking up from a nightmare.

It was bliss.

And then the second period started and the nightmare came crashing back down.

---

Following his father’s funeral, Ilya’s senses go haywire and his longing for Hollander intensifies. But Ilya has a career to think of, which has no space for any of that. Unfortunately, fate has other ideas for him …

Notes

First off, thank you so much to Emma for supporting Fandom Trumps Hate! This was a blast to create, and I hope you also enjoy reading it!

Second, huge thanks to DiabolicalWorldwriter for the beta, and to met, Kari, and vex for cheering me on 💛

Thirdly: title from Bad Things by Cailin Russo :D

Lastly, this story diverges from canon after Shane’s concussion in Ep 5. I don’t think you need any knowledge of Sentinel/Guides to enjoy this story.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

Chapters will be posted over the course of the next week! (probably Wednesday/Saturday)

“Are you alright?” Concern coloured Sveta’s tone as she reached for Ilya.

Her touch, usually a comfort, rang through Ilya’s body like a bell. He flinched back, which only furrowed her brow further.

“Why would I not be?”

“Ilyusha.” She telegraphed her movement this time, so Ilya managed to brace himself. Even through the layers of his shirt, the contact burned.

“I’m fine,” Ilya ground out. He was. Had to be.

He didn’t know what had come over him. Maybe it was the excitement of the day, or the altercation with his brother. If he hadn’t left the bottle of vodka stashed in his apartment, full, he would have put it down to being hungover, how the world was too bright and too loud and he could feel every point where his shirt met skin, prickling and caught at the forefront of his mind.

It probably was all the emotions.

With some effort, he smiled at Sveta. “Do not worry your pretty head, Svetuchka,” he said quietly, barely above a whisper. It was still nearly unbearably loud in the deserted house, a bullet of tenderness in the oppressive silence.

“I always worry about you.”

“We need to remedy that,” Ilya said decisively, ignoring how his own voice rang in his ears. There really was only one course of action: said bottle of vodka stashed in his apartment; too good to get blackout drunk on, but then – life was short. If not now, then when would they use it?

“You can try,” Sveta said, and he flashed her a mirthless grin as he called a cab. Out of everyone, Sveta’s worry tended to chafe the least.

“You are still in Moscow?”

“And you are reading,” Ilya said, voice tinny through the speaker.

Shane self-consciously reached for his glasses even as he rolled his eyes.

“No, no – leave them on.” There was a hoarse quality to the words, more than could be put down to the cross-Atlantic connection. Then again, it wasn’t like Shane had a ton of experience with those types of calls. Maybe it was normal.

Shane scratched his collarbone. Pushed his glasses up a little. Shook his head to settle them more comfortably again. On the other side of the video call, Ilya was picking at something off-screen. “You didn’t answer. You are still in Moscow?”

Ilya huffed and raised his eyebrows at him. “Sorry, I thought we were stating obvious things,” he said glibly. Shane couldn’t help but smile.

“I don’t know, maybe you have more, uh, thoroughly decorated flats hiding around?”

Ilya gasped. “I am not the one with landlord fetish.” Ilya was wrong, of course, but even so it would be him who’d have the fetish, Shane was pretty sure. He didn’t say that out loud. “Only this one, terrible apartment. So yes, I am still in Moscow. There are… things. I have put most things in order, but…” Ilya sighed. “She does not want to let me go quite yet, this beautiful, tragic city. But soon.”

“You’ll be back in time for our game?” Shane didn’t know what he’d do if Ilya wasn’t. Pine, maybe.

“Is six days,” Ilya said dismissively before sobering. “Yes. I will be there. I would not miss it.”

“Good.”

They lapsed into silence. It had been barely twenty-four hours since their last call, and Shane wasn’t entirely sure what people usually talked about during phone calls. Mostly, his phone rang when a teammate needed someone to pick him up, or his mother was checking in, or a teammate was trying to wheedle him into going out with them. And now, apparently, Ilya.

“You have hockey game tomorrow,” Ilya said suddenly.

“Yes, against Miami.” It was their final match of the season; a home game for the Metros that mattered little except in terms of obtaining a series sweep. At least it was at home. The thought of getting on a plane itched under Shane’s skin, which was probably a sign that he should wind down and try to sleep.

“Tell me about them. What have I missed? How terrible have they been?”

Shane smiled, pushed his glasses up his nose, and talked until his voice was hoarse, too. The itching under his skin didn’t quite subside, but it lessened, and he was still smiling as he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

As promised, Ilya was back in the line-up for the game against Montreal. It was his first one back, which was more of a coincidence; he’d meant to be back a few days ago. However, wrapping up the trust fund for his niece had taken a couple days longer than he’d hoped for, but it was all squared away now.

And now, Ilya was back on North American soil, back in his favourite game-day suit, back and ready to beat Hollander. And then –

The knowledge of what he had to do settled oddly under his skin. Or maybe it was that his skin didn’t quite fit the man he’d become this year. The man who cried with Hollander in his lap. The man who sat at his father’s funeral dinner and yet couldn’t stop his fingers from itching for Hollander. The man who was surrounded by friends and yet restless, aching for something – someone – else.

It couldn’t continue. Ilya had worked too long – had worked too hard, had given too much – to let himself be chained down again now.

The crisp air of the rink during their earlier practice had been like coming home; the bowels of both the practice facility and the arena familiar in their staleness. Decades of post-exertion sweat had seeped into the walls, and yet their smell was less offensive, less overwhelming than his father’s funeral. There was something wrong with Ilya, but it was probably the same thing that was wrong with most hockey players. No sane person would dedicate his life to being on the ice.

But he had, and when he set his blades on the freshly surfaced sheet of the Bell Centre at the feet of mostly empty seats, he could breathe for the first time in what felt like weeks.

Everything still seemed louder than it had been before he’d been called back to Moscow, but it fell away with the familiar motions. The equally familiar smell of well-used hockey equipment, the reassuring tightness of his gear – forget breathing; Ilya felt like he was waking up from a nightmare.

It was bliss.

And then the second period started and the nightmare came crashing back down.

Hollander won the opening draw, taking off with the puck and streaking through the neutral zone, Ilya hot on his heels and Marly at his wing. Ilya’s legs burned as he pushed himself faster while Marly cut across, and Hollander was looking for an open lane, a play that they’d seen a million times on tape and in replays and in games like this. Except Pike was just a little further back than he usually was, on Ilya’s other side, which meant Hollander would slow down; allow him to catch up.

Only, Hollander didn’t slow down. Instead, he grimaced, and gave himself another sudden burst of speed.

Right into Marly’s path.

It happened in slow motion. One moment, Hollander started to pivot; the next, he threw himself forward. Marly, ready to clip Hollander and spin him off-course, caught him fully. The impact was loud even thirty feet away: the rasp of jersey on jersey, the crisp crack of someone’s helmet.

Something primal surged through Ilya, propelling him forward. He wasn’t thinking. All he could see was Hollander, crumpling onto the ice mid-movement and sliding towards the boards.

He didn’t even try to catch himself.

He possibly wasn’t awake to catch himself.

Time fragmented.

Ilya gliding forward, even as time seemed to stop fully. Hollander, on the ice. Crumpled. Unmoving. He was limp now, sprawled there like on a sickbed. The image in front of Ilya’s eyes seemed to waver, overlaid with a half-dimmed room, bedding covered in flowery motifs, and a single, dangling hand, right there at the edge.

Bile crept up Ilya’s throat.

He swallowed, swallowed again, and blinked several times in rapid succession until the view in front of him faded back into just Shane, on the ice. Groaning, now, and moving. Christ. At least he was moving.

The relief swept through Ilya like a tidal wave, turning everything staticky as the arena around him exploded into movement: a commotion to the side that he was ignoring but the refs weren’t, medical personnel swarming onto the ice, and one of the linesmen, pushing him back, telling him something inconsequential because everything was inconsequential while Shane was lying there, one hand groping around on the ice like he was looking for something.

