Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Ottawa Centaurs - Character, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Roger Crowell

Additional Tags:

Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Hockey Injuries, hypoxia, Hospitalisation, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Shane Hollander's feral revenge spree, Breathplay, both the fun and and unfun kinds, Homophobia, Supportive Ottawa Centaurs (Game Changers), Racism (Implied), Medical Trauma, Face-Fucking, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, Hurt Ilya Rozanov, Trauma, it's brutal but they still get to be soft, Memory Issues, taps roof of this fic: this bad boy can fit so much medical trauma in it, Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Panic Attacks, Light CBT, Cockwarming, Disordered Eating, BAMF Shane Hollander, Freak4Freak Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Inappropriate use of Mr Brightside, Fuck the Montreal Metros, Face Slapping

Language:

English

Collections:

miQ_y's fav fav fics, Heated Rivalry Hospital

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-26 Completed: 2026-05-20 Words: 90,785 Chapters: 12/12

Staring at the Sun

Summary

The first sound Ilya hears is a thin, discordant symphony of beeps and whirs. Something vibrating. 

The next thing he hears is…wet. A sort of shaking, gargling sound, that feels like the ugliest crying he’s ever heard. And through it, Shane’s voice. 

“I’m with him now, mom. He’s— he’s not fine. He’s not. I know—”

Ilya wants to ask who's not fine, but he can’t feel his own body, his mouth, enough to ask.

“Yeah,” Shane is saying, only slightly calmer. “I know. He wasn’t breathing—"

Ilya knows there's a link, between the clinical musicality of medical settings, Shane’s audible, awful distress, and his own physical incapacity. It’s just, it’s so tenuous, and the air around him is so thick, so heavy. It would be easy, to sleep, a little. 

-
Footage of the last game between Ottawa and Montreal is everywhere; it’s breached containment from the sports world, and now it seems like everyone is baying for Montreal’s blood. Except, Ilya is oblivious. Not exactly blissfully so, but as the fight for accountability within the league rages on without him, Ilya just wants someone, anyone, to tell him what happened.

Notes

Homophobia (explicit) and racism (implicit) are their own characters in this story. There’s a yearning for queer joy buried in the narrative, but it comes at the cost of some pretty extensive suffering.

Chapter 1: Oh, my own voice cannot save me now

Right now, Ilya feels fantastic. 

He’s sure he didn’t, a minute ago, or maybe longer than that. He has a vague sense of something very unfantastic having happened, and of a lot of people being very upset. Angry, maybe. Someone shouting: Oh, god, he’s gonna fucking kill him. 

But that was then, and this is now. 

Now, for possibly the first time all season, no part of his body is hurting. Nothing. Where bruises and breaks should be, there is a soft, clumpy cottony feeling. His bones are like pillows. The ceiling is rushing past him, and he’s so light, so free from his own skin, he could float up to meet it. 

Everything is so bright. Whiter than the ice, blurring into halos around him. 

He hasn’t felt this good in months. 

-

Ilya doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he’s also not sure he’s awake, either. 

The first sound he hears is a thin, discordant symphony of beeps and whirs. Something vibrating. 

He doesn’t think he feels fantastic after all. He’s not sure he feels much of anything, beyond a sense of something being a little…off. He’s less like a cloud, and more like a shadow. 

The next thing he hears is…wet. A sort of shaking, gargling sound, that feels like the ugliest crying he’s ever heard. And through it, Shane’s voice. 

“I’m with him now, mom. He’s— he’s not fine. He’s not. I know—”

Oh, sweet Shane. 

“They want him sedated,” is the next thing he hears, and Ilya doesn’t know who needs to be sedated, but it has to be someone who matters, if it’s making Shane this upset. 

Ilya wants to ask, but he can’t feel his own body, his mouth, enough to ask.

“Yeah,” Shane is saying, only slightly calmer. “I know. He wasn’t breathing. They had to put a— fuck, if you’d seen what— I’m sorry.”

Ilya is worried, now. He knows it can’t be him that Shane’s talking about, because he is here and alive and there must be breath in his lungs because how else could he be here? It’s just, he can’t reach out to comfort his husband. To help him through those huge shaking tearful words he’s saying. 

“I don’t know how long he was out, they blocked the fucking medics from—”

Ilya knows there must be a link, between the clinical musicality of medical settings, Shane’s audible, awful distress, and his own physical incapacity. It’s just, it’s so tenuous, and the air around him is so thick, so heavy. It would be easy, to sleep, a little. 

“Yeah, they’re all here,” Shane is saying, except now there’s that tremble in his voice that he gets when he’s disconnecting from himself. If he can stay awake a little longer, he could reach across the space between him and Shane’s voice to hold him. Soothe the worry out of his skin. “I know it will, mom. I just— fucking Montreal. I can’t—.” 

Ilya sinks away from consciousness to the soft sound of crying, and somewhere in the middle of it, his own name, spoken like a plea, or a prayer. 

- 

There are cameras clicking. Flashes, too. Little bursts of light, blooming red behind Ilya’s eyelids. 

He’s being moved. Positioned. Posed, maybe. 

Someone says, Jesus Christ. 

Someone else says something about evidence. 

This seriously all happened on the ice? Someone asks. 

The voices fade out, and Ilya’s eyelids go dark. 

- 

Someone is telling Ilya to relax. He isn’t sure he even has a body right now, so making it relax feels like a pretty tall order, but he lets the sensation of floating, or maybe drowning, take over. The same voice is asking, “Do you know where you are?”

Ilya doesn’t have a fucking clue, so he ignores it. 

- 

Ilya can’t hear much. Like someone has wrapped his head in blankets, and blocked out all the lovely bright lights. His whole body feels swaddled and leaden. He’s somewhere in the disorienting space between sleep and something else, but through the softness and the worry, he keeps hearing about fucking Montreal. And names, that latch onto bits of his memories that aren’t open to him yet. Comeau. Leyland. The commissioner. 

Ilya’s hatred of Montreal—the team, not the city—is woven tight in his veins. 

He used to hate them, in the way that a young athlete thrust into a century-old pissing match is supposed to. He’d got into the spirit of it, back then; derided their too-safe plays, took every public opportunity to taunt their too-good captain, and prided himself on being their biggest shit-talker. 

It hadn’t been real hatred, then. It was part of the performance, the game, and the dance; the sport is rooted in rivalry, and he is nothing if not a good sport. 

Over the whir of machines, the chugging and clicking of monitors, the name of the city is being repeated. 

The cloying, gripping loathing that burns through him at the mention of the name is something deeper than that. He just can’t remember why. It’s nestled inside him, interwoven with his worries about Shane, but beyond that, it’s a blank. A murky, ugly blank. 

- 

Luca Haas is staring at Ilya with the same wide-eyed nervishness he had in his first days of being on the team. He isn’t saying anything, and Ilya worries that he’s making him uncomfortable, somehow. 

Luca is perched on a chair, next to Ilya’s bed, and, okay. This is not the usual way they hang out, but hey. He’ll go with it. 

“Haas,” he tries, except there’s no volume. Like he’s trying to push the words up from his stomach, not his throat, but something’s in the way. 

Luca jerks up, eyes widening to near panic. He waves at Ilya’s shoulders — neck? Face? — making a crossing gesture and shaking his head at the same time. 

“Oh, god,” Luca says. “You— you can’t talk right now.” 

“Good luck trying to shut me up. Stronger than you have tried”, Ilya says, but again there’s just silence. Shit. 

Ilya wonders if he is not his own physical self right now. What if, he wonders, he is actually the poster of himself in Luca’s childhood bedroom, a hallucination brought to almost-life, and this is why he’s being told not to speak. Posters don’t have mouths, after all. 

He watches as Luca takes a breath — more of a gulp, really — and squares his shoulders. 

“You’ve got a tube…they said something about swelling,” Luca rushes out, “or, I think, I…I don’t remember details. But you need to rest. Captain. I’ll call the— I’ll be right back.” 

Luca disappears for a second, or thirty, calling out to something, someone, beyond the end of Ilya’s bed. 

Can a poster smile? It feels like he’s smiling. Not just because the kid said something about swelling, and that sent Ilya’s brain to its gutter-minded happy place for a few blissful seconds. He wonders if posters can get hard. 

“You’ll be back to giving us crap in no time, Cap,” Luca says when he reappears, flanked by a stranger, and the feral panic seems to have eased out of his face, replaced by something a little more apologetic. “Just, heal fast?” A pause. “And…thanks.” 

It’s only when Luca turns to leave that Ilya notes Luca’s lopsided walk, and the pair of crutches that supports it. 
 
- 

“It’s important that you try and remember,” a voice is saying. He doesn’t know the voice belongs to, so he doesn’t know how much attention it deserves. He doesn’t want to be rude, but he’s also very tired. 

“You can’t talk right now,” the voice continues, and as Ilya blinks them into focus, he sees a blur of skin, a face mask, and kindly, serious dark brown eyes peering down at him. Which means he’s probably lying down, but as those eyes aren’t the soft glowing brown eyes he wanted to see, he’s a little disappointed. 

Ilya tries to look beyond the inquisitive eyes and black eyebrows, but beyond the face there’s just a haze of mint green and white. 

“I want you to blink if you understand me, sir,” says the voice. 

Sir. There’s only one person who uses that word on him these days, and it’s usually a form of sexual warfare. As this face isn’t Shane’s face, he is thoroughly confused. The disappointments continue. 

“Once for yes, two for no.” 

Has Shane been telling other people about their signals? This is their shorthand, one they’ve shared for a while now; usually for situations more fun than this one: when he’s pressing his hand firm over Shane’s mouth, keeping him from gasping out his bliss — either to keep themselves discreet, or just because of how deliciously pliant Shane gets when he does it for the sake of it. Or sometimes, from when they’ve just fucked so hard that words are out of reach for both of them. A few more things besides. These memories feel more important than the ones this man is questioning him about.  

“Sir?” 

Ilya blinks, once, a little resentfully. 

“Good,” the voice tells him. “Do you know where you are?” 

Ilya thinks about this. Based on the context clues — he’s got nothing. He’s not at the lake, he knows that much. He’s not with Shane, and this seems very unfair. It’s too warm, too quiet for it to be the stadium. He’s on his back, which doesn’t seem right, at all. He thinks he remembers being in a bed. But everything beyond the pinpoint perspective is fuzzy. 

He gives two slow blinks, and wonders how many more it would take to convey a question mark. 

The face disappears from his field of vision, and then the voice reappears, disembodied. 

“You’re in the hospital,” it tells him. 

Ah. Fuck. That probably explains a lot. 

The next thing the voice tells him is, I see you. 

That…seems like a weird thing to say. 

-

Someone is holding Ilya’s hand. 

It’s a dry, warm contact, like not all of the skin can reach his. Instinct is telling him that he wants to hold that hand, too. Like it’s there for a reason, whoever’s hand it is. He sends the message, brain to fingers, to reach. He tries again. Tries, tries, but the message gets confused and all he can do is see the blackness behind his eyes and accept this tiny, gentle signal that his brain doesn’t fully understand yet. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” he hears, and oh. Shane. He urges his brain to catch up. 

“You have to be,” Shane says. “I’ll fucking kill you myself if you’re not.” 

His hand sits limp and still in Shane’s. 

I will be, he promises silently, grateful that Shane wouldn’t give him the choice to be otherwise. 

- 

The next time Ilya slinks into consciousness, there are a few more nerves waking up with him. He’s more aware of his body, in that he’s absolutely certain that he can’t move it. His fingers feel like they’ve been cast in lead. His toes feel squeezed into concrete. His neck feels like it’s being gripped in a vice. He tenses his core, tries to push up from the centre of himself, but there’s just a feeling like knots inside his ribs, and a quickening of beeps. He gathers the threads of recent memories to ground himself. 

He’s in the hospital. 

He can’t move, or speak. 

Shane was here, and he sounded very upset. There is a non-zero chance that Shane being upset has something to do with his first observations. 

A lot of other people have been in and out of the room he is in. Including Luca, who is somehow injured, but Ilya has no recollection of how or when that could have happened. 

A lot of the people coming in and out of his room are very angry about Montreal. 

And a lot of them seem very, very concerned about how much Ilya has and has not been able to breathe, recently. 

- 

Ilya is familiar with the feeling of being breathless. 

He remembers it from training; when his lungs and legs and heart all feel wrung out from the exhaustion of running bag skates. When he’s gone past the point of too much, and his whole body gets so out of sync that where breath should be, there’s just squeezing, retching, and vomit. 

The first time he’d done them, he’d expected to die. Nine years old, with his coach’s voice calling “Again,” lungs spasming in the frigid air of the practice rink. The world had closed around him, gone white, and all he could think, back then, was that he was going to choke from the lack of air, that he’d die in the rink, and the last thing he’d ever hear was the impassive voice of Coach Baranov, calling “Again, again.” 

When he’d folded to his knees, puke pooled and freezing around him, he’d nearly cried with relief when his lungs opened up and he sucked in a huge, heavy breath. He wasn’t going to die. His body knew how to save him. 

He isn’t nine years old, now. And he’s been spared bag skates for a while, so he doesn’t think it’s that. 

- 

Ilya is trying to understand why, this minute, Harris is trying to explain to him what a ‘Bicon’ is and why he, Ilya, apparently is one. 

Harris’s face is very, very fuzzy. Like there’s an aura around him, except the aura looks like a beard, or maybe a halo. He’s not sure that the distinction is important. He can feel heat radiating from the excitable man as he places a hand over Ilya’s own; warmth, like a bright morning dawn, or fresh toast. 

Ilya thinks he might be answering Harris, saying an acquiescent “okay”, but he still can’t make his tongue move, or hear his own voice. 

There’s something like a pillow in the way of his nerve endings and his brain. 

“Everyone, I mean everyone,” Harris is saying, “hates them for what they did. They’re calling for Crowell’s head on a platter. But it means a lot of them love you. More than before.” 

Ilya doesn’t know what good the commissioner’s head would do on a serving tray, but he’s not got the wherewithal to ask for clarity. 

Harris gives Ilya’s hand another reassuring pat, tells him not to worry, and disappears into a soft, apple-scented fog. 

- 

Ilya also remembers the feeling of being breathless, from taking punches to the gut. The magnitude catches differently each time; the placement, the force, whether it’s a fist or a stick, or a couple of times, someone’s boot. But the effect is always similar enough: a feeling of air being physically ejected from his body, followed by a floundering. Long seconds of muscles recalibrating around the impact site, like they’ve each forgotten their primary purpose. And then the first breath—more of a gasp, a stuttering—air that catches in the throat and gets lost on the way down, until finally, it lands. Plumps up the alveoli. Sends the blood rushing back through its channels, enough to recover, and hopefully, retaliate. 

It would make sense, maybe, that that’s what’s happened here. Except, no matter how hard he’s been hit in the past, it’s never landed him this spectacularly out of action. 

Even his brain feels heavy, right now. 

Maybe something else, then. 

- 

Ilya has seen so many different ceilings, recently. Different shades of beige, cream, ecru, white. Strip lights, round lights, muted, hazy lights blotted out by ambiguously concerned faces. 

As each ceiling view slows to a stop, there’s a scan, or a process, or test, waiting for Ilya. 