In the end, they stretchered Hollander off. Everyone, including Ilya and his teammates, were tapping their sticks on the ice while the arena cheered for their injured captain, creating a cacophony that hurt.

The image remained burned into Ilya’s retinas. The crumpled form. The gut-wrenching nausea of the overlaid memory. The impossible chasm between Ilya and Shane, rendering him impotent.

Ilya should have never let that happen.

The thought came out of nowhere, fully formed. He skated back to the bench with the crowd roaring in his ears and his gear almost suffocatingly tight and the sharp smell of something metallic in the air though the ice had remained pristine. None of it mattered in the face of that realisation. Failure gaped like an abyss in his chest, even though Ilya rationally knew there hadn’t been anything he could have done.

But there should have been.

Coach was saying something. Ilya nodded automatically. Someone pushed him. He climbed back onto the bench. The arena was loud enough it was giving him a headache, though he couldn’t grasp a single thing. His head was still filled with that one, echoing thought. I should never have let this happen. In his ears, his blood was a deafening roar, as though it was drying to drown out the other sounds.

They resurfaced the ice where Hollander had taken the spill. The TV timeout ended. Ilya was tapped to go back out. His eyes couldn’t quite focus, but he equally couldn’t make his tongue form the words to refuse. He’d played through worse.

He went back out.

When he nearly collided with the Metro’s Brian Marner and promptly lost his edge in the corner, he got a brief, terrifying surge of relief, before his legs hit the boards and his entire world exploded into pain.

Ilya.

Ilya.

Ilya.

“Ilya,” Shane said, but it came out garbled. His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth, leaden beyond the last vestiges of sleep clinging to him. The name still beat through his entire body to the tune of his heart – Ilya Ilya Ilya – and it was urging him on. Urging him to go and find. He rolled out of bed –

And hissed in confusion when something tugged on his chest and his hand.

Immediately, a weight landed on his shoulder, pushing him back into the bed. No, not a weight: a hand. “Shhh,” a familiar voice said, and Shane relaxed on instinct. His mother was here. His mother was here, and things would be fine, except –

“Ilya,” he said again, “where–”

“Shh,” his mother said again, her hand travelling from his shoulder over his neck to his face, pushing his hair away. It calmed Shane’s body, but that only made his mind race faster, because he needed Ilya and he was – tethered. Stuck. Chained.

“Need – go.”

“You have a catheter, darling,” his mother said kindly, which wasn’t at all what he’d been getting at. Shane made a noise, and then coughed from how dry his mouth and throat were.

“I think he might need something to drink, Mrs. Hollander,” another familiar voice said, though it took Shane a moment longer to place it.

“I’ve told you to call me Yuna, Hayden,” his mother said. Right. Hayd. Who wasn’t Ilya.

Shane opened his mouth again, but before he could get the name out, something hard pushed against his lip. His mouth closed around it on autopilot: a straw, and his body took over while his mind still grappled with how this still wasn’t Ilya.

The water was a blessing; was salvation. One tiny sip turned into gulps, faster than his body could keep up with, but he didn’t care. He was parched, had been parched for months, and not even the water dribbling down his chin registered.

“Shhh,” his mother said again.

“Shhhhane,” Shane completed when the straw slipped from his lips, and then smiled. It had come out like a word, which meant – “Ilya?”

“Ilya?” his mother repeated, incredulous.

“Ilya!”

When no one said anything, Shane’s blood picked the name up again. It pulsed within him, growing stronger and stronger.

It occurred to him that Ilya might be in the room and he didn’t know, because sometimes, Ilya could be quiet. Like right after sex. While Shane was counting heartbeats that he could lie there with Ilya, Ilya never said anything. Had they had sex? It would explain why his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. It didn’t explain why his mother and Hayd were there.

“What are you talking about?” his mother asked gently, just as Shane pried his eyes open. His vision swam, but even so he could tell that there were only two people in the room. It took him a moment, but he concluded that the two people were Hayden and his mother. It made sense.

The room was strange – glaringly white despite the dimmed lights, enough that Shane’s head hurt. Oh. He had a head. For a moment, he’d forgotten. Something was wrong, he realised dimly, but it didn’t matter, because neither his mother nor Hayden were Ilya. And he needed –

He tried again to get out of bed. Again, his mother stopped him. “You have a concussion, Shane. You need to stay calm, okay?”

Awesome. He had a concussion, which might be great, but it wasn’t Ilya. He’d much rather have Ilya. “Where is he?”

“Who?” his mother asked.

“‘lya,” Shane slurred. “Ilya.”

“Rozanov?” Hayden cut in from the chair he was sitting in.

Shane nearly cried in relief. Finally, someone who understood him. He made an affirmative sound.

For a long moment, silence reigned.

“What?” Hayden asked.

Shane grunted. His question wasn’t that complicated. “Where?” he repeated.

More silence. Just as Shane got impatient, his mother squeezed his shoulder. The touch felt odd, like the shoulder didn’t quite belong to Shane. “Probably somewhere here. After he was, y’know. Injured. In the game.”

Right. They’d been playing a game, and Shane… he’d been on the ice. Now he wasn’t. For the first time since his body had woken him up with Ilya’s name in his blood, a tendril of disquiet crept into Shane’s awareness.

“First shift after… Marleau hit you,” his mother said.

“It must have rattled him,” Hayden said, and there was something in his voice that Shane couldn’t parse and didn’t care to, either.

Because Ilya was injured. Injured meant hurt, which meant –

Ice cold clarity settled into Shane’s bones. “I need to get to him.”

“You need to stay in this bed and recover. You have a concussion, honey.”

“No, I – take me to him, please, I have to – he – I can’t – mom –”

There’d been a steady background beeping in his room that suddenly increased in intensity, and Ilya’s name pounded through his veins faster with it, and faster still, like they were racing.

“Shane –”

There was the clack of a door, and Shane made one more attempt to use the path to freedom – to Ilya – except his body wouldn’t cooperate. “He needs me,” he wailed, and he knew it was true the moment the words left his lips. “I have to – I can’t – mom, no –” He was screaming the last word, and he meant to say more, but someone else grabbed his arm.

There was a brief, piercing pain, and then nothing at all.

It was Hayden who broke the silence. “He didn’t know Rozanov was in the hospital.” Statement, not a question.

“Yes?” Yuna ventured when it became clear Hayden would not go on. His brow was furrowed, his gaze trained on Shane. At her question, he met her eyes.

“He couldn’t have known. Why… why would he be so concerned with where Rozanov was, then?”

That pulled Yuna up short. She glanced back at her son, lying so still and pale on the bed. The medical personnel who’d answered their call for help when Shane had started freaking out had cleared out again, and their intervention left Shane looking almost peaceful. Still, there was a crease on his forehead, like even in sedation, he worried.

It hadn’t been there when he’d first woken up.

“I don’t know,” Yuna finally admitted. She sighed. She missed her husband with his quiet, solid presence fiercely in that moment. He’d had a work function tonight, and she’d decided to watch the game from Montreal spur of the moment. A lucky coincidence on her part, but it meant she was here all alone while he was in the car, driving down here.

At least she was here.

“I just don’t–”

There was a blood-curdling scream outside, cutting off her trite words. Hayden blanched, biting his lip. On the bed, Shane shifted suddenly and whimpered in his sleep.

Another scream, and then the din of more voices. The words were indistinct, but the tone carried: harried and stressed, and it seemed to jump over to Shane. He shifted again, restlessly, his hands clenching on the bedding. Sounds began falling from his lips that made Yuna’s heart clench.

It was none of her business what was going on out there, but…

She looked at Hayden. Their eyes met, before Hayden’s gaze flickered to the door, to Shane, and then back to her. She didn’t know what was worse: the screams outside, or the pained little whimpers her own son made?

Resolutely, she turned around. “I’ll see if I can find a nurse.” And what this is all about, she left unsaid, though Hayden must surely understand. After all, there was a perfectly serviceable button to call for help at Shane’s bedside. “You have my phone number, so if anything happens –”

“I’ll fetch you immediately,” Hayden cut in, moving to take her place by Shane’s bedside. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” Yuna said, and left the room with one last lingering look at her son.

The room Shane was in was in a private part of the hospital, and it was usually very quiet. Now, it most certainly wasn’t. There was still screaming, and other voices shouting over it, which wasn’t at all like the usual ambience in Montreal General. At least it was easy to follow.

She rounded a bend, and nearly ran into a nurse. Yuna stopped abruptly.

“Ma’am, you cannot –” the nurse started.

“I was looking for a nurse,” Yuna said, though her attention was on the scene behind the nurse.

“I can’t –” the nurse said again, though Yuna stopped paying attention to her words to focus on the shouting a few feet away.

“Just get him –”

“He won’t –”

In the midst of the cluster of medical personnel ahead, someone was attempting to lurch out of the hospital bed. From the looks of it, they’d been on their way into the room when the patient had started screaming.

Yuna took a step forward despite herself.

Ahead, the patient succeeded in pitching himself out of the bed. It took Yuna a split-second to recognise him, just before a woman in the white scrubs of a doctor lurched forward.

“Mr. Rozanov – please just –”

“Ma’am, I really need you to turn around,” the nurse in front of Yuna said. “Someone will be with you shortly –”

Yuna’s attention snapped back to the woman. “No, you see,” she said, a ludicrous plan forming in her mind. “I was looking for a nurse because my son is down that hallway” – she nodded in the direction of Shane’s private room, which incidentally was the same direction Rozanov had pitched himself towards – “with a concussion, insisting that he needs to see Mr. Rozanov. The sedation he was given barely fifteen minutes ago wasn’t enough once Mr. Rozanov started screaming.”

It didn’t make sense, but her gut said it would work, and she hadn’t gotten this far without trusting her instincts. Even if it seemed impossible that her son and Rozanov – Rozanov! – would be close enough for something like this to happen.

The nurse’s nostrils flared. Behind her, Rozanov made another inhuman sound, trying to crawl towards the two of them.

The nurse glanced behind herself and then swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

And we move on with the whump! I hope you enjoy this!

Shane swam into full consciousness slowly. It was an almost gentle process, marred only by the vice around his head.

He groaned and shifted a little, the rustle of fabric startlingly loud over the rhythmic beeping that might or might not be just in his head.

Where was he?

There was something hard at his back, unyielding; his pillow was strangely lumpy and hard in places, but rather different from whatever was at his back. His nose was buried against something smooth and warm, filling his nose with a strange mixture his sluggish mind could not detangle.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a familiar voice said softly, and with monumental effort, Shane managed to pry his eyes open.

Stabbing pain greeted him, and so he squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to breathe through the pounding in his head.

After a moment, he tried again, just opening his eyes the tiniest amount. Right. He was in a hospital room, curled around a body pillow, odd as that was.

“What –” he croaked through a throat dry as desert.

“Yeah,” the same familiar voice said behind him, and with some effort, Shane managed to twist around in his strangely constricting bed. Something in his chest unclenched. Even through his wavering vision, it was unmistakably Hayden standing at his bedside. “You took a pretty nasty hit – concussion, they said. Your mom’s just downstairs, picking up your dad. You scared them.” Hayden huffed a little and ran a hand through his hair. “Scared all of us,” he added, so softly that Shane wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to hear.

Hayden’s gaze moved from Shane to a point behind him. Between the dark, the pounding headache – fucking concussions – and the general sluggish thoughts, Shane could not parse his expression for the life of him. One thing was certain: it wasn’t Hayden’s usual expression.

With another groan, Shane twisted around to see what Hayden was looking at – and choked on his next inhale.

Behind him, what he’d first believed a body pillow, was a figure Shane would recognise anywhere. Even now, lying still and pale in a nearly dark hospital room, Ilya Rozanov was impossible to mistake.

Except – he wasn’t just lying in a nearly dark hospital room. He was lying in Shane’s hospital room, it seemed, and in Shane’s bed no less, and Hayden was still just standing there.

Shane very slowly turned back around to face his best friend. The expression on his face was still indecipherable, but his tone was wry when he met Shane’s gaze and just said, “Yeah.”

“What –”

Hayden exhaled. “I don’t know, man. I have no fucking clue, except that both you and Rozanov were – fucking inconsolable until your mom got you both into the same room.” With a snort, Hayden ran his hand through his hair again. It was a nervous gesture even Shane could recognise, and considering that Shane was lying in a hospital bed with Ilya – well. He couldn’t fault Hayden.

“I –” I’m sorry, Shane tried to say, but he was cut off by a coughing fit as the words got stuck in his parched throat.

“Shit,” Hayden cursed, and leapt for what turned out to be a sippy cup on the bedside table besides Shane, straw and all. He had to help Shane drink even so, which was terribly undignified, but considering it got blessed water into Shane’s body, Shane couldn’t really complain. There was the faint sense of deja vu trailing alongside it, though Shane couldn’t place it.

“Thanks,” he said when Hayden removed the cup again, and then, “I’m sorry.”

Hayden snorted. “Don’t be. Like – it’s – what the fuck, but also – you didn’t hear Rozanov scream.” His face darkened. “Just. Be fucking glad you didn’t hear him scream.”

Shane swallowed and craned his head to look behind him again. Even in sleep, Ilya’s face was hard, one hand curled into the duvet. At the end of the bed, Ilya’s leg was elevated, which was probably the source of the pain. Distantly, like a long-buried memory, the echo of Ilya Ilya Ilya filtered into his mind. “What happened?”

“Broke his ankle.” Another snort from Hayden. “Literally – they wheeled you off the ice, resurfaced it, and next shift – boom.”

“A hit?”

“Not even. Almost. Marns’s stick got tangled in his skates and… lost his edge, I guess.”

Shit.

Shane’s head was still pounding, and it was all he could do to close his eyes and lie back down.

“And now?”

“Don’t ask me, your mom’s been making all the arrangements – but from what I understood, Rozanov’s getting surgery tomorrow, and, well. Since they can’t seem to separate you two for some weird-ass reason –”

Shane winced as Hayden’s voice climbed.

“– shit, sorry,” Hayden whispered, “anyway, since you both start screaming if you’re separated… well.” A soft snort. “Seems like you’ll be here ‘til then, too. And I think your parents will be taking both of you home.”

The words were definitely English, Shane knew, but they refused to quite resolve into meaning. He made a vague sound that hopefully conveyed agreement or whatever was appropriate.

Quiet reigned, cut through only by the steady beeping of what had to be a heart rate monitor.

“Jackie was here earlier,” Hayden said after a while. “She sends her love.”

Shane meant to ask how long he’d been here – how long he’d been out, if anyone else had seen him compromised by Ilya Rozanov. But sleep clung heavily to his already-sluggish thoughts, and before he could open his mouth to formulate the words, he felt himself slip off again.

The world was a haze of pain. It originated from somewhere in Ilya’s chest, an insistent ache that made him detachedly worry about his heart. It only eased whenever Shane was touching him, which was apparently something they now did outside the privacy of hotel rooms and their homes.

If Ilya were able to think through the fog in his brain, he might be able to muster more emotion than vague curiosity and a dim sensation like he should be feeling more.

There were other aches: his ankle throbbed with every breath, and his shoulder hurt in ways that were familiar, and his hip protested as it always did when he didn’t stretch properly after the game. They were all muted, though, which made sense; this wasn’t Ilya’s first rodeo in the hospital, and he was pretty sure at least some of the brain fog spoke of strong painkillers.

He hated the strong painkillers.

Especially when they couldn’t even do their job right and kill all the pain.

He dug the fingers of his free hand into the spot beneath his clavicle. It wasn’t quite where the pain was centred, but it gave him the illusion that it was something normal. Something he could fix with a massage and maybe a stretch; something that was due to the person curled around the arm not hooked up to an IV.

Next to him, Shane shifted and then nuzzled closer. He hadn’t left Ilya alone for so much as a minute ever since Ilya had woken up to the two of them in the same hospital bed, which had felt strange right up until Shane had been persuaded to actually use the bathroom on his own.