Some of them buzz. 

Some of them ask Ilya to blink if he recognises certain shapes, numbers, patterns. 

This one, they tell Ilya, will feel uncomfortable. As though he is currently languishing in a state of wellness to begin with.  

“It’ll feel like you need to pee,” a nurse tells him, feeding something new into the line burrowed into the back of his hand. “Or that you are. Peeing. It’s normal.” 

Ilya blinks, because they seem to like it when he shows willing. Shows that he understands. 

“Don’t worry about it,” the nurse says, tiredly cheerful. “That’s all taken care of.” 

The nurse tells him he’ll need to wait, so Ilya stares at the new patch of ceiling, counting each plasterboard grid until he drifts back into sleep. 

- 

“The shitstorm you started is fucking beautiful, man.”

It takes Ilya’s brain a few very long seconds for his brain to understand that these words are not meant to be taken as a very visual, literal statement. 

“I mean,” the voice continues, and ah. Troy Barrett. Such a poet. “I know it wasn’t just you,” he says, carrying on as though they were mid conversation, like they’re chatting over beers and Ilya isn’t squinting at him through a gauzy brain. There’s something stuck in his throat, maybe, and not in the fun way. “But fuck, Rozanov. It’s…fuck, man. They’re talking about pressing charges…”

A soft dread sinks into Ilya’s veins where the happier chemicals should be. Charges means police, and police has never meant anything good, for Ilya. For most people. Whatever expression Ilya is making in this moment seems to give Troy a pause. 

“Shit. Not you, dude. You guys are fine.” The dread thins, a little. “I mean, Leyland. Maybe even Comeau, too.” 

The names are familiar, but the context is elusive. But as it’s not his name, or Shane’s, or anyone else on his team, he’s sure it’s probably nothing to worry about. 

“You did good, man,” Troy adds. As he leans over to pat him, incredibly gently, on the shoulder, Ilya notices that his nose looks off-centre and he’s missing a bit of his front tooth. 

- 

Barrett departs, replaced by someone wearing what Ilya now recognises as scrubs. 

“Sir,” says the voice, and he recognises this guy from before. Those scrutinising, deep brown eyes. “Do you know where you are?” 

Ilya blinks, once. Hospital. Easy enough. 

“Good, good. That’s good. Do you know why you’re here?” 

Because clearly, something has gone very, very wrong, Ilya thinks. I’m not lying here for the sheer fun of it. He’s not sure if that’s too vague. Because I cannot feel my own body, I can barely feel my own thoughts dragging through my brain, and my team are being alarmingly nice. Except, again, that’s probably not the answer he’s looking for. 

He blinks twice. 

“Okay,” sighs the man with very thick, very well-groomed eyebrows. “You’re here because you sustained…a lot of…injuries during your last game.” 

Ilya is fairly sure this isn’t the standard medical jargon this guy is supposed to be using. “A lot of injuries” is something you’d say to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between an ass and an elbow, and ah. Ilya isn’t entirely convinced he could, right now, so maybe this guy is onto something. 

“Do you remember the last game you played?” 

Ilya’s brain dissolves into soup at the question. He remembers a lot of games. A lot of injuries, too. But he doesn’t remember if they’d made it to playoffs, yet, or if this was a warm up. He doesn’t know which city they’re in, or who they played. He’d guess it has something to do with fucking Montreal, but he’s not sure. And there’s a big gap between the sense memories of being on the ice, and whatever happened in between that landed him here, motionless, voiceless and apparently, very stupid. 

“Okay, that was maybe too broad,” says the man, and Ilya worries that he’s just been staring, unblinkingly, while his brain tries to recalibrate. “Do you remember what sport you play?” 

One blink. 

“Good. And the team you play on?” 

This is easy again. Centaurs. Although, with his one-blink answers, Ilya is sure he could be imagining himself as a superstar basketball player, signed to Mars, and this guy would be none the wiser. 

“Okay. Good. Now, it’s really important that you try and remember what happened. With hypoxia, although your saturation is up, there’s often a delayed…” 

Ah, here’s that medical jargon he’d been expecting. 

“…and due to the traumatic nature of your injuries…” 

Oh, good. Trauma. 

“…it’s important you engage with your short term memories as soon as you can, even if they’re distressing.” 

Ilya doesn’t want any more distressing memories. He has plenty; a well of them that he can draw on at any time. He’s really enjoyed having distance and safety between them and the life he has now, and he’d like to preserve as much of the peace he has. Even if it’s a hazy, medicinal peace. 

He closes his eyes, and lets the sound of retreating footsteps lull him back into the dark. 

- 

He has more fun memories, of losing his breath. Most of these belong to Shane. The first time, Shane had wanted to try breathplay. He didn’t call it that, at first; he’d simply initiated, mid-fuck, by placing Ilya’s hand across his own throat and demanding that he push, harder. 

Ilya hadn’t. Mainly, because he hadn’t done this before, and the idea of getting it wrong scared him shitless; he was not going to be the person to cause damage to that lovely brain through oxygen deprivation. He’d compromised; reverted to something already tried and tested; slapped Shane across his red cheeks, and then promised, “We’ll see.” 

In the days that followed, Shane had followed this new curiosity with academic precision. He did research, and then spent as many hours purging his browsing history. Not before gathering testimonials, diagrams, and increasing desperation. 

So, they’d tried. Sitting on the couch in the cottage, fully clothed. “Like this,” Shane had explained, somewhat patiently, splaying his thumb and fingers into an L shape. “Then you press here—”

At which point, Ilya hadn’t been able to take the earnest expression on Shane’s face as he tried to demonstrate choking himself, without erupting into his pants. “Show it on me,” he’d told Shane, stupidly thinking that this would make it any less hot. “I need to know how you like it. Show me.” 

Shane had. He’d climbed over Ilya like a cheetah pinning its prey. Planted one hand on Ilya’s shoulder and wrapped the other around Ilya’s jaw. “So, like this,” he’d breathed, like he was demonstrating for a class of rookies. Pressing his thumb softly into the space beneath Ilya’s chin. “You don’t wanna cut off the airway,” he’d said, tapping his thumb to demonstrate the lack of pressure near his throat. “The pressure needs to be here.” At that, he’d pressed his fingers into the space beneath Ilya’s ear, under his jaw. Gentle, at first. “That okay?” 

“Da.” And so Shane had pushed a little more. Controlled, but so firm. So precise. Enough that Ilya’s ears grew hot and the air in the room started thinning. 

All Ilya had managed to say next was a drawn out “fu-uck.” He wasn’t convinced it was the act of choking that sent stars spinning through his vision, or the simple dedication Shane had to performing the act; his eyes were lanced onto him, mouth open and wet. Ilya had understood the appeal, of all of it, then. Shane’s hand pulled away. 

“Was that too much?” Shane had asked, momentarily fretful. Ilya had yanked at his arms, pulling his full weight down onto him. 

“No. But if you don’t choke my dick,” Ilya had managed, “right now, I will never touch your neck, or your dick, again.”

Shane had called him a liar, and then put his mouth to work. 

- 

“This is going to feel horrible,” says a new voice. 

Oh, fucking wonderful. 

“We’re going to remove the tube in your throat,” it tells him, and now Ilya can see the person who’s speaking to him. She looks very young, and very stern. He’s not sure he wants her telling him what should be going into, or out of, his throat. 

He uses a not inconsiderable amount of willpower to not think of more fun things, and a more fun person, doing that. 

“Your trachea is still swollen,” she tells him, “but it’s come down enough that you should be able to breathe on your own.” 

Should? Fucking should? What happens if he can’t? 

She seems to read the tension in him, and offers a curt but sympathetic smile. “It’ll only take a few seconds,” she reassures, “but I need you to work with me.” 

Ilya emphatically does not want to work with her on this. He hates the thing wedged in his mouth, his throat, however deep it is. But not as much as he hates the thought of trying to, what, vomit it out of himself? 

“Deep breath, Mr. Rozanov,” says someone to the other side of him. At least it’s not the guy who insists on calling him Sir. He’s not ready to mix those signals in his pliant, hazy brain. 

“Now, cough. Hard as you can.” 

Ilya tries. He really, really tries. Feels his chest pushing against something, but it feels so weak. He feels something shift, but barely. He’s already exhausted from the effort. An echo of the word lazy drifts through his brain, and he shunts it back out again. 

“Okay, one more go,” says the stern one. “On three. One, two—”

Ilya coughs, as much as he can without any traction. Something lurches, and then there’s a burning, ripping drag of something tearing up through him, catching his tonsils, his tongue, his teeth. And then it’s out of him. A clear wet cylinder, pink-tipped at the base, and Ilya can’t breathe. 

“Mask,” calls the other voice, and Ilya is gasping, lungs gripping on nothing. 

Plastic presses over his cheeks. 

“Inhale,” says the stern voice, urgent. “Deep breath.” 

I’m fucking trying, Ilya pleads silently. I’m trying. 

The plastic tucks more tightly over his face. 

“Inhale,” she repeats. “Come on.” 

Ilya latches onto a breath. It’s slow, like it’s forgotten the pathway into his lungs. He forces it down, swallows it. Exhales, and takes another. It hurts. 

“Good. Keep going,” she instructs. 

It’s just breathing. It shouldn’t feel this hard. 

“It’s humidified,” she tells him, as though this will mean something to him. “It should speed up the healing.” And then, “We’re going to push more morphine.” 

There’s that fucking should again. He can feel his eyes leaking, and in any other circumstance he’d be mortified. Except, all he can think is that if Shane were here, he’d have his thumbs on his cheek, mopping up his stupid, pathetic tears, and telling him not to worry. 

The morphine helps. Sifting into him, slow and heavy, until each of his nerve endings blinks out under its gentle pressure. 

- 

“You absolute dumbass,” Shane tells him. His face—his lovely face—comes into focus, and it looks proud. Also a little wonkier, a lot more bruised than the last time he remembers seeing it, but definitely fond. 

I’m your favourite dumbass, Ilya tries, adjusting to the way he can feel his tongue, dry and heavy against the soft palate of his mouth. Only breath comes out. It still hurts. 

He squeezes Shane’s hand, instead. Shane squeezes back, with both hands. Hands with gauze on them. A hand sandwich. Is he hungry? It feels like a long time since he’s had food. He could eat Shane’s fingers, maybe. 

“Ilya, no, you can’t—” Shane says, and he’s pulling their hands back down to Ilya’s side. 

No fingers for Ilya. Fine. 

“That was fucking terrifying,” Shane says. 

It wasn’t that scary, Ilya thinks. He wasn’t going to bite him. Just, maybe, suck a little. 

“You can’t— you can’t do that again,” Shane continues, and he’s doing that thing where he’s counting out the breaths between speaking, like he’s about to fold himself into his knees. His lovely, bruise-framed eyes look wet. Maybe, this isn’t about Shane’s fingers.  

Ilya wants to kiss those eyes better. He’s craning his neck up to reach them and Shane feels so far away, so high up, that it’s like vertigo and then falling again when Ilya’s head tilts heavily back against the pillow. 

His hand, then. He raises it, Shane’s still wrapped around it, and thumbs at the damp spots on Shane’s cheeks, making his freckles glitter. It doesn’t mop them up. They just get wetter, and then Shane makes this awful, choked gasping sound and Ilya can’t be responsible for making him that sad. He didn’t mean to. 

“You asshole,” Shane says in a scratchy, wet voice. “I thought he was gonna kill you.” 

Clearly he failed, Ilya wants to say. Whoever the he is. You’re stuck with me. 

Ilya settles on squeezing Shane’s hand, stroking his thumb over Shane’s wrist in small circles. There’s a weight — a heavy, easy, warm weight—sinking into his shoulder, draped over his chest, pressing long, damp breaths into his skin. 

“I love you so much. You asshole.” 

- 

At some point, the room Ilya is in changes. His sculpted-eyebrow nurse — Kasim, his ID said — had told him that he’d passed whatever tests they’d given him, and was moving from critical care to acute. Ilya has no idea how he could have passed or failed anything, given that his entire range of movement appears to be limited to the lower part of his left arm and his eyelids, but he’ll take it. It’ll be nice to stare at something that isn’t the same scuffed corner of plasterboard ceiling. 

- 

Chapter 2: Quietly Pour Out Like Light

Chapter Summary

By the time Yuna visits, Ilya is feeling, regrettably, more lucid. He’s gathering a picture of what’s going on, more or less. Probably less.

Chapter Notes

Damn, this poor guy.

By the time Yuna visits, Ilya is feeling, regrettably, more lucid. He’s gathering a picture of what’s going on, more or less. Probably less. 

His throat is still out of commission, which means no talking. He’s effectively been forced to shut the fuck up, medically speaking. At least he’s not intubated anymore, but that has somehow made zero difference to his ability to communicate with his mouth. He imagines that the list of people who’d be delighted by this is a long one. 

He’s also got stitches in his face, wire—or was it staples?—in his jaw, broken teeth, and a cast on his right arm that starts just below the elbow and ends at his knuckles. A thin tube running through his nose, which is apparently how he’s being fed. Fucking delightful. The ankle is—he can’t remember if they said snapped, or just sprained. There was a ‘sp’ sound in there somewhere, amongst a lot more words he didn’t fully register. It’s bandaged, but he can’t move his neck enough to see that far down. There might have been more he can’t remember; he zoned out when they’d started discussing his mid-section, like he was a map and it took a team of people to debate the topography of his body. His organs, though, are apparently all where they should be. Just, wonderful. Really. 

 There are still a lot of machines beeping in his periphery. 

One of the many things he likes about Yuna is that she rations her sympathy. It’s there; unavoidable, in the way her mouth curls downwards and she murmurs “Oh, my sweet boy,” into the air around him. But she’s quick to eclipse it with pragmatism. Solutions. Answers. 

Not as many answers as Ilya would like, apparently, but a handful. Buried in her looking-forward approach. 

“The next few weeks will be intense,” she tells him, sitting back in the visitor chair like she’s hosting a face-to-face with a sponsor. He doesn’t know if she means for her, or for him. “But,” she starts, and Ilya likes this but. The way there’s always a reason for optimism. Motivation to get his head back in the game. A way of telling him to lock in, without being cruel about it. “You’ve done the hardest part already,” she says, gesturing broadly at Ilya, and the tubes and cables and beeps that seem to be holding him together. “You’ve got a lot of people in your corner. I mean a lot. You both have.” 

Ilya wants to reassure her that he knows this, really. He’s got her there, after all. He’s spent the last however long fielding a relay-race of team mates who’ve each shared cryptic reassurances that everyone is rooting for him, not gunning for him. He’s got Shane. It’s more than he’d ever dared to hope for, really. 

“Farah is working more miracles than usual,” Yuna says, with a hint of admiration for the overworked publicist. Just a hint, but from Yuna that’s not nothing. “Harris Drover’s taking legal advice, but he’s keeping everything…stoked.” 

Yuna’s face folds into concern. Ilya wonders how plainly he’s wearing his confusion. He knows he must have done something worse than the bits of the last game he sort of remembers. He knows, by now, that everything must have gone pretty far south, and that Fucking Montreal are at the core of it, but the memories of how, and why, are sitting out of reach behind a thinning veil of medications. 