Then, the pain in Ilya’s chest had bloomed like a heart attack, a vice around his chest that would have left him throwing up had there been anything in his stomach that could have come up.

Suffice it to say, they hadn’t tried anything similar since.

Ilya pressed harder into the muscle. It didn’t feel quite real thanks to the painkillers, but then, nothing else did, either. Probably, someone had explained it to him. Or tried to. But facts didn’t really want to stick in Ilya’s brain, which was possibly also due to the painkillers or just due to him, and so all he knew was that Shane was there, and that Shane being there made the pain bearable.

“Oh,” a new voice said, “You’re awake! Let me get the doctor –”

Ilya considered opening his eyes, but it seemed like a waste in the bland hotel room. He hummed instead, which got Shane to make a noise that Ilya felt something about but couldn’t put words to. Vague annoyance at the damned painkillers crept in, but it faded quickly.

It seemed like his being awake was the cue for a lot of bustle to start, but it was hard to care.

The only important thing, after all, was Shane’s presence, and that remained with him through it all. Everything else just could not matter in the face of that, and so Ilya just let himself be swept along.

The surgery to repair Ilya’s ankle was only the first step in his recovery: six to eight weeks in total, with physical therapy and all kinds of medications and a more detailed plan to follow.

All of which Shane knew because short of full anaesthesia, he and Ilya could not be apart for so much as a consult without Ilya going nearly out of his mind that first day. They’d tried. Once. No one was keen on a repeat. And the full anaesthesia was hardly effective in informing Ilya of his medical status.

It might have been a blessing in disguise anyway. The doctors spoke English full of medical jargon, and while Ilya was probably more familiar with that than many colloquial terms, he was also white-faced and tense with pain throughout it all. He was quiet, too, which made an itch of a different kind settle under Shane’s skin. It was like he wasn’t quite there.

Ilya didn’t even flinch when Shane grabbed his hand as the doctors told them about intensive surgery and reconstruction of the torn ligaments and shattered bones. In turn, Shane didn’t complain when Ilya’s grip turned almost painfully tight the longer the meeting went on. They’d outlined the procedure and preparations, telling them that they were treating this as a suspected emergency guide bond, whatever that meant, and left them with the cautious promise that there was a good chance of a full recovery.

Unfortunately, all that knowledge knocked uselessly around Shane’s already bruised brain as he ached to pace his horribly empty hospital room but couldn’t – because of said bruised brain. Ilya had been put under a couple of hours ago, and Shane hadn’t heard anything since. It was an awfully long time already – but then, it was an intricate surgery, so it wasn’t anything to worry about. Probably.

Hopefully.

Shane couldn’t even distract himself with anyone else right then, because Hayden had gone home to Jackie and his mom was currently at the cafeteria and his dad already back in Ottawa, because there was nothing here he could do. And Ilya, obviously, was in surgery.

A temporary respite came in the form of a nurse, who helped Shane shower; the indignity of having to be supervised to make sure he didn’t crack his head open anew at least was a distraction from his primal worry over Ilya. And then he was alone again until his mom came back and tried to distract him, to no avail.

Ilya was wheeled back into the room an eternity later with his ankle in a brace and elevated. He was pale in his hospital scrubs, but he was awake. Well – his eyes were open, pupils blown, a dopey grin on his face. Alive.

“Ssssshane,” Ilya said, drawing out the sh. It was the best sound Shane had heard all day.

Shane nearly yanked his IV out of his arm in his haste to get to Ilya, stopped only by a disapproving sound from a nurse. Whatever. The IV probably wasn’t actually needed anyway, and Ilya was so close and yet out of Shane’s reach.

“There we go,” the nurse said as he slid Ilya’s bed next to Shane’s, which wasn’t as close as sharing the bed had been but seemed somewhat more dignified – not that Shane really cared about it. “The doctor will be by shortly. Until then, ring the button if you need something.” He gave Shane a short rundown what was to be expected while Ilya was shaking the remnants of anaesthesia, but Shane found it hard to concentrate on that.

Ilya was there. Ilya was real, his wrist warm under Shane’s fingers when he reached over, and finally, finally, something settled inside Shane.

“I’ll leave you two to your own devices,” the nurse said wryly, and Shane managed to smile at him before his attention turned back to Ilya. Who was with him. And Safe. And definitely drugged to the gills, but that just meant he probably wouldn’t call Shane on the way he couldn’t tear his eyes away from him.

No more separation from now on.

Shane seemed to be glued to Ilya’s side.

He was there when Ilya woke up from surgery, the good painkillers still coursing through his body and leaving him pain-free but also with a loose grasp on reality. A dream, Ilya thought, just like the hazy memories he had of the previous day, which were washed out with pain.

Except Shane was still there when Ilya woke up with his mind clear beyond his throbbing ankle, curled into Ilya’s side. Ilya shifted so he could steal a better look at him – hair all askew, with dark rings under his eyes and a nasty tinge of purple-green on his cheek and at his temple, where he must have been hit by Marly and the ice respectively – and promptly couldn’t suppress a pained sound when that jostled his ankle.

“Ah, Mr Rozanov,” Shane’s mom said, and it was a testament to the all-consuming nature of the pain that Ilya couldn’t even manage a flinch at her sudden appearance at Shane’s side. “Should I call the nurse?”

The vague, floaty memories of the previous day flashed through Ilya’s mind, and he shook his head. “No, is fine,” he rasped. He coughed. “Really.”

Mrs. Hollander inclined her head and reached for something besides Shane, which turned out to be some sort of cup. Ilya accepted it gratefully. It was equipped with a straw, which at least meant Ilya didn’t have to embarrass himself further by requiring more assistance.

Mrs. Hollander watched him. The silence stretched, until Ilya could no longer hold back the one question knocking around his head. “Why are you here?” He meant both of them; Shane in his bed and Mrs. Hollander across from him, though one probably had to do with the other anyway.

“You took a spill on the ice,” Mrs. Hollander said matter-of-factly, like this was news to Ilya. “And ever since, separating you two has caused… both of you some considerable distress.”

Distress was not a word Ilya was too familiar with, but considering Shane was attached to him like a limpet and Mrs. Hollander was not batting an eyelash at her son cuddling with his rival, he could infer its meaning well enough.

“That does not happen.”

“And yet, we have empirical evidence it does.”

Empirical was another such word, but it didn’t seem worth the hassle to ask in his current state when again, the meaning was clear enough. So he and Shane currently could not be separated. Had the news broken already? Had the headlines already smashed any hopes of privacy they might have had? He could well imagine the clickbait it would make, except it wasn’t clickbait but real. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov sleeping together.

Ilya closed his eyes again and let himself sink back into the pillows. Whatever they had him on must have been decent stuff after all; as long as he didn’t move, the pain in his ankle was almost bearable. His skin, too, felt calm with none of the itchy feeling he could remember from before, even though it might as well have been a lifetime ago.

It probably was rude to let the conversation lapse there, but Ilya didn’t know what else to say. And he’d just woken up, but Shane was a warm, heavy weight against his side, distracting him from the pain, and he didn’t know what to think anyway.

Without any conscious choice at all, Ilya let himself slip back into blissful unconsciousness.

When they were finally discharged, it felt like both the strangest and most natural thing in the world to follow his mom out of the hospital with Ilya by his side, hobbling on crutches.

Not the crutches part – Shane couldn’t think too long about what had happened to Ilya’s ankle without something harsh and ugly bubbling up inside him – but the… the proximity. They weren’t touching, but they could have, and all in all it was a very good thing that his dad brought the car around to a side-entrance because they managed to leave without encountering anyone.

Ilya was quiet as he was shuffled into the front seat where he could stretch out his injured leg, just as he’d been quiet while they’d shared the hospital room. Part of it had to be pain; Ilya had vehemently refused anything stronger than prescription-strength Tylenol and Ibuprofen, and even then taken them reluctantly. But that had been the only sign of temper Ilya had given. Not even being informed that he’d be discharged into the Hollanders’ care had elicited much of a response.

Shane didn’t know what to do with that. Not the quiet, and not the fact that Ilya had stopped touching him the moment he could do so without inviting more pain. Shane slipped into the seat behind Ilya: close enough to touch, but not actually doing so. Keeping to himself.

Which had never been a hardship, and suddenly resulted in his leg bouncing without any input from Shane. For good measure, Shane shoved his hands under his thighs before he could forget himself, and then stared straight ahead because even with his dad’s careful driving, concussions and cars were a terrible mixture.

Soon, they would be in Ottawa; soon, they could both focus on recovery.

Shane resolutely did not think about what everyone else would have to say about them doing it together.

Mr Hollander pulled up in front of a very suburban house in the outskirts of Ottawa, including a yard that Ilya eyeballed to be big enough to hold a small rink.

A smile cracked through the numbness that had settled into him in that hospital, and he hesitated for a moment with the door open but still sitting in the passenger seat.

“So this is where you grew up, Hollander.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, even though it wasn’t a question.

“This explains so much.” It really did, even though Ilya couldn’t put it into better words just then. It just fit with what he knew of Shane, this neat and tidy house that wasn’t ostentatiously big like the house Sveta had grown up in in Moscow, nor as cramped as Ilya’s childhood home. It was square and neat, except for a glass cover for the terrace on the side of the house, which was oddly shaped and mounted at an angle. Fitting.

“Fuck off,” Shane said, and there was a blush on his beautifully freckled cheeks when he came into view to hand over Ilya’s stupid crutches.

The house on the inside matched the outside look: a combined kitchen and dining room, with stairs up to the master bedroom and a short hallway leading to Shane’s old room. There was also a downstairs, which Ilya was told held the den and the guest room.

“Considering your crutches and – y’know, I think it would be best if you two bunked in Shane’s old room. Which – I meant to talk –”

“Not now, Mom,” Shane cut in, which Ilya was pathetically grateful for; he was overdue for his next dose of painkillers, but mostly he wanted to lie down and sleep for a million years until his leg was all better again and his head stopped aching and the world stopped spinning. Wasn’t Shane the one who’d gotten the concussion?

“But –”

“Just let them sleep,” Mr Hollander said, voice gentle but firm. “We can always talk later. Over dinner.”

For a moment, Ilya was sure he was about to see a full-blown fight, but then Mrs Hollander relented. “Fine. Mr Rozanov, if you need anything –”

“I’m concussed, Mom, not an invalid.”

“Mr Rozanov is still a guest.”

“Call me Ilya, please,” Ilya found himself saying. It had nothing to do with the non-argument at hand, but he couldn’t stand another instance of being called Mr Rozanov by Shane’s parents. It seemed horribly wrong to be addressed by his father’s name in this house. By his dead father’s name. Not that Grigori Rozanov would ever have been addressed in English, of course, and Ilya would have to get used to it again before too long, but for now…

“Ilya, then.” Mrs Hollander hesitated for a second, and so it was Mr Hollander who added, “We are David and Yuna.”

Ilya spared a glance for Mrs Hollander – Yuna – but he was too tired to figure out if she had a problem with that. “Nice to meet you,” he managed, and then let Shane drag him off in the direction of his room. Their room, now.

Maybe Shane hadn’t been the only one to sustain a concussion. This being a hallucination would explain so much.

It took Yuna three days to finally sit them down for a Serious Talk.

Even concussed, Shane had known it was incoming for a while; there was a certain set to his mom’s mouth, a particular gleam in her eye that preceded her breaking news he didn’t want to hear. In the past, that had been, yes, vegetables are healthy, but Shane, you need protein to get stronger, too or Shane, not everyone sees plays unfold the way you do, so you need to tell them what you want to do.

Now, it was probably either about the career suicide that sharing a hospital bed with Rozanov had been, or how to best spin their joint recuperation as a PR opportunity. Shane wasn’t entirely sure which he dreaded more.

In any case, three days after taking the two of them back to Ottawa, Yuna caught them on their shuffle from Shane’s room to the (darkened) living room, smiled at them, and said, “Boys, if you’re up for it, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Shane looked over at Ilya, unsurprised to find him already looking back. It was a miracle his mother hadn’t brought it up earlier, though in their defence, Ilya and Shane had spent most of those three days asleep. Injury recovery truly was a bitch.

“Chai?” Shane turned back to his mother, who inclined her head with a smile.

“I’ll get the tea. Ilya, is oat milk okay?”

The derogatory reply was visible on Ilya’s lips, but in the end he just shrugged as best as he could with his crutches. “Yes.”

They settled silently in the living room, Ilya on the couch and Shane on one of the arm chairs, fingers drumming restlessly. Even though he’d spent most of the past three days within touching distance of Ilya, the distance between them felt too wide and insurmountable. Or maybe it was because they’d been stuck in such close quarters.

Shane very deliberately rested his hands on the arm rests, and stared straight ahead until his mother arrived with the tea.

“So, are you aware what’s going on?”

Well, that didn’t bode well.

Before Shane could voice his suspicions, though, Ilya piped up, “You are collecting karma by taking in poor Russian orphan?”

Yuna just kept smiling, even as Shane winced. “I don’t believe in karma.”

It was directly at odds with her vicious pleasure whenever some ill fortune befell a sponsor who’d turned down Shane with a flimsy excuse, but Shane didn’t call her on it.

“But I take this as a ‘no’. Well. I believe what you are suffering from – aside from the broken ankle and the concussion – is an emergency bond. Tell me, Ilya; did anything… odd happen in the lead up to the game against Montreal?”

Ilya snorted. “My father died,” he said when it became clear Yuna was waiting for an answer.

Shane instinctively shifted forward, which brought him forward that his ankle touched Ilya’s uninjured one, skin on skin. Something inside him unclenched.

Yuna stilled. “My condolences.”

Ilya snorted again.

“Nothing else? No… sounds being more insistent? Smells, sensations?”

Shane couldn’t help himself but glance over at Ilya. He’d complained, intermittently, that things were too intense since coming to Ottawa, which Shane could rather relate to. It had seemed to be a new thing for Ilya. Certainly, he had made no such comments the last time they’d seen each other. Then again, they’d had other things on their minds.

When Ilya didn’t reply, Yuna turned to Shane. He braced himself for the same question, but what his mother asked instead was, “And you – restlessness? Protective… urges?”

A blush crept its way up Shane’s cheeks at his mother’s choice of words (did she have to use urges?), but his reply was preempted by a huff from Ilya. When does he not? he imagined Ilya saying, though Ilya did not actually do that.

In the end, Shane shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it was… stronger? But…” but Ilya had been suffering. Ilya had been alone in Moscow after his father’s death, thousands of miles away. None of that was anything he could tell his mother, not even now. Their connection had started in the hospital for all anyone knew, and he was sticking to that.

Yuna sighed, and then seemed to give up on them. “Ilya, I believe you had latent Sentinel abilities awaken, and I think your injury caused you to bond to Shane as your Guide.”

Shane blinked. “His what?”

Ilya’s head was still reeling when they finally made it into the living room on their own.

They both dropped down onto the couch, not even pretending they were heading for separate seats.

“What the fuck,” Ilya finally said.

In reply, Shane groaned. He slid down until he was curled up on the couch, his head in Ilya’s lap. His hair was very soft, and Ilya didn’t really want to ever let go again. The crease that seemed to live on Shane’s forehead whenever his eyes were open slowly softened.

“Just – what the fuck.”

“This doesn’t happen,” Shane said tonelessly, even though his mother had just told them the opposite. About Sentinels with their heightened senses and their Guides, made to ground them.

The thought made Ilya’s skin crawl.

Except – this was Hollander. Shane. Even now, he put himself in Ilya’s hands instead of holding Ilya down.

“So, what do your parents know?”

“What?” Shane cracked one eye open.

Ilya shushed him, smoothing the frown with his fingers. “About us.” Yuna had been looking at them when she’d told them about the Sentinel and Guides and emergency bonds, formed when a Sentinel lost control over their senses and needed grounding.