“Here,” Yuna says, reaching into her purse and retrieving a pen, and a notepad that is smaller than Ilya’s hand. “You must have questions. Hell, I have a few more, too.” 

Ilya sifts through the silt accumulating in his brain for the most important thing to ask, in his first attempt at real communication. The permanence of his injuries, maybe? Except, he’s not sure he has the energy to care about career longevity. Or the ability to cope with a bad answer. Is he in trouble? Again, the answer could be something he’s not feeling brave enough for. It’s a lot of words, and a very small pad of paper. He settles, instead, for the one thought that seems to overtake his most sensible instincts at the best of time. 

It takes a moment, but Ilya manages to scratch out enough marks with his left hand that roughly read as is Shane ok?

“We sent him away to shower,” Yuna answers. “He was a little…ripe.” 

It doesn’t matter that Ilya can’t smile with his face, yet. He draws a crude :) on the pad, then underlines the original question. 

“He’s fine,” Yuna says, and in answer to Ilya’s tensed eyebrows, “or he will be. Surface bruising, mostly. A sprain. They don’t think his hand’s broken,” she says, with a lethal combination of disapproval and pride. 

Ilya flicks the pad over, and on the next page: Concussed? Because there has to be a reason no one’s given him his phone yet. 

“No,” Yuna reassures. “Not...” She pauses, tense, like there’s something else she wants to tell him, and then her face settles back to a cool neutral. “It’s good drugs, mostly.” Then, “You must be in a lot of pain.” 

It’s not said as a question, so Ilya doesn’t try and refute it. He supposes he is, but his baseline for it is a mess. 

Ilya writes out another question, and it takes so much effort, these small scratches and contortions of his fingers—the paper keeps skidding under the pen—but he also needs to understand, and so far no one will tell him. What did I do? 

Yuna smiles at that. The only other person in recent years who’s ever looked at him with such heated, glittering pride, is Shane. 

“You, my wonderful boy, started a revolution in the MLH.” She takes the pad and pen away, moving to stand up. 

Ilya’s confusion expands into worry. He thought they’d already done that, last year, and failed. Unless he’s somehow managed to do something more dramatic than getting married to his long-term rival in the middle of a publicity shit-storm. His brain still feels like custard. He makes a sequence of gestures that he hopes translate to “phone” and “need”. 

Yuna smiles, but it’s that managerial sort of turning of her mouth, and firmness of her jaw. 

“Not a chance, Ilya. Get some rest.” 

- 

After the milliontieth reading of his o2 saturation — once on the finger, once on his ear — a new nurse tells Ilya that he is apparently doing very well. 

Ilya is not completely convinced that the new nurse knows what “very well” should feel like, because it is definitely not this. The morphine is being titrated down, and in its wake is a brutal headache. Like a week of consecutive hangovers compacted into one solid thud, then another. He’s full of plenty of other chemicals; muscle relaxants, steroids, anti-inflammatories, broad-spectrum antibiotics and probably a few more he’s forgotten about. All they seem to be doing is keeping him floppy, and right now, very cranky. 

He’s been told he absolutely should not try and move any part of his upper body, apart from his left arm. That even if his facial stitches are itching, he must not claw at them. That the usual processes of ingestion, digestion, and the rest of it are being taken care of with tubes and pouches, and it’s best that he doesn’t think about those in too much detail. That his neck is still braced, that his airway is swollen, but functional. That it will be a while until he can start speaking. Longer still until he can eat real food. 

No one specifies what a while means. 

It’s not safe, yet, to wear his necklace. Or his ring. His belongings, they’d said, as though they were trinkets and not his last links to his own sense of personhood, are safely stored in a locker. His own body is something that is dissected, catalogued and filed away in prognoses and diagnoses.

They’re less worried, now, the nurse tells him, about the lasting effects of oxygen deprivation, or tracheal trauma. Because Ilya is doing very well. 

- 

The first thing Ilya notices about Zane Boodram, is his knuckles. They’re puffed up, scuffed with fresh scrapes over old ones. Bood is not a scrapper at the best of times, so this is new. Concerning, maybe.  

“You’re looking better, my man,” Bood says. His smile is there, but it looks tight. “Still fuckin’ weird, you not able to talk. 

Ilya agrees, silently. He’s got a new pad of paper, and a pencil, but it’s so slow, putting his thoughts down this way. He starts writing out a question, fingers cramping with the effort of making the too-soft graphite leave anything more than an indentation. 

“Everyone’s forgetting how to speak smartass with you out of action,” Bood continues, doing that reassuring arm-patting thing that his friends, and sometimes the medical staff, keep doing. It’s making Ilya antsy. 

“You’re gonna hear a lot of…stuff,” Bood continues, diplomatic. Cautious. 

It would be nice, Ilya thinks, to hear anything useful at all. His memories of the game are still a jumble of abstracts; medical updates interspersed with sense memories of impacts and a vague sense of doom that grips the inside of his throat. He assumes, by the team’s sporadic presence over however long he’s been here, that the Centaurs are collectively out for the season. 

“There’s more good out there, than the…other stuff. Like, a lot more,” Bood says, squinting at the piece of paper Ilya is waving at him. “Oh, this!” he responds, flexing his knuckles like he’s only just noticed them. “Couple of reporters got in. We got them out again.” He grins at Ilya, and does that arm patting thing again. 

“I’m gonna send Shane in. He’s driving everyone else nuts out there.”

- 

Shane does not give Ilya his phone. 

Ilya might as well be stapled to the bed, the way he’s propped and held with braces, pillows and support bars, bandages, tubes and cables. The sense of uselessness has been swelling around him for— he doesn’t know how long, because it’s hard to measure time. It’s a unique kind of helplessness and it itches from the inside of his skin. Or that might just be the cast. 

“Do you remember it, at all?” Shane asks, eyes so focused on Ilya that he can feel the gaze burrowing into his skin. A stare that could hold him more firmly than anything else in this hospital bed. It feels safe. 

Ilya blinks once, then twice. It’s difficult to convey I remember that your old team fucking sucks, and that there’s something about this Leyland guy that causes all the air in his lungs to cramp up. 

“I miss your voice so fucking much,” Shane says. The bruising around his eyes has softened into rich, dark smudges, but the pinkness around them looks permanent. 

Ilya misses it too; how can he reassure Shane that he’s okay, without it? 

Ilya thinks of the most important thing he wants to communicate to Shane in this moment. All the questions he has, to fill in the gaps in his fogged brain. The worry. Why half the team looks like they’ve played eight consecutive seasons in the space of a week. Who Shane nearly broke his hand on. He hopes there’s good video footage of that. 

Writing takes so much effort, like this—harder than speaking English ever was, even—so he lets instinct guide him. He lets go of Shane’s hand long enough to reach for the pad of paper, and writes: hold me? 

Shane does. First, with his smile; it grows on his face like something molten and glowing, reaching his freckles and bruises until they’re eclipsed by it. Then, with his body, crowded into the too-small bed and holding onto Ilya in any way it can. 

For a long, beautiful moment, Ilya feels safe.  

They’re interrupted by a nurse—one Ilya is starting to recognise, from his stiff posture and refusal to make eye contact or explain anything—and Shane is turfed from the room as Ilya is taken for the next round of scans. 

- 

“Captain!” beams Luca, hobbling his way into the visitor’s chair. He looks less nervous than the last time he visited, but given that he spends a full thirty seconds shuffling and adjusting his crutches so they don’t knock into any equipment, that’s still not saying a lot. 

Ilya gives a gentle wave with his left hand that he hopes is a reassuring sort of hello. Luca studies it for a moment, like it’s a new facet of language he’s got to pick up on, then mirrors the gesture with his own. 

“Hi?” Then, “I keep expecting you to jump up and shout that it was all a prank,” he says. “Except,” he gestures to the crutches behind them, knocking one over and immediately scrabbling to right it. 

He’s giving the impression that he’s looking to Ilya for instruction, or permission, for something. There’s not a lot Ilya can do about this, but there’s the smallest chance this means he can eke out information from him. It’s not really manipulation, so much as an innocent question about his fellow teammate. 

Ilya writes, one letter at a time, with Luca leaning over the pad of paper the whole time, as though he’s watching a master at work. It’s cutely unnerving. 

How?

To clarify what he means, Ilya gestures to the crutches, and then to Luca. 

“The game,” Luca starts, and then freezes when he catches Ilya’s eyebrows furrowing at him in something like aggression. Of course it was from the fucking game. “I, uh…” 

Ilya schools his expression into the sternest thing he can muster. Luca seems to respond to that a little too eagerly, and Ilya promises himself he won’t analyse that thought too closely. 

“I got tipped over the boards,” Luca admits, the words all rushing into each other. “When it all went…” 

Ilya tries the eyebrow thing again, but Luca is honest to god blushing. Ilya has the distinct feeling that someone else has been telling him how much he can and cannot say to him. 

Ilya tries a scowl, but his mouth won’t flex or curl enough. He goes for the paper again. He gets as far as writing tell before Luca concedes, visibly wilting. 

“I was trying to tackle Gagnon,” he says, tone suddenly furtive like he’s confessing something shameful. Ilya can’t help the way his eyebrows shoot up; he knows Gagnon from trying to stay out of his way, most of the time; the guy is nearly the size of two Lucas. “Yeah, I know,” Luca says. It’s not a fight most people would pick. “But, I thought he was trying to get to where—” 

Luca stops himself, and looks to the door, like he’s expecting someone to come in and yell at him for saying too much. 

“I just— I wanted to stop him from making anything worse.” 

So, Luca apparently got flipped like a fucking pancake in his efforts to diffuse whatever the anything worse was. Christ. 

Ilya reaches out his hand. He’s not sure if he wants to say sorry, or thank you, or you sweet, idiot child. 

Luca studies it, frowns, then when his own hand is within grabbing distance, Ilya latches on and shakes it. He rests his bandaged hand above it, trying to ignore the scream of his ribs with the movement, and tries to convey the intense gratitude and sympathy he feels for him. 

“Sorry I couldn’t do more,” Luca says, still staring at Ilya’s hands, his own sat forlornly between them. 

Ilya feels his own heart breaking, just a little, for the kid. He’s sure he tried plenty hard enough. He’s just sorry that he even had to. 

- 

No one will show Ilya a mirror. He’s aware enough, now, to know that there is something still wrong with his face. They’d told him about the stitches. He can feel a pull in his cheek when he tries to move his mouth, an itch that burrows through the skin and catches on his teeth. His tongue is still too sluggish to catch it; bruised from the tube that had helped him breathe. 

The tube that apparently, they’d inserted before he’d even left the ice. He’s glad he doesn’t remember that bit. 

He can touch his own face, now. There’s a tug in his clavicle when he raises his left hand that high, but he’s been able to pad his fingertips across the thin tube in his nose, to the raises and divots of skin held together with a steady stitch pattern. He’s followed the line, from just below his cheek to just above his stubbled jaw, and his imagination is creating horrifying visuals for him. He hopes it will heal into something dashingly rugged. 

- 

The last time Ilya remembers fighting for breath, before this last time, it was Shane. Again. 

This time, it was an act of…he doesn’t want to call it care, or therapy, even, but it was definitely his intention to give Shane something of an outlet from the stresses of the season. More than the usual kind. And honestly, Ilya thinks he had needed it more. 

Watching Shane internalise his anxieties had been a source of a slow burning friction between them. It wasn’t a fixable problem; no amount of training, reassurance, validation or sex had eased the knots between Shane’s shoulders. Even the high of smacking down Comeau at the start of the season hadn’t put confidence back into Shane’s too-tight posture for more than a week. 

Ilya knows the dance Shane’s been performing: If I can only be good enough, they’ll respect me. They’ll back off.  And, If I can only be the best, they’ll forgive me for the rest of it. Ilya’s been learning these moves since he was a kid; they both have, in different ways; but he also knows that the few minutes of reprieve it earns isn’t worth the soul crush when it all backfires. It just makes the retribution feel more inevitable. 

Even Ilya found the swelling animosity harder to weather than usual—it was impossible not to, with targets riding plainly on their backs. Not everywhere—some teams were better than others—but noticeable. For the worst ones—Toronto, Tampa, and fucking Montreal, the crowds they played to were more polarised. The checks and slashes more purposeful, and the refs apparently experiencing a collective loss of sight or integrity, when it comes to calling shit out. Vitriol is only motivational up to a point, even for Ilya. And it’s been beyond that point for a while, now. 

They’d adapted. After the first game that saw Comeau flattened (and the subsequent chastising communications from management), they’d bottled the team’s collective instinct to retaliate. Shown their proficiency as players, not fighters. Kept their heads, in the face of whatever bullshit came their way, and let the other teams take the penalties. Mostly. 

Worse, they’d reined in their joy. In those moments when a game went well, their celebrations were tamped down. Gestures that wouldn’t get a second look from straight players were suddenly off-limits, for them. They couldn’t be seen to be flaunting it. Backed into the corner by the weight of the league’s warnings. 

It was fucking exhausting. 

“Is because you are a fucking terror on the ice now,” Ilya had reassured. “They don’t care that you are gay, or married to the best hockey player in the—”

“Fuck you, you’re not.” 

“Ah, I am. Is very close. But they are also scared of you,” Ilya had told Shane. “And of us. Together.” 

Ilya believed it, too. Still does, really, present condition aside. Shane is lethal, now. Like he’s combined his own precision with Ilya’s playful daring and it’s created a creature. At some point in the last year, he’d made a decision—conscious or otherwise—to shed some of his self-imposed restrictions about performing a role. There was no point; why pretend to play nice, when all it gets you is hit? 

So Shane still might not start fights, but he’d ended enough. Ilya got the feeling that Shane was finding the reining in harder to bear than he was, like he was a spring being pinched into place, ready to release at the first opportunity. 

Except, even with the opportunities, they’d still promised—each other, the team, their coach and managers—that they’d behave. He watched it in real time, dragging on Shane like a weight. It made Ilya feel useless. Helpless. Purposeless, because if he couldn’t make Shane feel better, what was he even for? So, he’d suggested that Shane let him be useful to him. Be selfish, he’d told Shane. Take what you need. 

He’d watched Shane process the instruction, and seen recognition flash in his eyes. They know this game, though it’s usually reversed. Ilya wanted Shane to feel as powerful as he had, the last time they’d done this. He’d worried it wouldn’t be enough; for Ilya, the euphoria had come from knowing that Shane Fucking Hollander had been transformed under him, from a god, to nothing more than a…receptacle. His perfect, pretty face, nothing more than something wet and willing to fuck into. He didn’t know if Ilya Fucking Rozanov would be so intoxicating, but he wanted to try. 

“Okay,” Shane had said, still a hint of uncertainty. Then, more decisively, “Okay.” 

Ilya had dropped to his knees. No preamble. Just wrapped his mouth around Shane’s dick and felt him stiffen on his tongue. When Shane’s fingers tangled in his hair, he’d reached his own hands around them, demonstrated how to push him closer, hold him tighter, to not let up. Stared up at Shane, to make sure he understood. He needed to take this beyond comfort, beyond safety, even. Shane nodded, once. Then, Ilya had gripped Shane’s thighs, and buried himself as far into the hair of his crotch as he could manage. And then a little further. 