So a latent Sentinel, say, suffering an incredibly painful injury on the ice might come into his gifts (her words, and it had taken all of Ilya’s willpower not to snort out loud at that phrasing) rather suddenly, and latch onto the first Guide available.

It sounded like a perfect explanation.

Unfortunately, the wrongness of the world after Shane had been wheeled off the ice was crystal clear in Ilya’s memory, and his injury and subsequent hospital visit had not erased the gaping abyss of failure at having let Shane get injured.

He didn’t share this part with her, and neither did he tell her about Moscow and all the weirdness there.

And yet, Ilya still felt like she maybe knew it hadn’t been an entirely spontaneous thing, this bond between him and Shane.

“Nothing! I didn’t tell them anything!”

“Hm,” Ilya said, and then sighed as he leaned back and adjusted his injured leg. “We should have gone back to your room.”

“We’ve slept all day since we got here,” Shane protested, but he yawned, and Ilya didn’t even pretend they weren’t both about to drop off to sleep again.

At least the pain tended not to follow him there.

Chapter End Notes

Ilya’s injury and recovery timeline have been borrowed from Trevor Zegras’s injury in the first shift of the first game he played post-Jamie Drysdale’s trade bc it was just too good not to reference

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

And that's a wrap! Thank you for following along or, if you're coming upon this once it's already completed, thanks for reading!

PT days were the worst.

The therapist, carefully vetted and professional, showed up twice a week to help Ilya get started on the path to recovery. Perfectly typical, except maybe for the fact that he paid Ilya home visits when Ilya was mostly well enough to walk.

But they had somehow escaped the headlines so far – legal protections for emergency bonds, his mother had said when Shane had mentioned it to her one morning – and so it was easier (and safer) to have the physio do house calls.

Ilya didn’t say anything about that, but Shane could not imagine that it helped the feelings of helplessness. They were cooped up in this house, at least until Ilya was well enough to do the physio exercises without direct supervision.

And then there was the physio itself. They had graduated to being able to stand time in adjacent rooms, and as soon as that had been confirmed, Ilya had kicked Shane out. Maybe it was a blessing; but when the physio left, Ilya was always pale and tense and even more taciturn than usually.

“I am not – not invalid, Hollander,” Ilya hissed today when he left the room he did his physio in and nearly hobbled straight into Shane. When Shane reached out to steady him, he jerked back before taking a deep breath.

“I just –”

Ilya exhaled heavily and then tipped forward, trusting Shane to catch him. It was almost enough to give Shane whiplash. “Sorry.” Ilya turned his face so his lips brushed Shane’s throat and pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin there. “Pain.”

“You’re sure you don’t want –”

“No,” Ilya said curtly, just as he did every time they offered him pain killers. Shane didn’t quite understand it, but at least he’d learned not to fight this battle.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around Ilya and just held him for a moment. They could just do this now, because Shane’s parents had learned quickly that physio days especially went easier when there were less people to witness Ilya’s struggle with his pain and his injured body. And even struggling and crabby with pain and frustration, Ilya still let Shane offer this comfort.

Maybe it was the bond, or maybe shared suffering, but he liked to think that the physical contact eased both their strains. As long as Shane kept his mouth shut, but he’d also learned this pretty quickly.

Against his throat, Ilya stifled a yawn.

“Nap?” Shane suggested, even though neither of them had been up for more than a couple of hours.

“I don’t want to,” Ilya complained, but he disentangled himself from Shane and hobbled the few steps to Shane’s bedroom, where he dropped the crutches and pulled himself into the bed.

Shane crawled in on the other side and slotted himself against Ilya’s side, maximising contact without jeopardising the injured leg. A deep breath left Ilya’s chest. Moments later, Ilya turned and pulled Shane closer.

It was tempting to blame the bond on how natural and easy this felt. But the truth was that this had begun long before Shane had felt the first signs, he was pretty sure. It had begun in Ilya’s mansion in Boston, with tuna melts and easy closeness, which had driven Shane to flee.

They should probably talk about this. But Ilya was either asleep or in pain, and the stretches of time where Shane’s head was entirely clear were still too short, and so… they hadn’t. And yes, they still had time until the next season, but at the rate they were progressing with the distance they were able to endure without Shane getting incredibly anxious and Ilya hurtling towards overstimulation, it would not be enough to get back to any sort of equilibrium that would leave them able to play for their respective team, hundreds of miles apart. Fuck.

“Stop thinking so loud, Hollander,” Ilya murmured against his temple.

Shane cracked a smile even though Ilya couldn’t see it. “I thought you called me Shane.”

“Not when you are thinking so loud.”

“I can’t just stop.”

Ilya sighed. “I would offer to fuck you to sleep,” he said and smothered another yawn against the side of Shane’s head, which was just a little gross, “but I do not think this is good idea right now.”

“Your leg’s that bad?”

Ilya snorted. “I don’t think sex and concussions mix,” he said, which wasn’t an answer but probably wasn’t untrue.

Shane didn’t actually know. He’d never had reason to ask, before this, and even if he’d thought to bring it up at the hospital, doing so with them all knowing that he and Ilya fucking Rozanov couldn’t be separated at the moment seemed like courting disaster of a different kind.

“Fuck you.”

“Not now, we just covered this,” Ilya said, and then shifted so he could look at Shane. He only went a little cross-eyed with it. “Go to sleep, Hollander.”

But he did lean in to kiss Shane, slow and soft the way they hadn’t done before all this, that had started back in Tampa, before this Sentinel and Guide madness had cropped up.

And suddenly, Shane found it very hard indeed to think of anything but Ilya’s mouth on his.

“So, Ilya,” Yuna said, and from the tone alone Ilya knew he would not like the conversation.

For a brief moment, he considered fleeing back to the bedroom, but Shane was on the phone with a friend, and Ilya had a far easier time pretending Shane wasn’t talking to Rose fucking Landry when he wasn’t in the room.

Not that Shane would have minded him there. But it was Rose fucking Landry, and Ilya’s ankle was still bothering him too much to also pretend he didn’t want to tear her apart. Which he had no reason for, really; however, knowing his jealousy was irrational only fuelled his frustration. So. Strategic retreat was out of the question.

He sighed. “Can we at least sit down for this?”

Yuna smiled at him, which made complicated feelings rise up in Ilya’s chest that he did his best to smother under pain. “Sit down, I’ll get you your coffee.”

Three weeks in, and Yuna Hollander knew exactly how Ilya took his coffee in the off-season. The Hollanders had a fancy machine that ground the beans fresh for each cup, which provided momentary respite.

It could only hold off the conversation for so long. Ilya buried himself in his coffee cup, though of course this didn’t deter Yuna.

“How is your ankle progressing?”

So you can use it against me? Ilya swallowed the instinctive words down, and then also discarded the next attempt – Has your son not told you?, because Shane would not betray Ilya’s confidences like that. He took a sip of his coffee. “Slower than I would like,” he finally settled on, which was true and not exactly news.

Yuna huffed a little and smothered something that sounded suspiciously like hockey players in her own cup. Ilya pretended not to hear. “Have you given any thought about next season?”

The sudden change of topic took Ilya a moment to adjust to. Undeniably, she was Shane’s mother; a brief attempt at small talk and then straight to the chase. “It is contract negotiations with Boston.”

“I’m aware. But… I meant both of you. Because I am not a Sentinel-Guide-bond specialist, but I’d wager that that is something that will have an impact on you both. I take it you and Shane have not yet talked about it?”

There was something in her tone that put Ilya on high alert, but the truth was that they had not. “We have not done much talking.”

Yuna’s nostrils flared. Oh. Ilya felt heat rush into his cheeks, even though it was just a mundane statement, even though it was true – he and Shane had mostly napped or lounged in the same room while Ilya dicked around on his phone and Shane listened to audiobooks because screens and physical books were still off-limits to him.

“I see,” Yuna said, which made everything so much worse. “So – you and Shane.”

There it was. Ilya’s heart jumped into his throat even as the rest of him stayed right where it was. “Yes?”

“I expected… this bond to take more adjustment from you two.”

“We are both injured. I think is blessing that we both sleep so much.”

At this, Yuna actually laughed. “I know what Shane is like injured,” she said, almost conspiratorially, “and this is magnitudes better. Usually, he’s insufferable. Now… I actually feel like he is recuperating for once.”

Oh. Ilya hadn’t even thought about that part, even though it sounded so obvious now that Yuna had said it. Shane was strangely docile and even-tempered for an injured hockey player who had lost out on the playoffs.

“Maybe is concussion,” Ilya said when it became clear Yuna was waiting for a reply from him.

Yuna inclined her head. “Maybe.” Her tone suggested she did not at all believe this. “Or maybe…”

Ilya braced himself for the accusation.

“Maybe you two have found you have more in common than you expected?”

Ilya caught his own laugh at the last moment. So close, and yet so far. “We do have much in common.” His voice barely betrayed how much of an understatement that was. “But I think anything else you should ask your son, not me.”

For a moment, Yuna held his gaze. “He would just run away.”

He cannot run, Ilya almost said, but in truth, the same was true for him, and yet neither he nor Shane had brought up this thing that had been simmering between them since they’d left Tampa. As he’d said: they hadn’t really talked yet. And also – he thought of Shane at the bar in Tampa. At the beach. In the hotel room. At centre ice, giving Ilya the code to his front door. “Maybe you underestimate him. He… is very brave.”

Yuna stared at him, a slow smile dawning on her face. Like she was pleasantly surprised by what he had said. Like maybe, he had given something away after all.

But it was nothing but the truth, and Ilya couldn’t bring himself to regret his words.

Your mother suspects something, Ilya had said, and then changed the topic like the fucking asshole that he is.

The words had been knocking around Shane’s head ever since. It probably stood to reason; his mother had always been perceptive, and he and Ilya… they weren’t exactly Something right now, aside from maybe-emergency-bonded Sentinel and Guide, but they also weren’t not Something.

Maybe… maybe Shane should come clean before his mother imagined whatever it was. Well. Not clean-clean, because there was no reason for his mother to know that he and Ilya had been… fuckbuddies? Rivals with benefits? Something for the better part of their careers. But he could tell her he was gay. That he… that he had feelings for Ilya.

Which he should probably tell Ilya before he told his mom. He just needed a plan. For both of those conversations.

And then Scott Hunter went and came out on National Television by snogging his boyfriend after lifting the Cup, and any and all plans Shane might have had went right out the window.

Shane was out of his seat before he knew it, staring at the screen. His mouth was hanging open, but –

Scott Hunter.

Kissing.

A guy.

On National Television.

His gaze snapped to Ilya by his side, who was already looking back – eyes wide, mouth agape.

Are you seeing this? Shane couldn’t even make himself voice the thought. He didn’t need to. He could see it written on Ilya’s face just as plainly before he dragged his gaze back to the TV. On Ilya’s other side, his mother was staring at the TV equally slack-jawed, while David…

Shane’s gaze flickered over to his dad for just a moment, before he tore his gaze away again. His dad wasn’t looking at the TV. He was looking at Shane, at Shane and Ilya, and Shane was pretty sure he should be freaking out about this but there was not room left in his brain for that in the face of Scott Hunter having outed himself live on SportsNet.

There was absolutely no coming back from this.

Even the commentators were at a loss for words, stammering something about historical moments before fading into stunned silence.

In the sudden absence of the white noise a hockey stream provided, Shane became aware of another sound. It was an odd, low whistling sound, and it took him a moment, two, to realise that it was coming from next to him.

When he turned back to Ilya, Ilya was chalk-white, his eyes squeezed shut and his fingers clenched so tightly on his thighs that his knuckles were entirely bloodless. His breath came in short, wheezing gasps, that made Shane terrified to even move.

“Ilya?” Concern was clear in Yuna’s voice as she leaned forward.

Ilya made a noise like he’d been hit, shrinking into himself. Fuck.

Yuna’s eyes snapped to Shane, a silent request wrapped up in the gesture that Shane couldn’t parse. Not when Ilya was next to him, sounding like – like he was dying.

His mother hissed something, too low for Shane to make out but enough for Ilya to squirm away again.

Yuna threw her hands up, fixed her eyes on a point beyond Shane’s shoulder, and jerked her head towards the doorway.

“It’s a Sentinel episode,” David murmured as he passed Shane, muted the TV, and followed Yuna out of the den. “Touch him.”

Oh.

Shane took a hesitant step forward, because it made sense, but it still felt – felt wrong, to move in and touch Ilya. But then Ilya whimpered again. Curled in even tighter.

Well. Could Shane even make it worse at this point?

Nothing for it.

He put his hand on Ilya’s shoulder, braced for a flinch, and when nothing happened, sat back down next to Ilya. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and a moment later he had an armful tightly coiled Russian hockey player, hiding his face in Shane’s neck.

“Hey,” Shane said softly. Ilya burrowed impossibly closer, so Shane started running his mouth with meaningless whatever while his mind whirred and whirred and whirred, unable to focus on anything but an echo of Ilya’s noises.

Christ.

When Shane had been a child, he’d often been inconsolable. He didn’t remember this part, but his mother would bring it up now and again, how troubled a sleeper he’d been, especially when he’d been out and about. Until they’d gotten him a weighted blanket, which had worked magic.

Shane still had the weighted blanket, though these days, he mostly got it out when sleep proved elusive despite his well-worn routine.

The weighted blanket wasn’t here now, but Shane was, and it was Ilya who was… overwhelmed? At least Yuna had made it sound like that was part of the Sentinel… thing.

It took a little manoeuvring since Ilya was clinging to Shane like his life depended on it, but Shane managed to rearrange them so Ilya was on his back on the couch, mostly-healed ankle safely up on the cushions. Shane lowered himself on top of Ilya carefully until he was something like a weighted blanket for Ilya.

Within minutes, Ilya calmed. His breathing evened out and his muscles relaxed, and before long, Ilya moved underneath him with purpose. Not a sexy purpose, of course, but rather like someone coming back to his body after an exhausting overtime.

“Sorry,” Ilya said after a while.

Shane snorted. “For having your Sentinel senses kick in?”

“Is this what this was?” His accent was thick in his voice, thicker even than right after he woke up.

Shane almost shifted to kiss that rough tone out of his mouth, before he realised that really, he probably could.

He did.

Ilya relaxed even further under his lips, sliding his hands up Shane’s back until he could cup his head and pull him in properly.

“Ilya,” Shane complained against his lips.

“Hm?”

“We’re in my parents’ den!”

Ilya stopped for a moment. “But they are not here,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“They could come back any moment! They – they were fucking worried about you, okay? They’ll probably want to check on you.”

“Oh.” Ilya deflated, like the possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. Just for that, Shane kissed him again.

“You scared us.”

“I think,” Ilya said, nosing at Shane’s cheek and his jaw, “I also scared myself. I… it is… ouch again. Here.” He jerked his chin towards his sternum. “Where it hurt when… right after.”

“After the bond?”

“Yes. That.”

“Fuck.”

“Maybe.”

Shane snorted, which turned into a laugh from sheer relief that Ilya was back to himself. Even if he might have set himself back on… what, exactly? Their bond acclimatisation? Their separation? “We… probably should talk about this.”

“About what? That New York won Cup with oldest player alive?”

Shane bit Ilya’s lip in reprimand. This, of course, led to some more kissing. He didn’t know why they hadn’t been doing this ever since coming to Ottawa. “What said player did afterwards, more like. But no, I meant… or, yes, I meant that, but also… this…”

“My episode?” Ilya suggested when Shane couldn’t find a word.

“Yes.”

“Ugh.” Ilya pressed his head into the couch cushion to look at Shane as best as he could in their current position, which wasn’t very conducive to that. “No.”

“No?”

“Not now,” Ilya relented, far easier than Shane had anticipated. “I… am very tired.”