“Oh my fuck,” was all Shane managed. His hands in Ilya’s hair still too tentative, too careful, so Ilya prompted him. Gripped Shane harder, fingers digging into his butt, climbing up to his back, anchoring himself to Shane until the pockets of air around his nose closed off. Until the only thing Ilya could take in was Shane’s heavy, twitching cock. The back of his throat convulsing, loosening, contracting around Shane’s head. 

Shane pulled him back off, for a second; fingers taut in his curls, no longer gentle. Long enough for Ilya to gasp in a breath, flood his lungs, and blink up at Shane in assent before those same hands dragged him back into position. Ilya had never felt like he belonged somewhere as much as that moment, buried in Shane’s crotch and breathless. 

“Fuck, Ilya.” Shane found a rhythm, then made it faster. Clutched the back of Ilya’s head, holding him still as he jerked into him. Kept going, not stopping at Ilya’s watering eyes, streaming nose, spasming throat. 

Ilya kept clinging on, nails digging in. Determined not to tap out until Shane had taken his fill. 

“Oh my god, you’re— fuck, you’re…fuck,” and Ilya would have teased him, except his mouth was more than full and his lungs were stuttering, tightening, so much that his vision was spotting. Drool streaming out of him, pooling in his lap. He kept his grip, and so did Shane. 

“I’m gonna—”

And he had. Deep enough into Ilya’s throat that he could barely taste it. Just closed his throat on Shane’s release, gulping him, inside. Hot, urgent. For a second, he’d felt like he was drowning; chest wrapping against itself, everything closed off and choking. Then, the hands in his hair lifted him up. Let Ilya breathe again, full, shuddering gasps, as Shane had gentled his grip on Ilya’s face and kissed the mess from his mouth, his jaw, his neck. 

“Better?” Ilya had asked, voice scratched. 

“Better. Fuck. I love you so fucking much.”

- 

By the time Brandon Wiebe comes to visit, Ilya is climbing the walls. Figuratively only; he’s still very much confined to the bed, held in what he’s been told is a ‘Pearson position,’ whatever that means. His spine isn’t enjoying it. None of him is enjoying it. 

His visitors are still only allowed to come in one at a time, and only with sanitised hands. Infection risk, apparently. Ilya is fairly sure that whether the same people come in single file or en mass would make no difference to the germs they bring, but hey, he’s not the doctor. Which means he is into day whatever of people bringing him snippets of news that isn’t news, gentle ribbing, and more one-sided conversations than he’s had since he lived under his father’s rule. 

He shouldn’t resent it, because it’s all coming from a place of care, and love, and worry, and all the things he’s more grateful for than he’s every tried to articulate. To any of them. But fucking hell, he misses having a voice. 

“It’s good you’re healing well,” Wiebe says, sitting on Ilya’s left side. He sounds tired. He tidies the cards on the table, propping up the couple that have fallen down between visits from the entourage of medical professionals. The cards Ilya hasn’t been able to reach to read, but that his team mates have been describing in increasingly outlandish detail. He’s pretty sure that the one from Luca does not, in fact, declare a lengthy psychosexual fascination with his butt, but both Dykstra and Hayes had been committed to the bit, creating new paragraphs of disturbing prose every time each of them pretended to read it aloud to him. He also isn’t sure what a cantaloupe is, but he’s sure he’ll find out when they give him the next installment. 

Wiebe is less playful with his interactions. He’s upholding the role of coach, which means he’s wearing the weight of responsibility in his woebegone posture. “They say you’re expected to recover completely,” he says, jaw tight, and Ilya can’t fight the instinct that this man desperately needs a hug. “The others, too,” he continues. “Haas’s coccyx is still giving him trouble, but he should be good by August. Little concerned about Chouinard’s arm, but he’s stubborn. Sure he’ll be fine.” 

He sounds like he’s organising his thoughts more than talking to Ilya directly, but these tidbits of information are helping. 

“But!” he exclaims, and his shoulders finally unfurl from around his ears, and he looks at Ilya directly, eyes a little brighter and smile looking almost genuine. “Most, maybe all of the fines are being waived. No one’s been suspended. Apart from your man’s first game misconduct, but even that could…” 

Ilya zones out for a moment. Shane, getting a fucking game misconduct? He knew he’d busted his hand, and that it probably wasn’t from delivering enthusiastic applause but still. Wow. 

“Ah,” Wiebe says. “I’m guessing he didn’t tell you that bit.” 

No. He’s been too worried, and focused on making me feel better. And, he probably didn’t want to deal with me getting a celebratory boner about it. 

In lieu of words (which may be for the best, this time), or being able to shake his head, Ilya blinks twice. 

On the pad of paper, Ilya fumbles a new question. Did we win? 

Wiebe laughs, then. A full body, shaking laughter, that crinkles his eyes and causes him to grip Ilya’s good hand. “Oh, Jesus fuck, no.” Then, “I mean, in the grand scheme of things, yeah, we probably did. But not on the ice, no.” 

Damn. 

“Rozanov, they…I mean, sure, we were winning. But they stopped play after you stopped—” Wiebe catches himself, like he’s unsure how much of The Event, as Ilya is starting to categorise it in his brain, can be said out loud. 

Eventually, Wiebe continues. “It’s the first time in a lot of years they’ve had actual cops called to a game like that. Hard to finish when there’s not enough players able to stand upright. And.” Wiebe pauses, like this next bit is difficult. “We uh…we didn’t know, at the time, if you were gonna make it.” 

Fuck.

Ilya knew it must have been bad. He’d go as far as very bad. Terrible, even. No one gets treated to this scale of healthcare and confinement for a regular ruckus. And it had to have been bad if he hadn’t been able to breathe. Obviously. But it seems unfair, somehow, that his whole team has had to confront his mortality whilst he’s been broadly oblivious to the scale of it. His thoughts jump to Shane again, and his heart gives a heavy tug inside his ribs. 

“The game was forfeit,” Wiebe says, pragmatism returning. 

That seems extreme. Players have left the ice with skate-slit throats, and the games still resume the second they have the all-clear. Rescheduled, in a worst-case setting. But never, ever forfeit. Another tug of guilt nudges at Ilya’s chest. 

“Look, it’s disappointing,” Wiebe says, “but if it helps, Montreal are out too. Way, way out.” 

It does help. Ilya fucking hates Montreal. 

“And if you’d seen the way Shane was out there, after, you’d have been proud.” As an afterthought, he asks, “I guess no one’s given you your phone back?” 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Does Ilya know any more about what actually went down at this point? Probably not. Would he have learnt any more if he'd managed to ask more useful questions about it, instead of fretting about his man? Maybe.

The comments and theories so far are brilliant. Thank you, and hope you enjoyed. The edits are ongoing, and there's a chance the chapter count may go up; keeping it at 6 for now in case I can rein it in.

Chapter 3: Hear Me Hailing From Inside

Chapter Summary

Any day now, they’d told Ilya, about the prospect of leaving. With caveats, of course; the biggest one being that they seem convinced he’ll succumb to some horrid lung infection the moment he breathes outside air, or encounters a single person who hasn’t undergone the pre-visitation hand-sanitizing ritual. The next one being that his lack of mobility will send blood clots racing to his lungs or brain or heart. Minor stuff.

Chapter Notes

I'm not sure our unreliable narrator is doing so well.

Any day now, they’d told Ilya, about the prospect of leaving. With caveats, of course; the biggest one being that they seem convinced he’ll succumb to some horrid lung infection the moment he breathes outside air, or encounters a single person who hasn’t undergone the pre-visitation hand-sanitizing ritual. The next one being that his lack of mobility will send blood clots racing to his lungs or brain or heart. Minor stuff. 

Ilya is impatient enough for this any day to arrive that he’s been trying to demonstrate, to anyone who comes within pleading distance of his bed, that he is recovering magnificently. His lungs are fine. The spirometer says so, sort of. He is the very best at healing, truly. He’s managed so many ice chips. His neck is supporting him without the brace, for short intervals. He’s been able to move enough of his bandaged right arm to give Troy the finger at least once, and he’s sure his ankle must have healed by now. It’s barely throbbing. He’s earned clipped nods, and yes, goods, from the many, many cognitive tests they keep running. He is being the very best, most patient patient. 

The fact that he still can’t fucking speak or get out of the bed is a small detail, at this point. He just wants to go home. 

“Ilya Rozanov,” says a sharp voice that he doesn’t recognise, just outside of his sight line. “Hi.” 

It’s not a healthcare sort of greeting. It’s not a welcome, familiar voice, either. It makes Ilya think of clipboards. 

“You’ve really gone through it, huh,” says the voice, and now Ilya can see the person it’s spiking out of. A small, pale woman, with a furtive posture and a tightness to her eyes. She’s smiling, the way an alligator might. “I won’t take up much of your time.” 

Time, Ilya has plenty of. It’s the rest of it he doesn’t think he wants to give her. Her eyes are everywhere — cataloging readouts, equipment, him, and then her hands, too — shuffling through the cards on the table next to him. She’s reading it all, like a story. Ah, fuck. 

“Hghhhh,” Ilya warns. It’s as much as he can say, as far as speaking goes, breath still too heavy in his throat. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” she answers, and Ilya recoils—as much as the bed allows him—from the hand she tries to place on his shoulder. 

“We’ll stick to yes and no answers, okay?” she asks, like this is a collaboration. Like it’s something he’s agreed to. He slides his cast arm out from under the blanket, reaching for the call button that’s dropped off the side of the bed rail. 

“Okay. Easy one first. There’s a lot of speculation about the severity of your injuries,” she says, and the way she’s phrasing her question is like she’s being filmed. Ilya is sure there’s no one else in this room to hold a camera—because if there were, that would make it two people he needs to murder when he’s out—but he’s looking for it all the same. He’s keenly aware of the thinness of the blanket over him, of the compression socks peeking out from the bottom of it, of the awful vulnerability of being unable to use his whole chest to tell this ghoul to fuck all the way off, and to then keep fucking off, forever. 

“Is it true that these are mostly superficial, cosmetic injuries?” 

She’s staring pointedly at Ilya’s face when she says it, right where the stitches are begging to be scratched. If she’s staring so hard, she should also be able to catch the absolute death stare Ilya is focusing on her. 

Unfortunately, looks can’t kill, so she continues to speak. 

“And is it also true that you are expected to make a full recovery, with no impact to your career beyond an early end to a less than stellar season?” 

Ilya would love to make a joke about how her attempts at going for the jugular are clearly too late, because it feels like someone already got there first, but instead settles on raising his good hand and slowly, purposefully, extending the middle finger. He doesn’t break eye contact. 

“Okay,” she says, undeterred. “It’s just that a lot of fans are concerned about you, Mr Rozanov, and I’m sure they’d love to be reassured that this has all been blown out of proportion.” 

Ilya finds the cable for the call button, trapping it against the underside of the bed. Getting enough traction to push it in is a new challenge; it keeps sliding out of his single-fingered grasp. 

“Let’s try a different question,” she says, and she’s stalking towards the right hand side of the bed, as though she can see what Ilya is trying to do and needs to stop it. 

“Do you feel personally responsible,” she asks, and she’s reaching for the cable attached to the button, cold, dainty hand pressing over Ilya’s fingers. “For Gil Comeau and Marcus Leyland being booted from the league?” she finishes. She looks smug. Ilya smiles, as much as he can; her clumsy interference with the cable gave him just enough pressure to press the damn button, and his time in this hospital has taught him that the staff here are fast. 

“I’m sure you’d agree,” she continues, oblivious, and Ilya is certain that whatever she’s about to say, he won’t. “That making this about being…gay is a diversion—”

Ilya is impressed by the speed — and force — with which she is escorted from his room. He is going to find the best gifts he can for the staff here, once he’s out. 

It’s bisexual, you fucking idiot, he breathes silently to himself. 

The corridor beyond his room is alive with arguments, and above it all, Yuna’s voice cutting through. He hasn’t heard her truly angry, before. But in this context, it is a beautiful, vicious sound. 

Then, he takes a moment to process what the now verbally annihilated journalist had told him. Comeau, and Leyland, both booted. It’s almost the best news he’s heard since he got here. 

The true best still being the news about his husband apparently going on a fucking rampage that laid out half the opposing team. But it’s a close second. 

- 

The next person to enter the room, is Doctor Marev. 

“Sorry about that,” Marev says. Ilya likes Marev; there’s a professional ambivalence to them, like they’re only there to perform a function, and they bypass all the hand-wringing and tip-toeing around which bits of medical terminology can and can’t be shared in Ilya’s presence. Marev also has freckles, and choppy dark hair, which might be influencing his fondness levels. The additional twenty-something years on their face, or the fact that Ilya’s still not sure if Marev is a woman, man, or neither, doesn’t seem important. What matters is that Marev doesn’t bullshit him. “The security team are currently being…re-educated. Mostly by your, uh, mother.”

It takes Ilya a hot second to realise that they mean Yuna. The next few seconds are filled by a warm, cosy feeling about it. 

“Pain chart time,” Marev states, fixing Ilya with the same sort of stare Shane gives to Anya when she’s about to chew on the sofa cushions. 

Ilya glares as the familiar laminate is placed in front of him. Ten faces, ranging from a placid green 1, all the way through to an anguished red 10. Ilya points at the mildly uneasy apple-green face above the number 3. 

“So, six, then,” Marev says, not meeting Ilya’s narrowing eyes. 

Not ready to concede defeat, Ilya taps noisily at the yellow face next to it; a line-mouthed 4. 

“Okay. Five,” Marev agrees, adjusting something in the bag to Ilya’s right. 

“Managing your pain is just as important as everything else,” they say, without actively chiding. “And we want you to be able to leave just as soon as you do. I promise.” 

- 

In the gaps between visits to his bed, welcome and otherwise, Ilya starts writing out questions on his pad. Other notes, too; a shorthand to the answers his brain still won’t give him. 

It’s so frustratingly slow. Between the cloth in his brain and the cramp in his hands, it can take entire minutes for a few tiny words. He perseveres. 

The first one, he writes as a broad cover-all: Show me. Just because he hasn’t got a phone, doesn’t mean his teammates won’t have one. They keep tripping over almost-revelations, and maybe this will be the thing he can use to show how fucking desperate he is for more than a dismissive “Don’t worry about it, dude.” 

He scratches out a similarly broad What happen

The last couple of letters have to wait, because a nurse enters—the extra brusque one, who has apparently decided that because Ilya can’t talk, he doesn’t need any other sort of communication either. He lifts Ilya’s curled fingers off the pen, clips an O2 monitor to the middle one and frowns at the readout. 

He’s already out of the room before Ilya can pick the pen back up to add the last bits of punctuation. 

The next thing he writes, because he’s desperate for good news, is Who did Shane hit? 

He adds a few more essential words to the pad before the same nurse returns, this time with the fucking egg mask, and plants it wordlessly over Ilya’s mouth and nose. 

It’s cumbersome enough that it obscures the view of the pad and pen. Ilya would be more annoyed, except his breathing hurts a lot less with it on. 

- 

Wyatt Hayes is the next friendly face through the door. He looks around the room as though assessing it for changes, new details. Ilya has been in this room long enough that he could comfortably assure Wyatt that not one mote of dust has shifted since the last time. It truly is a purgatory. 