“It certainly looked exhausting.” Even Shane, who hadn’t done more than lie on top of Ilya, felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He didn’t want to imagine how Ilya must be feeling. “But… it’s better now?”

“Is always better while you are touching me,” Ilya said, and it landed just shy of being a joke.

“Then I guess I have to keep hold of this,” Shane said as he levered himself up, careful not to disturb Ilya’s ankle, and pointedly grabbed Ilya’s hand.

Ilya smiled at him. “Maybe you do.”

For a moment, they looked at each other, rather stupid smiles on their faces. Then, Ilya’s expression fell.

“But I… crutches.”

Damn. “Maybe I need to put my hand here then. For safe-keeping.” Shane crouched down to put his hand on the small of Ilya’s back.

Ilya gave him a look that wasn’t quite a smile. “For ‘safe-keeping’, yes.”

“Great,” Shane said.

He waited for Ilya to grab his crutches, snuck his hand under Ilya’s shirt, and did not remove it until they were back in their room.

Unlike his mother, Shane had the decency to not accost Ilya with complicated topics out of the blue.

He did it in the dark of night.

Maybe it said something about how long they’d known each other, or maybe how attuned Ilya was to Shane at the moment, but he could almost hear him think again. And here Ilya had thought that blowing Shane would make him stop thinking so much.

With a sigh, Ilya shifted so he could look at Shane: the divot of his cupid’s bow, the freckles dusted on his cheeks, the dark lashes fluttering when he blinked. The dim light that seeped in from the blinds they hadn’t yet properly shut cast him in stunning grey-scale. A few weeks ago, Ilya probably would have seen barely anything. Maybe there was something to be said for Sentinel senses, when they didn’t attempt to drown Ilya in the world.

“You are thinking very loud again, Hollander.” Ilya reached out to touch his fingertips to the furrows between Shane’s brows. This touch was intense, too, but in a good manner. Like Shane was making his body sing.

Shane wiggled closer to Ilya. “I had a plan,” he said, voice low. “For – when – before I got the concussion. I wanted to ask you – will you come to my cottage with me?”

Ilya blinked. His mind flashed to the clips he’d watched more often than he cared to admit. Weeks ago, the invitation would have shocked him to the core. Now, part of him wanted to resent it. “Do I have a choice?”

“Always,” Shane said instantly, eyes wide even though he probably could barely see Ilya. “Always. Just say the word, and we’ll go – wherever.”

Despite himself, Ilya smiled. “Then I think we should go to your cottage.”

“Really?” The naked wonder in Shane’s voice stole Ilya’s breath. “It’s not just because –”

“Yes, really, Hollander. If dinosaur like Scott Hunter can kiss his boyfriend on live TV, I can –” Ilya’s brain caught up to his mouth and realised the implications. But Shane was staring at him in awe, and so Ilya gathered his courage and continued, “I can come to your remote cottage at some lake in the middle of nowhere.”

“As – my Sentinel? Or –”

“If you say friend, I am biting you,” Ilya threatened.

Shane huffed in amusement but fell obligingly silent. When he smiled, his freckles shifted in a most mesmerising manner.

“I haven’t slept with anyone else,” Shane said, a little out of nowhere.

Ilya’s breath caught.

“Since… a while, I meant. Tampa.” The way Shane said it, combined with his confessions in Tampa, made Ilya think it had been a while longer.

Since he had rung in the new year with a lacklustre one night stand that left him less satisfied and more restless than he’d been before, he was glad for Shane’s hedging. “Me neither.”

“You – wait, you didn’t –”

“No,” Ilya said, “so, I do not understand why we are talking about this when we could also –”

“Talking is important.”

“But we have time,” Ilya reminded Shane. His voice went oddly gentle halfway through, right about when he realised that they really did have time. His ankle was healing, and with this stupid Sentinel business, he had an excellent excuse for not going back to Russia.

For once, they truly did have unprecedented amounts of time just to be the two of them.

Shane seemed to choke on his own breath at the realisation. His eyes were wide, his mouth slack, before he exploded into motion all at once.

If Ilya hadn’t already been lying down, Shane’s sudden lunge would have certainly tackled him into the bed. As it stood, it did knock the breath out of him, but that was alright. Kissing Shane with the promise of time – together, away from his parents, just the two of them – stole his breath anyway.

Shane came out to his parents less than two days after Scott Hunter had come out to the entire world.

In hindsight, no one was truly surprised. But in the moment, Shane still thought he might throw up as he made his way to the living room the next afternoon. His mom was curled up with a book while his dad had the New Yorker spread out in front of him, absentmindedly tapping his pencil against his jaw.

“Mom? Dad?” There was a tremble in Shane’s voice that made him want to curl up and hide, but there was nothing for it. This had to be done. He suddenly wished that Ilya was here with him after all and not a few short steps down the hallway. They’d regained some of their distance fairly quickly, though Ilya’s ‘episode’ had still definitely set them back on their separation.

“Shane, honey.” Yuna put down her book and looked at Shane, with a smile so kind it hurt.

David, too, sat up straight to signify he was paying attention.

Shane swallowed. Christ. He was a grown man. He liked his parents. He knew his parents liked Ilya. With a deep breath, he fixed his sight on a point somewhere next to his mom’s ear. “I just wanted to let you know – I asked Ilya to come to the cottage with me.”

Yuna’s eyebrow went up. Shane’s cottage was sacred – aside from his parents, only Hayden and Jackie as well as JJ had ever been there. To invite Ilya…

“As your… bonded?”

Shane felt his nose wrinkle. “No. As my…” shit. They hadn’t settled on terms. “I’m gay,” Shane blurted out. “I’m sorry, I know –”

“Honey,” Yuna said on an exhale, her face suddenly drawn. She got up and came around the table, and Shane couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the devastation on her face. “Shane, baby – you have nothing to be sorry for. If anything – I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us.”

Shane’s eyes stung, and it was with some curiosity that a detached part of himself noted that he was about to cry. “Mom –”

“Shh,” Yuna said. She pulled Shane in, without hesitation. She was so short, compared to him, and yet it was familiar as anything to fold himself into her. To let himself be held. “I’m sorry we gave you the impression you had to hide this from us.”

There was the scrape of a chair, a heavy tread, and then David’s hand on Shane’s arm. “We’re proud of you, son.”

Shane made a choked sound, but he wasn’t crying. He wasn’t.

Still, it only took a few seconds before another voice joined the fray. “Shane?” Ilya asked form the doorway, hesitant to get closer.

“I’m alright,” Shane said, even though he wasn’t. Except he was, just – it was complicated.

“Oh, come here, Ilya,” Yuna said, twisting so there was a space between her and Shane that could accommodate Ilya. “Since you won’t get rid of us so easily, it seems.”

“I hope not,” Ilya said as he came closer. It was an answer for Yuna, but his eyes were trained on Shane and his voice was fond.

Yuna laughed, a little wetly, and even took it in stride when Ilya stuck close to Shane instead of joining the hug fully. “I’m glad.” Another laugh, tinged with disbelief. “If anyone had told me two months ago I would say this and mean it – but I do mean it. You two – you’re good for each other.”

“That is good, because Shane really is stuck with me now.” The words were humorous, but there was a bitter tinge to them that Shane understood too well.

“And you with me,” he said, because it was true. Bond or not, Ilya had been stuck with him for far longer than these past six weeks.

“I am glad for it,” Ilya echoed, just quietly enough that it was clearly meant for Shane.

Things weren’t yet perfect, of course. They still had to figure out what this bond meant for them, and how to navigate Ilya’s episodes while playing hockey. They had to figure out how to be Ilya-and-Shane, partners or boyfriends or another, less weird term, rather than a nebulous something that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

But at that moment, Shane was far happier than he’d ever imagined he could be, and from Ilya’s little, disbelieving huffs, he got the feeling it was mutual.

I love you.

The realisation came gradually and all at once, and it was all Shane could do not to blurt it out right in front of his parents. But that was something for just the two of them, without an audience. Maybe for an evening spent outside at the lake, or huddled close at the fire pit.

After all, they finally, for once, had time.