Wyatt sits down in the chair and drops another card onto the table. It’s a large one, the image covered in balloons with a teddy at the centre of it. 

“From the kids at the hospital,” he explains, referring to the children that Ilya tries to beat at Mario Kart on a semi-regular basis during the off season. “There’s notes in there from Sandy, Jamal, I think that’s Gregor but his handwriting is awful. Could be George. Someone tried to draw a picture of you, but it’s kind of a mess.”

Ilya has the feeling that the artwork attempts of hospitalised children probably don't need quite as much critical scrutiny as Wyatt’s delivering. 

 Hayes holds the opened card up for Ilya to squint at, and something about the chaotic scribbles and smiley faces warms him. “Also. Stacey asked if your busted arm means you’ll be easier to win against, next time.  I told her you’ll be healed by then,” he winks. 

That’s a comforting thought. A deadline for incapacity, and a promise of actual fun at the end of it. He’s only a little guilty that he doesn’t get to do the visits now, but he doesn’t think he’d be much good at cheering anyone up just yet. It’s just him, and the children, festering in their respective wards and beds while the outside world gets to carry on living and knowing about stuff. Yep, better that he’s not inflicting his current doom spiral on a bunch of tiny people with more than enough on their plates already. 

“You want another verse of Luca’s epic?” Wyatt asks, reaching for the blue-coloured card on the table, that him and Dykstra have been taking turns to pretend to read from. “There’s some great stuff in it. We’re thinking of calling it the Ilyad. I think the next verse is about your left tit.” 

Ilya has already written the word NO on his pad of paper for scenarios just like this, and so he dutifully peels the sheet of paper away and rustles it aggressively. 

“’Kay. Fine, no poetry today,” Wyatt says, unphased. 

“Oh,” he says, as though they are having a full conversation and he’s just remembered something, bounced off what Ilya isn’t able to say. “The camps this year—”

Ilya’s stomach sinks. He gets the feeling he’s not going to be much use for the summer hockey camps, if he’s even out of here in time for them. He’s still not entirely sure he knows what month it is, now. More kids he gets to let down. Great. 

“We’ve got plenty of people covering them,” Hayes says, and Ilya wonders if he’s somehow been appointed leadership privileges for their foundation, the way he’s talking so confidently about it. “A lot more than last year, even. But, I reckon you’ll like this—”

Ilya frowns sceptically. 

“The funding for this year is insane. Like, crazy, wild uptick in donations to your foundation thing. Yuna mentioned expanding to New York. She’s had to, like, take on extra staff.” 

Ilya feels like this is a conversation he should have been involved in, not told about second or third hand. Maybe, Yuna had told him when he was out for the count? He gets the feeling she wouldn’t have been delayed by anything as inconsequential as his unconsciousness. 

“On account of the time she’s spending on the cases, I mean,” Wyatt continues. “Hey, do you want us to bring music, next time? It’s super quiet in here.” 

Ilya waves the NO at him again, with more emphasis, and wonders why the hell Yuna has cases, plural, to deal with. He hasn’t got a sheet of paper for this one. 

-

The attempts to get Ilya moving again are something of a logistical headache. The body can be categorised into individual components and functions, but no cell in it operates in isolation. 

Teams of people have been shunting his legs into various contortions. They’ve been doing it since he got here, apparently; folding his knees, pushing them side to side, then tucking them as close to his chest as his ribs allow. Then, when he started getting lucid enough to manage it himself, twisting and whirling each joint from his hips downward. Following the narrow angles of movement until the pressure on his ribs had him gasping and they’d tell him to stop again, revert back to stasis. It was the best chance, they’d said, of preserving muscle integrity and preventing blood clots. They're still giving him Heparin, just in case. 

His right ankle is still an angry, bulbous shape, and his current team of operatives don’t believe, from his scans and reactions to the last pressure test, that he should put any weight on it. 

Normally, they’d recommend crutches. Except, these work by making the upper body compensate for what the lower body can’t do. Specifically, the neck, shoulders, clavicle, core and arms. The cast on Ilya’s right arm alone—destined to stay in place for at least another few weeks before they can fully assess how well the fractures have healed—means that he wouldn’t be able to support himself. Then there’s the bruising on his collarbones and the inflamed shoulder to consider. The ribs, which still need rest, care, and balance. 

Which means that the next logical option, to encourage independence, is a wheelchair. 

Except, Ilya’s neck needs to remain as straight as possible. His neck is still the most vulnerable part of him, the crush injury still slowing his breathing and radiating an awful aching heat. The brace is still there; a softer one, now, and not a permanent fixture, allowing him the smallest of tilts from side to side, up and down, but absolutely no leaning, straining, or sudden movements. Which rules out self-propelled chairs. 

Which leaves Ilya with the option to get as far as standing, upright, on his left leg, with his right knee resting on the bed. There are devices that would allow for propulsion in that position, but none at this hospital, and none that would fully mitigate the overcompensation on the other healing parts of him. Beyond that, his only other means of getting out of this bed and into any space that isn’t this too-small, antiseptic room, is a wheelchair that someone else has to push for him. Very, very gently. 

He takes the news as gracefully as he can, not being able to say a fucking word to ask any questions about it. 

“Mr Rozanov,” calls one of the nurses, who until now has been discussing him as though he is a fun maths puzzle and not a person, “you need to be careful.” 

He is being careful. He can’t be anything fucking else, like this. 

“You’ll get your stitches wet,” he tuts, and reaches for a tissue to dab at the wetness gathering under his eyes and trailing down his cheeks. 

Ilya wants to kill the people who put him here. 

- 

According to his teammates, Shane, apparently, had done his best to do just that. Troy has been referring to him as The Terminator. Shane still hasn’t admitted to most of his actions, though, and every time he seems to come close to describing anything helpful at all, he gets a knotted look in his face.

“It wasn’t as bad as they’re saying,” he downplays. “But, uh, I did knock over a ref. Not deliberately,” he adds in a rush, and Ilya’s only a bit disappointed. “He just…he was in the way.” 

Ilya could bask in the imagined visual of this alone, but he’s hungry for more context, more details. Except Shane’s eyes go glossy and his mouth purses in a way that says he’s trying to stop himself from more than just saying words. 

Ilya tries to soothe him, kissing his knuckles and holding onto his hand like it’s a lifeline. And then Shane tries to soothe him in return, kissing his forehead, working dry shampoo through his hair, whispering fond words in English and carefully spoken Russian, until they’re both feeling a little better, if none the wiser. 

- 

“Rozanov!” 

It’s Harris, beaming, like he’s hanging out with Ilya at a barbecue, not a white-walled room of miserable confinement. Ilya can move his face enough to smile now, so he does. 

“Any idea when we’re gonna start hearing those sweet dulcet tones of yours?” he asks, puppyish demeanor vibrating through his jiggling legs as he waits for an answer. 

Soon, Ilya writes on the pad. He’s getting a little better at navigating the left-handed writing, now that he’s been given a better pen and a bigger pad. 

“Ah,” says Harris, knowing full well that soon could mean anything from tomorrow, to next month. It’s as specific as anything has been able to get. Harris is more than familiar with the ambiguity of hospital timelines. 

“I wanted to ask you, now you’ve—” 

He gestures to Ilya’s nose, where the egg mask has been replaced by a thin plastic tube linked to an oxygen cannister behind him. It’s sitting just below the other thin plastic tube running that is still feeding him. 

“Now that you’re looking a little better, can we take a picture for the socials?” 

What he wants to say is, Are you fucking kidding me? And maybe, explain that the closest he has come to personal hygiene is a series of wet wipes, chewable toothbrushes, and a lot of compromises to his dignity. He still feels like hell, and is far, far from photogenic. Clinging onto the last vestiges of his pride still matters, in an increasingly distant sort of way. He thumbs at the NO sheet of paper but doesn’t wave it. 

“We’re feeding the narrative,” Harris explains in answer to Ilya’s expression of incredulity. “A kind of ‘You can’t keep us down’ kind of vibe.” 

Ilya writes, slowly, is this about the bicon thing?

“Yeah, sort of,” Harris laughs, then shifts to a careful seriousness. It doesn’t suit him. “There’s a lot of footage of the…the other stuff. It was pretty violent. Like, stupidly violent. A lot of it’s been taken down from the main places, but you know how it is. We’re trying to put more positivity out there. I think your grinning mug would help.” 

Ilya wants to say, if people need cheering up so much, why not share one of the thousands of puppy pictures he knows Harris has on his phone. It’s too many words, and he knows he’s deliberately missing the point Harris is dancing around. 

It’s gratifying, to think that somehow he, Ilya Rozanov, reformed fuckboy and professional ragebaiter, could be helpful in any sort of meaningful way. A short cough bursts out of him, wet and wheezing. He’s fairly sure he’s not supposed to be doing that. Harris tries very hard to not look concerned, which only makes Ilya feel worse. 

Ignoring his body’s new way of presenting him with horrible, uncomfortable surprises, and to distract Harris from the uneasy grimace he’s now wearing, Ilya writes, true, I am very handsome. 

“…Yeah,” Harris says uncertainly, and, ouch. They still haven’t given him a mirror. “It’s not just about the— I mean, we’re not fixing asshole behaviour overnight. We still live in the world we live in. But it’s shifting things, in the sport. At least.” 

Ilya thinks he gets it. Part of it, at least. Outrage can be helpful, sometimes. But people can only deal with the horrors for so long before a little bit of optimism is needed. No point in fighting unless there’s something worth fighting for, right? He ignores the fact that he is, by default, currently one of the horrors. 

Get my good side, he writes, and when Harris takes his phone out to take a photo, he gives his broadest, toothiest smile without pulling on the stitches, and adds a thumbs up for good measure. Harris takes at least four different shots, each from slightly different angles. To his credit, he doesn’t frown at any of them. Ilya can feel another cough brewing, and does his utmost to swallow it back down. 

He waves the Show me? paper hopefully. 

“I’ll show you the edit,” Harris promises. 

- 

Troy follows, a handful of minutes after Harris’s departure. Ilya calculates that it was precisely long enough for the two of them to have shared a conspiratorial whisper or two, and one of their grossly cute kisses which he very much doesn’t envy them. Obviously not Troy or Harris specifically; it’s the kissing part he’s missing, not the them part. 

He feels briefly ungrateful, but it’s swallowed by the sense that Shane is going through more than he’s letting on, in their short shared minutes together. Maybe kissing wouldn’t fix it, but it would probably help both of them, right now. Except the staff here probably have some health-related moratorium on that, too. 

“Dude!” Troy says cheerfully, landing heavily in the visitor chair and leaning back, like he’s mistaken the hospital ward for one of Bood’s cookouts. He wonders if he’s brought a beer in with him. “You’re finally getting that playoff beard!” 

Yep. He has the impression of a beard, itching at his jaw, but not the actual playoffs. There’s always next year. Maybe. Hopefully. Eh. 

“Harris got your photo, yeah?” Troy asks. 

Ilya nods, and finds the same question he wants to ask about it already written on the top of his pad. He shoves it at Troy, who is similarly evasive. 

“Ah, it’s on his phone.” And, at Ilya’s apparently crestfallen expression, adds: “We’ll share it when he’s done the whole post. He’s gotta run it all through legal first. You holding up okay?” 

As if on cue, another cough tries to crawl up through Ilya’s lungs. He swallows it, and nods tightly. 

He holds up his favourite question, because this is perfect Troy-bait: Who did Shane hit? 

Troy grins, showing the chip in his front tooth. “It wasn’t just him! But you’ll shit when you see it all, man.” 

Ilya glares at him. He doesn’t want to think about shitting, he wants to think about bloody crusades of vengeance, or whatever else will help him feel like any of his current situation was even slightly worth it. 

Troy seems to catch at least a little of his silent ire, and offers a nugget of elaboration. 

“You remember Andropov?” he asks, and Christ, he knows Troy is not the most articulate person in the world, but he should have at least figured out by now that if he asks a question, he needs it to not be conceptual. Yes, he fucking knows who Andropov is. Remembers him being mouthier than usual during the game, even; something about Slavic pride, something about traitors, the usual bullshit. What Ilya does not remember is this having anything to do with Shane. He attempts a shrug, and winces when his collarbones convene on a bunch of nerve clusters that had been happily resting until now. He swallows down another cough, but this one feels like it’s going to force its way out of his chest, Alien-style, if he doesn’t get it under control. He reaches for another ice chip. 

“Right. So. He took his front teeth out,” Troy says happily. Whatever pain Ilya was feeling a moment ago is briefly eclipsed by something radiant. Proud. “Ref nearly didn’t clock it, and it only cost your guy a couple of minutes in the bin. Couldn’t be sure it was deliberate or some shit.” 

Ilya considers stapling the Show me note to his own face, as apparently Troy isn’t good at reading any of the other subtle gestures of impatience Ilya is sure he’s broadcasting right now, including whirling his good hand in the air to signify get the fuck on with telling me more. 

“That was, like, early on. Way before everything went— well. The way it went.” 

Ilya has only the vaguest memory of this. He remembers seeking Shane on the ice, finding him in instead in the penalty box, and Shane fucking winking at him. His brain hadn’t made the connection to Andropov, so, maybe thank god for Troy after all. 

Who else, he writes. 

Troy looks at his watch, like the list of people is long enough that it will take more time than he has. Then, he looks at the door, like someone is going to march in and tell him to shut up. 

“So,” Troy starts, counting the names out on his fingers. “Patrice Drapeau. Like, your boy really went for him. I mean, it was Drapeau who instigated that one. Fucking goalies, man.” 

Yes, yes, fucking goalies. They’re all operating on a slightly different plane of reality to everyone else, and Shane has owed that particular man a debt of…something, ever since his locker room antics last year that left Shane with a week-long headache and an altered sense of self-worth. 

“Stedlund, too,” Troy counts. “Berkes, I think Gagnon? Or that one might have been Bood, it all got messy, fast.” 

No shit. 

“I think,” Troy says, quieter this time. Contemplative, in a way he rarely is, outwardly at least. “I think most of us, most of them, just thought we were brawling. Like, a regular fight that got big.” 

Ilya writes out one of the names that’s been haunting him, pushing it under Troy’s downcast eyes. 

Troy grins, except there’s a twitch in his jaw and something evasive in his expression when he looks up at Ilya. 

“Oh yeah,” he says, and he holds onto Ilya’s hand in a gesture of something like solidarity. “He fucking got Comeau.” 

- 

Chapter End Notes

As always, thank you for the comments! The chapter count has gone up by one, because somehow these edits keep demanding more.

Also, with apologies to goalies.

Chapter 4: We Were All Weaned My Dear, Upon The Same Fatigue

Chapter Summary

Ilya hands Troy the second note. He’s glad that he is the first non-Shane visitor, because he’s tailored the phrasing of this one for the specific level of unambiguous pleading that even the most oblivious teammate should be able to understand:

Please show me the footage of Shane trying to kill everyone :)

Chapter Notes

So we're still taking the long way round for answers, except we're also going to find out why that might not be the worst thing, right now.

Ilya’s happy to see Troy again, truly. And happier still at the prospect of hearing more details about Shane’s annihilation of his former teammates. It’s just, he’d been hoping that the first face through the door when visiting hours started would be Shane’s. Troy’s face is perfectly fine. Almost fine; his nose is healed, and the chip in his tooth isn’t causing too much of a lisp. But it isn’t Shane’s face. 

“Morning, dude.” 

Ilya nods in answer; a small gesture, with the movement of his neck limited to something just shy of a centimetre. Troy misses it, completely. 

“You doing okay?” Troy asks instead, and what a fucking question. I’m fucking marvelous, Ilya thinks. I’m stuck in a room that smells of plastic and misery, held together with staples and bandages. My head is like a thunderstorm. Everything somehow hurts more than when I first got here. He…might be on a self-pity spiral, and, everyone else seems to have plenty of pity for him, so maybe he should shut that down. He gives Troy a weak thumbs up. 

Then, he hands him a note. 

Ilya has prepared a few more, this morning. The first one, a generic question, simply reads: how are you?

Because Ilya is polite, and also because he wants to hear about things outside of his personal sphere of misery. 

“What?” Troy says, squinting at the paper. “Oh, fine, dude. For real. I’m heading to Harris’s folks’ place later. That’s kinda why I came here so early— I’m not gonna be able to call in on you for a few days.”

Ilya doesn’t have the strength to write It means the world that any of you have been coming at all, so he just does the thumbs up thing again. 

“Gotta fit the dentist in, too,” Troy grins, showing the chip in all its glory. “Thought about keeping it like this as, like, a badge of honour, but Harris says it keeps—” Troy shuts himself up, and in the short moment of silence that follows, Ilya thinks glumly about the things he wants to be doing with his own mouth and his own husband. “Gonna get it fixed,” Troy rounds off. 

Ilya hands him the second note. He’s glad that Troy is the first non-Shane visitor, because he’s tailored the phrasing for the specific level of unambiguous pleading that even the most oblivious teammate should be able to understand. 

Please show me the footage of Shane trying to kill everyone :) 

He’s also got the Show me paper ready to go, in case he needs to push the point. 

Troy deliberates quietly with himself, then sighs. “If Hollander kills me for this,” he says, “then my blood is on your hands, dude.” 

They’re interrupted by a nurse depositing a fresh cup of something beige and watery onto Ilya’s table, and switching out his pot of ice chips for something less melted. Troy and Ilya peer at the beige thing with distaste as the nurse hurries away with a quiet “Sorry, carry on.” 

By the time he’s gone, Troy has the video cued up. He holds the phone just close enough for Ilya to see, not close enough to reach for. 

It’s a regular game play video; the angle capturing the rink like a fishbowl, the red-black shapes clashing with the white, blue and reds of Montreal’s away jerseys. The header score reads 4-2, to Ottawa, and Troy has very unhelpfully set the volume too low to hear the commentary. 

The view closes in on Andropov, his mouth moving fast. The camera tracks him, like it’s caught the scent of a fight waiting to happen. 

“He was saying some shit about, like, Russia,” Troy narrates. 

Ilya nods, remembering the update from the day before. The usual bullshit. Ilya doesn’t even remember caring about it, at the time. That it had been pretty tame, compared to…everything else. 

What follows on screen happens faster than the cameras catch fully. A whoosh of a shape, the number 24, blocking out Andropov’s spitting face. By the time the screen catches up, Hollander fills it. Gloves still on, expression unreadable beneath the visor and the furious pose. 

Shane looks like he’s chasing the puck. Except, his stick is inches higher than it needs to be, and he’s taking up more space on the ice than he’d need to, if it were just about catching up. Andropov’s reactions are slow. 

Shane skims past him, and the movement is so small. It could almost look accidental. Except, Troy is beaming as he watches the playback. Ilya is transfixed by the jerk of Shane’s shoulders as the high end of Shane’s stick jabs upwards into Andropov’s helmet. The camera isn’t even close on this, following the almost graceful movements of play resuming. It’s only caught on the next replay; Andropov’s head tilting back, and the smallest shape of something spat from his mouth. 

The Shane on the screen doesn’t pause to watch. Just regains control of the game. The officials don’t seem to have clocked it by the time Troy pauses the video and pockets the phone. 

Ilya’s internal monologue switches from brief satisfaction at having seen the hit, to a near apoplectic are you fucking kidding me? Because yes, wonderful, Shane’s ruthless butt-ending was very soothing, but that was nothing compared to what he’s been told about. He’d been hoping to at least watch Shane throwing gloves. A tap of a stick into an asshole’s waiting mouth feels…anticlimactic. 

Ilya is adding the word more to his Show me. 

Troy has the sense to look bashful. “You’ll see the rest soon enough, Rozy.”

Fucking when. Whatever Ilya’s face is doing, Troy correctly interprets it as a petulant sulk. 

“We promised,” Troy says, a little quieter. “Shane made us promise.” 

Ilya feels his frustration swell, and redirect to the absent Shane. Like a wave building, ready to crash. His fingers cramp around the pen, writing out I don’t need protecting, with Troy watching every stroke on the page with an uncharacteristic quietness. 

“No one thinks that,” Troy says when the words are all there, legible and accusatory. He’s looking at Ilya through the curtain of his hair, like he’s pleading with him to understand. “What happened was intense, it was— if you’re not remembering it, I think it’s something you need Shane for. Not us.” 

Ilya wants to be angry at the deflection, but can’t fight the sense that Troy is probably right, about this. 

“If it was Harris,” Troy says, not calling Ilya’s eyes back to him and not pointing out the fact that Ilya’s eyes are wet, again. Ilya doesn’t think he’s cried as many times in his life, as he has in these last long days. “I’d want to be the one to share it with him. You get me?” 

Unfortunately, Ilya does. It’s just that calling on Ilya’s empathy feels like a low blow. And it also feels like a reminder; that Troy is one of the few people who’s allowed to know that Ilya has any, beneath his spiky exterior. He doesn’t mean to be careless with it. 

“And if I show you any more,” he says, “Shane and Yuna will straight up murder me. I mean, I could probably take your boy, but I’m not crossing her.” 

“Just…” he adds, and he’s patting the back of Ilya’s hand. Reassuring, or apologetic. “Make sure you read the good stuff first. There’s a lot of it.” 

Ilya squeezes Troy’s hand in return. He is grateful, really. 

 “Get him to show you the gifs of you yelling at Comeau, first,” Troy suggests, as though Ilya can remember what he said. He hopes it was funny. 

Ilya reaches for the same trusted piece of paper, but they’re interrupted by a pair of nurses, apologising as they say tell Troy that they need to take Ilya for more scans. 

- 

There aren’t any more visitors, this morning. Either no one else was waiting, or the poorly timed gauntlet of tests (lung capacity, ankle resistance and pressure) took so long that the visitation window closed, leaving Ilya alone with a thickening headache and his own frustrations. 

Through the fog and the fuzz, Ilya persists in piecing together more of a picture of events. 

- 

The beginning of the game, he remembers. It’s him, against Comeau. The thing he remembers most clearly about it, is that Comeau had tried, so hard, to bait him. He’d licked his lips, shimmied his shoulders, and said something about Shane being their problem, now. That he hoped the whole team knew to take care of him. He’d been a lot more explicit in his language, enough that the ref gave a warning to cut it out. 

Ilya hadn’t given a reaction. Just swallowed the words down, the same way he’d swallowed all the rest. The way they’d agreed. Comeau stared like he’d dealt a devastating burn, instead of the same tired jabs. Ilya had won the face off. 

-

On the next round of scans, another scenic tour of the hospital ceilings and corridors between them, a specialist tells him about a surgery on his jaw that he doesn’t remember having. He uses the word ‘minor’ a lot, talks about good bone integrity, permanent staples, and proudly tells Ilya it was a relatively easy fix, considering what happened. 

The more Ilya’s brain tries to remember, the more his body seems to protest. Mining the limited resources of energy to knot together memories and anecdotes, while the rest of him rails against the confinement of the bed, sweating out a cold anxiety. He aches. 

- 

A nurse—one Ilya likes, but she’s always moving too fast for him to read her name tag—whirls into his room. She’s more cheerful than some of the others, greeting him with a bright, if slightly tired “Good afternoon!” and this is currently the only demarcation of the time of day he exists in, because this room has no fucking windows and no clocks. 

To show willing, Ilya gives her a little wave, and his best impression of a smile. 

“Just changing your—” she gestures to the bags hanging from a pole just outside of Ilya’s sight-line. “Need anything?”   

He probably does need something. A softening of the headache forming behind his eyes, building like a stormfront. A softer blanket. His husband. His mother. 

He doesn’t have the words, and writing them would take too long, so he just waves the NO sheet of paper and has another crack at smiling. 

“Your jaw’s looking better,” she comments, switching out the line running into his hand for a new one. Ilya processes the information as distantly as he does with every other better and improving and fine that’s been said about his body; dimly optimistic that at some point, it will all converge into well enough to leave this fucking bed. “Honestly, the places you hockey boys end up with skate injuries!”

Her words jolt Ilya back to himself. A fucking facial skate injury?

She clips an oximeter to his middle finger, adjusts the dial on the oxygen cannister, and tells him to just keep doing what he’s doing. 

So, in the absence of anything better to do, he ruminates about fucking Montreal. 

- 

Ilya loathes Comeau, but it’s his teammate who carries a heavy, sticky feeling of something worse. Marcus Fucking Leyland.

Leyland is the newest addition to Montreal, transferred from Tampa. His social media presence is a toxic sludge barrel of fascist-adjacent dogwhistles. He’s a public supporter of Dallas Kent. He’s an All Star. He’s the subject of posts and team puff-pieces claiming that his youth and traditional values make him “exactly the sort of powerful presence that’s been missing from hockey”, in the same way those same outlets complain that the likes of Hunter, Hollander and Rozanov are “a distraction from the real heart of the game.” 

Maybe, the heart of it needs cutting out. 

Leyland is, frustratingly, adored by the league. Even Crowell’s deigned to share positive words about him, shaken his hand in public more often than ritual dictates. Sure, the man’s had to take league-mandated sensitivity training at least twice, but it hasn’t dulled his rancorous tongue; he’s just got slightly better at running it out of hearing range of the officials or mics. 

He’s also the reason Ilya’s got (another) two fake teeth in his jaw from the start of the season. 

Leyland plays dirty, like he’s proud of the time he racks up in the penalty box. He plays like he hates the game, as though the act of scoring points is secondary to the need to vent his aggression on the ice. He’s a liability, to put it mildly. He’s made parts of this season feel like fucking hard work. Not just for him; he’s a thorn in a lot of people’s sides. It’s just, he’s the kind of thorn that half the league seems to want to sharpen. 

Ilya picks through his memories of encounters with him throughout the season, and each of them has its own corresponding ache somewhere in his bones, and in his heart, from when Leyland’s focus had landed on Troy, or Shane, or Luca, or Bood. 

Somewhere in the last game, he’s sure he remembers him calling Shane something that Conduct Standards would refer to as “culturally insensitive,” and that Ilya thinks of as fucking heinous. 

Except, when he homes in on that particular exchange, fired across the ice at some point in the second, Shane had only shrugged like it wasn’t anything new. It wasn’t even the rehearsed, not being goaded response. It was this is normal, this is nothing. 

That reaction hurt more, somehow. 

- 

The cards on the side table are within reach, and Ilya’s in the window of medication reprieve where his eyes are just about steady enough to focus on them. They’re no longer propped up and on display, but stacked in a tidy pile, next to the cup which holds the frequently replenished ice chips, and the space where his alternating meals of smoothies, shakes and soups are placed. If Ilya can manage enough of them—sipping, not through a straw, because that involves pulling it into him instead of just, letting it slink down—they’ll take the feeding tube out. Ilya is determined to manage enough. 

At first, he’s content to look at the pictures on the front of the cards. Most of them feature dogs, and it makes him miss Anya. So far, no one has been prepared to smuggle her into the hospital, which is desperately unfair. 

He thumbs through the first few, smiling at the messages of well wishes, and the comfortable blend of sincerity and teasing. Most are from his team. There’s an expensive looking one from Rose—also dog themed: a pile of puppies swarming a cartoon man mummified in bandages—promising him an extravagant and indulgent shopping trip when he’s sure he’ll be able to keep up. It’s a challenge he’s looking forward to accepting. 

He sifts through a few more. The one from Luca does not, in fact, contain any odes to Ilya’s anatomy, which he is grateful for because he does enjoy boundaries. However, it does contain an expert doodle of two superhero-proportioned figures stood back to back, in capes adorned with numbers 81 and 24. The heroes appear to have lain waste to a group of what look like trolls, or ogres, with M shapes on their chests. The kid has crazy good skills. 

He looks again at the one from the kids in the hospital across town, and wonders how much any of them know about why he’s in here. Probably more than him, at this point. Christ, he hopes not. 

There are more, but he’s short on entertainment and needs to draw these out for as long as possible. The last one he picks up is written in Cyrillic, and he’s missed the immediate familiarity of seeing the language written out. He’s also missed the immediate familiarity of Svetlana, and her chaotic approach to non-verbal communication. 

Ilyusha, the note says. Shane tells me you’re not allowed your phone. This is unfortunate, as I miss you terribly and his updates are very dull. Full of worry, but dull. You have given us both frown lines, my love. Your old team misses you, Marlow especially. He says he is sorry he didn’t get to punch those assholes out himself. He is deluding himself, of course; your idiot husband did much better than he could. But, Marlow is in the playoffs and you and your husband are not, so. 

You are a fucking disaster and I love you so much. 

Where most people would sign their name, Svetlana has simply written ‘S’, except she’s drawn it as the western, nineties S, the one drawn with three dashes and a bunch of lines that make it look like an angular, 3D monstrosity. It’s a relic from their time as kids, when Ilya used to daydream about the world beyond Russia’s cold borders. Seeing it pulls a fond puff of laughter from his chest. 

The sound of it is almost audible. Huh. 

- 

When Ilya thinks more about Leyland, his lungs feel heavy and his neck gets tight. He knows he said something, did something, to wind him up. Or maybe it was Comeau. The two faces swim together, both of them open-mouthed and furious and temptingly punchable. 

- 

In the moments before visiting hours re-open, there are noises coming from the corridor. More than the creaking and shuffling of trolley wheels, or the rushed padding of soft-soled shoes. There’s Yuna’s voice, ringing like a furious bell. 

Ilya latches onto the sound like a limpet. 

“If you were as competent as you claim,” she’s saying, and this is her manager voice at full strength, “you’d see this as the gift it is. Those emails, Clyde. I know it’s not explicit, he’s not a cartoon villain. But with everything else—”

There’s a pause in her speaking, and nothing more than the (much faster) shuffling of footsteps before she resumes what Ilya fondly thinks of as a tirade. 

“Exactly,” she’s exclaiming. “We’ve given you the metaphorical rope, now hang him with it. With the recordings—” Another pause, followed by the most passive aggressive “You’re welcome,” that Ilya has ever heard. 

It’s silent for a beat, as though her fury has cleared a path through the entire hospital. Then, a little quieter, but still sharp; “Honey, pull yourself together. He needs you. Go on.” 

- 

“Hi, Shane,” Ilya says. It’s the most volume he’s been able to push out of his throat since everything happened, and it feels important that these are his first proper words. They feel warm and slow, climbing through his bruised trachea, landing gently on Shane. 

Shane, in response, lands gently on Ilya, now expert in the ways he can fold himself onto, into, the bed and tangle himself into Ilya’s space. Inextricable, and perfect. 

“Hi, Ilya,” he murmurs into Ilya’s jaw, something like surprise or maybe wonder keeping his voice soft. 

Ilya thinks about cats, about how their purring is meant to help heal, when they lay on the chests of their chosen people. Something about resonance, or vibrations. Or maybe it’s just the feeling of being chosen by something so soft and perfect, and trusted to hold them close. Either way, he is fairly sure that he credits most of his recovery thus far with the man currently nestled into him. He wants Shane to know this — needs him to understand how precious he is to him. Not just in this moment, but always. 

What he says, eking the words out in a whisper, is: “You are like cat.” 

“What.” 

“Kot. Kotenok,” offers Ilya, as though it will somehow make more sense in Russian. 

“I know the word, Ilya,” Shane says, “but…kitten?”

Ilya’s breaths are still regrouping, so he settles on stroking Shane’s hair. It’s been recently washed, smelling of seaweed and spice, and this is something, at least; he’s been worried about how much the whole…this…has been taking its toll on his man. He’s smelt the shifts in anxiety, seen the shadows carved under his eyes from more than just fading bruises. Ilya may still be picking through tidbits of trauma, but he gets the feeling Shane’s been bearing the full weight of it. 

Ilya lets the peace settle around them, into his bones, for as long as he can. Until curiosity gets the better of him. 

“Tell me about game,” he asks. It takes so long, for his mouth to wrap around each syllable, for each breath to push out between his teeth, no louder than a whisper. Each one threatens to turn into a heave, a wheeze, a burst of coughing, unless he tamps it down and tames it into a simple sound. But it’s something. Shane is a careful listener. 

“Do you remember what you said to Hayden in the third?” Shane asks, cautious. No, Ilya does not remember. He says a lot of shit to Hayden. Partly because he enjoys the exasperation on Shane’s face, but mostly because of the outrage on Hayden’s. 

“Hayden was playing like shit,” Shane continues. This isn’t a surprise. Hayden is, in Ilya’s not even slightly humble opinion, not a great player. A good friend, sure. To Shane, at least. But an average player, on a proficient but objectively awful team. “It’s probably how we scored so many, at first. Defence was all over the place. Like he didn’t want to be there. JJ, too.” 

The picture is forming in Ilya’s mind, linking a few more abstracts into a cohesive picture. It tracks with what he’s remembered so far. That it had felt less like a game, more like a poorly-planned ambush. 

Shane continues, feeding Ilya another sliver of ice, smiling, “You, uh. You asked him if he was pregnant this time.” 

Oh. This Ilya does remember. He grins and winces almost simultaneously. 

“Because,” Shane continues, and he’s laughing softly as he recounts it. “You said he missed the last two periods.” 

Ilya isn’t entirely proud of that one. Since learning from Leah and Max about whole new categories of weaponised language, he’s trying to be careful about saying stuff that might hurt the wrong people. But, come on. It’s Hayden. If the other team is going to make a battering ram out of their chirps, Ilya can at least make Hayden squirm a little. 

Ilya wants to ask if Hayden is seriously still mad at him for that, but his words still feel finite, like his chest is still wrapped too tight around his lungs to let enough of them out. He’s not sure how many to waste on this one. 

“Hayden came by, after,” Shane adds. “Jackie, too. But you were fully out of it, then. I don’t think he wanted to stick around when…”

Ilya waits for the missing words to assemble in Shane’s mouth. When they don’t, he finds himself irritated, for a moment: Shane’s voice is right there, coming so easily to him, and he’s still not using it to tell him what really matters. 

“After what happened,” Shane says eventually, “I think any Montreal player would expect to be chased out of here with pitchforks. Even—” 

“Is he okay?” Ilya manages to ask. He’ll spare a few syllables on Pike, then. 

Shane laughs, like this was the wrong question. “Yeah? I mean, he’s been made captain now. No one is blaming him.” 

Which means someone is being blamed. Ilya feels the familiar knotting behind his ribs. Everyone so far has been very careful to tell him it’s not his fault, that he’s some kind of figurehead, but as far as he can tell, all he managed to do was wind up Pike, probably a few others, and take a hell of a beating. Just because he’s good at both, doesn’t mean it deserves whatever else is going on outside this room. 

“There’s something else I wanted to show you,” Shane says, reaching into his pocket for his phone. Ilya’s eyes flash wide; at long fucking last. He hopes he gets to see the footage of Shane’s gloves being thrown. 

Except, it’s not his own phone, it’s Shane’s. And Shane is holding it very decisively out of Ilya’s range of movement, as though he’ll grab it from him. Still. It’s not nothing. 

“It wasn’t all bad,” Shane says, holding the screen up and sounding suspiciously like he’s trying to reassure himself, instead. “See?” 

A gif plays, and Ilya watches the looping image on the tiny screen. It’s them—the two of them, in their Centaurs jerseys. Ilya’s holding Shane by the waist, lifting him inches off the ice, spinning him, as Shane holds on for balance. As each of their faces spins into frame, their grins light up the screen. Bashful and adoring for Shane, radiant and proud for Ilya. The gif keeps looping. They keep spinning. It’s only on the fourth loop that Ilya clocks the smudge of pink bruising under Shane’s helmet. 

“I remember this,” Ilya whispers. 

Since last year, they don’t do PDAs on the ice. (Or in the locker room, except for that one time that they can’t talk about without Shane turning a precious shade of ruby). But on the ice, under the watchful eyes of the league and the fans and the idiots with blogs, they don’t let themselves have even these moments. They don’t want to be a distraction. 

Except, clearly, they had. 

 Ilya remembers thinking, about Montreal’s stupid words and lousy checks, good. Let them earn their penalty points. And when he’d watched Shane fly the puck past Drapeau for the second time that night, he’d wanted to show them. Wanted to show all of them, how good they were. How much of a fucking joy it was, to share the ice with Hollander. And so he’d barrelled into Shane, lifted him, and spun him like a trophy. A few whirling seconds of unmitigated delight. 

It was perfect, and carefree, for one gorgeous moment. He’s glad someone captured this. He wants it tattooed on the inside of his eyelids. 

“We should frame this,” he tells Shane, watching the phone get tucked away again. 

“You can’t frame a gif, Ilya.” 

Ilya groans. “I know.” A pause, for his voice to find itself again. “I want,” he pauses again, swallowing a cough. “Everyone to see.” 

Shane goes quiet, stiff. Ilya’s stomach sinks. “I think everyone has seen it,” Shane says. His eyes look sadder. “It’s kind of…”

Ilya waits for more, waits for his throat to make the words to ask Shane what sits beyond those few seconds of happiness. 

“I just—” Shane starts. “I needed you to see that first. Before you see the rest.”

All the things Ilya wants to ask are getting foggy in his head again. Maybe it’s the medications, still swilling into him at odd intervals, or maybe it’s because all he wants to do is have someone tell him he doesn’t need to think about the rest, and for him to believe it. 

If his body wasn’t telling a different story, he could almost accept that one gif as the summation of the experiences of that night. A happy ever after. 

Except, he never liked stories that ended that way. The memories he has are like a bruise he can’t help pressing on, trying to reach the bones underneath. “Need my phone,” Ilya says. Pleads, really. 

Shane slides off the bed, wrapping his hands around Ilya’s face, and kisses him softly on his dry mouth. “I know,” he says. “There’s just—”

“I know,” Ilya whispers, frustrated. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane tells him, eyes cast down for a second before they land back on Ilya. He says it less like a reflex, more like he’s been agonizing over this, and doesn’t want to be the one to tell Ilya no. “We’ll go through it all together. Fill in the gaps.” 

“When.” 

Shane kisses Ilya’s hand, like he’s some prince’s servant. If the circumstances were a little less bleak, Ilya might enjoy it. 

“Tomorrow. At the start of visiting hours,” Shane offers, “and when we haven’t got a queue of people outside. Yuna will literally kill me if I hog all your time today.” 

It’s always weird, hearing Shane refer to his mom by her first name. Like he’s distinguishing between the parent, and the manager. He wouldn’t mind Shane hogging a little more of his time. 

Except, there’s one small detail he needs to know, now. Ever since the nurse mentioned his jaw, his brain has been giving him helpful flashes of ice against his cheek and a body with no face standing over him. He grabs Shane’s hand, gripping it as urgently as his strength allows. He can wait another day for the rest of it, but this is going to haunt his silent, lonely hours if he doesn’t get an answer. 

The words come out so slowly. “Who fucked up my face?” 

“It’s not that fucked up,” Shane says, and he strokes at Ilya’s cheek for emphasis, above where the stitch line ends. “It’s…you’re gonna be fine. Still a beautiful asshole,” he smiles, something sad tugging the edges of his mouth. 

Ilya waits, because his throat feels like it’s going to explode if he tries to work more words out of it, and because it sometimes takes Shane a minute to identify the relevant part of whatever question he’s just been asked. 

When Shane speaks next, it’s a very quiet, faintly shaking sound. “Fucking…Comeau,” he says. It’s not exactly a surprise, really. It had to be one of the two. “He’s been saying it was an accident. You were— we— I couldn’t see it, just that you’d been knocked over. You were getting back up.” Ilya’s mouth feels dryer. He tangles his fingers in Shane’s a little more tightly. “It’s…” 

The distance between their bodies is too wide. Ilya wants to bury himself in Shane’s neck and bite the pain out of his voice. 

“It looked like he was helping you. Up, I mean. You can’t really see it, in the footage,” Shane says, with the fraught voice of someone who’s analysed every angle of it. His next words come out too fast, like he doesn’t want a single one of them to have the space to exist in the room, because that would make them real. “But it’s like he was trying to fucking tread on you.” And then, because now both of them have damp eyes, except Shane feels like he’s vibrating with anger in his grasp, “I’m sorry, Ilya. I need to go. Yuna—” 

Ilya wants to say more. He wants to say, It’s not your fault. I love you. He wants to say, take me away from this place. Wrap me up in our bed, where our time isn’t rationed and monitored and we can help each other through a conversation that’s going to hurt us both. He wants to say to Shane, I trust you to take care of me, better than any other person in this hospital. What he says, hand gripping onto Shane’s hard enough that letting go will hurt, is, “Okay.” 

-

Yuna looks tired. 

She settles herself into the visitor chair, pulling it a little further back from the bed than Shane had left it. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks, and Ilya fights the uncomfortable instinct that this question is some kind of test. 

Horribly overwhelmed is too many syllables.  So is Feeling like one of those tiny frogs people pin to a board to learn about biology. 

He settles on, “Okay,” and buries the cough that tries to follow it. 

Yuna reaches for his hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. The haze of light jasmine perfume that usually accompanies her is missing, replaced by the less soothing smell of machine coffee. He’s not sure, but he thinks there’s a whiff of nicotine in there somewhere. If she sees the dampness of Ilya’s cheeks or the residual tremor left in the wake of Shane’s visit, she doesn’t say anything. 

“I thought you’d want an update,” she says, like she’s providing an informal business review, instead of helping him fill in a jigsaw puzzle where a bunch of the pieces are either face-down or missing. “I don’t know how much you’ve been told,” she says, and he’s exhausted by the way everyone seems to think he knows more than he does. He’s sick of having to lie here, in this room which is somehow both too hot and too cold, and guess at everyone’s version of events. “No one needs a statement from you,” she says. “It’s all in motion, and it’s moving fast.” 

Well, this is good, because if anyone did want anything out of him, they’d have to wait half an hour between words at the rate he’s going. Ilya nods. It’s a tiny movement, more from his chin than his whole head, but Yuna’s already learning how to interpret the new, limited ways Ilya is able to communicate. 

“I do have a question though. You’ve not had any direct communication with the Commissioner, in the last few months?” 

Not since Shane’s barely veiled “Go fuck yourself” the year before. He’d assumed they were back to being only minor pariahs, and therefore undeserving of his attention since then. Sure, they’ve heard from management plenty—reminders about not doing anything to “jeopardise the integrity of the league” and the usual conduct bullshit, but nothing from the cockroach overseeing it all. “No.” 

Yuna hums thoughtfully, as though this is somehow revealing something significant. 

“Anyway. The game footage, the audio, recordings… plus all the photographs they took when you were admitted, it’s all more than enough.” 

“For what?” Ilya asks, and this time the cough lurches out, thick, pushing his chest inwards and knocking against his ribs. He reaches for the cup of melting ice. 

Yuna frowns. “For the charges, against— well, you know who it’s against.” 

Ilya does, by now. Comeau, and Leyland. Montreal’s worst double act of assholes. To say nothing of the rest of team. 

“Shane’s given his own recorded testimonial. JJ, too, if you can believe it,” she adds, and there’s a slight purse to her lips, like she’s been nurturing Shane’s grudge against the man after her own son let it go. “A few of Montreal’s rookies. Hayden, obviously. And Hunter’s group have been working hard.” 

Ilya frowns at this, taking a few seconds to work out what Scott Hunter’s team has to do with this. 

Yuna studies him for a moment, like she’s trying to interpret whether it’s just Ilya’s voice that’s failing him, or his entire brain. It’s making Ilya question that, too. “The— you know, I forget what they call themselves. I’ve got it written down here, somewhere. You know. His unofficial hockey vigilantes,” she continues. 

The dawning understanding pulls a smile to the corner of Ilya’s mouth. He does know—the collective of hockey players who’d vowed to challenge the endless torrent of bullshit from the worst of the league and its players. He’s also forgotten what they call themselves, if only because they’d come up with so many names that were infinitely better than the real thing. ‘Scotty’s Hotties’ seemed to be the enduring favourite. Chosen for being more polite than the more expletive-heavy suggestions, and also because of the put-upon facial scrunch that Shane did the first time Ilya had suggested it. And the look of sheer murderous resignation on Scott Hunter’s. 

“They’ve been giving the Conduct committee a hard time. And, no one’s saying it outright,” Yuna says, reassured that Ilya has regrouped his understanding. “But they’re part of the reason Thierault’s probably about to resign.” 

“Good,” Ilya offers, surprised by the unexpected morsel of good news. To his mind, Shane’s former coach deserves a lot worse than shuffling off into a presumably well-paid retirement, but as Scotty’s Hotties aren’t actual kneecapping vigilantes, he’ll take it. 

One less bully in one less locker room. It has to count for something. It’s also the first tangible impact the ragtag collective seems to have had on the world of hockey; they’ve been trying, behind the scenes, but there’s only so far coordinated social media posts can reach, when the rot is enmeshed in the culture and reaches all the way to the top. He wonders what kind of scandal it would take to topple Crowell from it all, but thinking about him makes his brain hurt. At least, something is making his brain hurt. He coughs again, too fast to raise his hand to catch it. 

“What I mean, Ilya,” Yuna says, and now she’s looking at him so kindly, with so much warmth, that he suddenly feels very young. “Is that you don’t have to do anything. You’ve already done it. You just need to get better.” She drapes the back of her hand against Ilya’s temple. He’s struck by the familiarity of the gesture, something from a lifetime ago; his own mother, soothing him through a fever. Promising him jam tea, and to keep his father away. He blinks Yuna back into focus, his eyes feeling hot and damp. 

“You’re burning up, Ilya. When was the last time they checked your temperature?” Then, “Wait here.” 

It’s not like Ilya has much choice, so he does. 

- 

It doesn’t take long for the various nurses, doctors, whoevers, to confirm it. Ilya has pneumonia. Fucking, fantastic. No matter what he tries, his body still persists in fucking everything up. 

The problem, Doctor Marev told him, as though there was only one, is that he really, really shouldn’t cough. That coughing is the absolute worst thing for his recovering throat. Which is unfortunate, because his lungs are seizing and cramping and seem to be determined to push all manner of wet, rattling eruptions out of him, with horrible, increasing frequency. 

It should be okay, they tell him. Should be treatable. Better that it happened here, than if it had taken hold after he’d gone home.

The drugs siphoning into him through the tube in his hand change colour, and increase in volume. There are anti-spasmodics, anti-inflammatories, and a different flavour of antibiotics. A lot of antis. The ice chips are refreshed. Someone apologises, tugs his mouth open from the jaw, and sprays something that tastes of dental surgery into the back of his throat. 

His breath rattles in and out of him like gravel. 

The only mercy is that his fever is building into a heady, spinning delirium that’s rapidly taking him away from his own body. 

“That’s it,” Doctor Marev tells him, planting the fucking egg mask back onto his face. “You’re doing great. Just keep breathing.” 

Ilya lets his eyes roll back, and sinks into the pillow. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Look, I'm sorry. Honestly. I promise it's a happy ending.

Chapter 5: One More Breath And Then I'll Go Down

Chapter Summary

When Ilya thinks more about where he sits, in the balance of being hated, loved, and the ambivalence between, there’s a lot more weight at the brighter end of the scale.

Someone, recently, has tried to tip that scale. It’s sitting in his brain in glitches; the too-whites of a man’s eyes, the words that come out with spit on them. Ice against his cheek. A skate edge grinding into his jaw. His own skates kicking against the boards, too far from the ground.

Love, though, he has in abundance.

Chapter Notes

Ilya wakes, at odd intervals. Mostly, the room is empty when he does. Sometimes, there are people with uniforms, checking readouts, clipping things to his fingertips. The only voices he hears are detached, methodical, clinical. His brain feels further away each time. His skin feels congealed. Time is passing, too much and not clearly enough. He’s sure Shane was meant to be here. He was going to show him something. The lights in the room dim, and rise, and dim again. 

- 

People like to tell Ilya that he is hated. 

It isn’t true. Mostly. There’s the near-mythological idea of it, that’s scarred his name into modern-day sports legend. The burnt effigies, the defaced jerseys, the weirdly dedicated podcasts that devote episodes at a time to why Ilya Rozanov is a one-man crime against their favourite sport. It’s an archetype, a representation of something, that they’re raging against. It’s a hatred of points scored against, of stats or reputation. 

Ilya does more than weather this kind of hatred; he’s galvanised by it. The beauty of making those assholes eat their words is more real than any of the shit they fling at him.

Whatever hatred they harbour for him is their problem, not his. 

- 

He’s being propped against a large, smooth cylinder. Someone is holding him by the waist, with another hand between his shoulders, nudging him forward. 

“Hug the machine,” a voice tells him. 

Either his dreams are getting weirder, or this is a new sort of scan. He doesn’t remember entering the room. Or why he’s in it. He’s pretty sure he’s not meant to be upright, and neither is the gravity in this room. 

“There we go, yep,” the voice tells him as his cheek flattens against the cool plastic and his chest presses close to the cool, broad chest of the—whatever it is. He thinks, for a second, about his cheek against ice, and skates in his sight-line. The gravity in the room gets heavier. “Ten seconds, hold your balance for us, big guy. Hang on.” 

The hands retreat, along with the voice, and Ilya doesn’t think too hard about why his arms are wrapped around a lump of machine. 

The flash is upsettingly bright. He thinks of photos he doesn’t want taken. He thinks of the gnawing tension in his core from holding this new position, and the growing tremble in his leg. 

His balance tilts. 

A beat or a breath later, he’s being lifted up into a chair and told he did a good job. 

Just, great. 

-  

The x-rays, taken in the machine-hugging room, were apparently promising. Doctor Marev is telling someone this, stood patiently at the foot of Ilya’s bed. Marev continues talking. Ilya is exhausted enough that he can’t even lift his arm enough to scrape his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyebrows and soothe the cloying, itching mess of his body. 

“You’ve been through the wringer,” Marev says, this time addressing Ilya directly. It’s nice to be included. “But you keep pulling through. Keep on doing that, hmm?” 

Then Marev uses words like decompensation, and saturation, and then a few more ations and ictions, and the words drone into a gentle, background hum. 

- 

When Ilya thinks more about where he sits, in the balance of being hated, loved, and the ambivalence between, there’s a lot more weight at the brighter end of the scale. 

Someone, recently, has tried to tip that scale. It’s sitting in his brain in glitches; the too-whites of a man’s eyes, the words that come out with spit on them. Ice against his cheek. A skate edge grinding into his jaw. His own skates kicking against the boards, too far from the ground. 

Love, though, he has in abundance. It isn’t louder than the flashes that smack into his thoughts, because it doesn’t scream its presence. It’s just there, like a warm blanket to fall into. From his mother: the sharp, bright humour she shared with him. The softer ways she cared, even on her quietest days. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, or put much stock in deities, but he does believe that the effect of her love had ripples, even after she had to leave. Aftershocks, maybe. That she’s still sending him the care he needs. 

- 

The stern nurse is back. She says the word “agitated” a lot, and yes, Ilya is fucking agitated. His skin is crawling. Maybe from the rivulets of sweat beading out of every pore in his body. He’d expected pneumonia to feel cold, but his body is currently experiencing every temperature from furnace hot to arctic chill and everything between, all at the same fucking time. There is a freezing, shooting gale blasting through his nostrils, and something pulsing, hot and lurching, into his veins through the channel in his hand. 

“You need to stop,” says the stern nurse, except she’s not the one with fingers and liquids and tubes creeping and crawling all over his body. He will calm down. He will. He just needs some of the movements to stop. He can almost reach them—

He hears the word restraints, and the itching, grabbing feeling gets so much worse. 

- 

There’s a hand on his forehead. Finally, fucking finally, someone is pushing his sticky hair off his forehead. 

He squints an eye open, and is met with the sight of a damp blue towel, moving back and forth over his face. 

“Hey, hey,” Shane says, dragging the towel back like a curtain. “Ilya?” 

Ilya opens both eyes, and tries to focus. Shane looks a little blurrier than usual; flushed and heavy with misery. 

“Hey,” Ilya manages. The word rattles around his teeth. His next move is instinctual—he needs Shane’s hand in his. Any contact, really. The instinct is stopped by something snagging at the movement, tethering him into place. 

Fuck this. 

“They said you were trying to pull your lines out,” Shane says, looking more furious about it than Ilya feels. “I’ve asked them to—”

“Is wrong way round, no?” Ilya says, jerking at the broad fabric cuff on his wrist. Even though it comes out  in a slur, it’s enough that Shane’s face goes from pink to scarlet. 

This time, when Ilya drops out of conscious thought, he’s doing it with a smile. 

- 

When Ilya’s at his most sentimental, he likes to believe that his mother sent Shane. A perfectly formed force of nature. Someone who looks through his spikiest exterior and cherishes the softness underneath. Cherishes the spikiness too, for sure. Someone who has looked at all those facets of Ilya that he’s been told to hide away, and cradled them. The fact that he’s also built like a door, has a face so pretty he could go blind staring at it, and manages to unlock new levels of sexual compatibility that even Ilya hadn’t conceived of before him, then, well. 

- 

Ilya knows, mostly, that he’s dreaming. He’s a little upset that his brain hasn’t chosen to whisk him away into a more soothing corner of his subconscious, but being angry at his brain isn’t new. So he’s not entirely surprised to find his dream body—upright, fully mobile, and free of pain—standing in the middle of an empty rink. His mind hasn’t specified which, of the hundreds he’s ever been in; the banners change, the size of it fluctuates. It’s not important. 

What matters, is the ice itself. He can feel the cold of it gripping his skin, cold enough to burn where his bare feet are touching it. 

What matters next, is the commotion erupting in the corner. Too far away to see clearly, but he knows without seeing, that Shane is at the centre of the heaving bodies, the same way he knows that he needs needs needs to reach him. 

His feet skid against the surface of the ice. Like he’s melting it with his body heat, creating rivers of water in his wake as he runs. The corner of the ice, the collection of bodies—all blurred in reds and blues and whites, thrashing and converging on Shane—aren’t getting any closer. 

Shane is calling to him. 

Ilya thinks it’s a call for help, to pull him free from the jerseys and mashing sticks. And he wants to, needs to get Shane away from them. His whole body lunges forward, desperate to pluck Shane from the fray. Protect him. Carry him to safety, where the two of them can just be. 

Shane is calling to him, but it’s a warning. 

There’s nothing under Ilya’s feet but water. 

Shane is calling, look out. 

Ilya’s ankles sink beneath the edge of the ice, then his knees, then his whole body. The rink around him is cracking like a pond. He’s dragging himself out of the water by his elbows, slipping as the edge melts away from him. 

Shane is calling, behind you. 

Ilya doesn’t look behind him, because Shane is in front of him and that’s what matters. 

Something wraps around his neck, heavy and solid, taped handle scratching his skin and pulling him under. 

Shane is calling, Ilya. Through the water bubbling up around him, he hears He’s gonna fucking kill him. 

-

When he opens his eyes, Doctor Marev is standing over him with a thermometer.  

“Looks like your fever’s broken, Rozanov,” Marev tells him cheerfully. 

Ilya wants to be relieved. He is. He’s also exhausted, and soaked in so much sweat that his clothes feel fused to his body. He’s also annoyed that his dreams about being at centre ice aren’t as fun as the ones Shane tells him about. 

- 

Ilya misses the next round of visiting hours. He understands it, grudgingly; the onslaught of scans and blood tests that had him escorted to different wings in the hospital were necessary, obviously. And probably better for his health, in the long run. He sees the chest x-ray machine again, and it’s no less weird with full lucidity. 

A few more days of antibiotics, anti-emetics, close monitoring and all the rest, and he should be okay. 

It’s just, as the fog of his delirium cleared a little, he’d clung to the memory of Shane’s heavy, worried eyes, promising him answers.  

He’s been holding the facts of his body as separate entities to whatever’s caused them. His body is the fact; bandages and tenderness and stitches and warnings. The causes are abstracts. The more the abstracts resolve, the less keen he is on confronting them. Maybe, he doesn’t need to know. Maybe he just needs to heal. 

- 

It’s a lot of hours later when Shane finally returns to Ilya’s room. He’s got a heavy-looking gym bag hanging off his shoulder, and he’s pushing a plastic chair, something white and ugly, with holes dotted through the seat of it like a honeycomb. 

Ilya hopes to god he’s not leaving the hospital in that. 

“Can you stop getting sick?” he asks, handing Ilya a horrifyingly green smoothie. “I can’t handle any more near death experiences from you.” He’s keeping his tone light, but the thread of sincere worry is vibrating through him, pinching at the corners of his jaw. “I mean it,” he adds, pushing Ilya’s sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. No amount of dry shampoo can save the tendrils of it from clamping against Ilya’s scalp. “You— you can’t do that.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says, after swallowing a polite quantity of Shane’s home-blended monstrosity. The feeding tube is out, at last, and he’s supposed to consume—because he still can’t eat, not really—as much as possible. It tastes of ginger, and something abstractly nutritious. He makes a note to ask for a liquidised McGriddle, next time. “Sorry,” he adds, because even if it wasn’t his intention to succumb to pneumonia, or the rest of it, he still wishes he hadn’t. He wishes his body was stronger, and less prone to creating new ways to worry his Shane. 

“I feel better,” he adds. His voice is coming a little easier, now that the subsiding infection has cleared out the worst of whatever was clogging his lungs. It’s not much louder than a whisper, still, but it’s something. 

“Really. Because you look like—”

“Really,” Ilya affirms, taking another sip of the smoothie. It’s not a complete lie; the pounding in his head has dulled to a gentle, sporadic thump. He’s aching a little less. His body still feels weak and gelatinous, but he doesn’t have to use it for much, so. The stitches in his face only pull a little, when he talks or smiles, and the soreness of his throat is less like glass, more like…coarse sand. He’s no longer catheterised. Even if it means he still needs someone to transport him to and from the bathroom, it’s still progress. “Shane. Why do you have chair that looks like horror movie guy’s face?” 

“Bath time,” Shane exclaims, looking far too happy about it. “I mean, shower time,” he clarifies. “Wait, do you mean a hockey mask?” He doesn’t wait for a response, before adding, “I need to put these on you.” Shane pulls out something that looks like a clear plastic bag with a thick black rim, then another matching one. He dutifully wraps the first over the cast on Ilya’s arm, where the lip of it suckers onto his elbow. He pushes the blanket up to wrap his right ankle with the second. “Doctor Marev approved it. I thought it might be easier if—”

Ilya uses his good arm to pull Shane down to him, pressing their mouths together. “Thank you,” he says as they part, a little more emotively than intended. 

“It’s just a shower, Ilya,” Shane says, quizzically. 

It isn’t just a shower, though. It’s been days, weeks, of his body belonging to strangers, being moved and tubed and wiped and monitored, and Ilya hasn’t felt like a person so much as a confused inhabitant of a failing vessel. This is so much better than another awkward conversation about fucking Montreal. 

“You’ll need to stay in the chair,” Shane says, unplugging the line running into the back of Ilya’s hand. “I’ve brought your shampoo,” he continues.

Ilya peels the blanket off, lowers the guardrail, and begins the slow process of swinging himself off the edge of the bed and into the waiting chair. The plastic sticks to the back of his thighs where his shorts end. 

“I’m looking forward to you smelling like you again,” Shane says, positioning himself behind Ilya. 

“I smell delightful,” Ilya protests. 

“No,” Shane says, simply. “You smell like…” 

“Never mind what I smell like,” Ilya huffs. “Let’s get wet, yes?” 

- 

The shower room on the ward might be the least erotic space Ilya has ever been in. 

It’s huge—it could fit an entire hockey team in it—except there is only one shower head, mounted to one white tiled corner. On the opposite wall, there is a scuffed white sink, and a white toilet without a lid. There is no delineation in the space between these things, giving the room a sense of being aggressively functional. 

It is also the first private space he has shared with Shane in an age. 

Mostly private, he corrects inwardly; the door doesn’t lock, so much as it closes with a swivel latch that can be accessed just as easily from the outside as the inside. 

Fifteen minutes. That’s the full allocation of time that he is trusted to be alone, with his husband, and to get the stink of fever and bedrest cleansed from his skin. Longer than that, and the door opens, and teams of people will return to fix him back into the bed, and translate his existence back from being Ilya, into being a patient. 

Getting undressed is rushed, but not in the frantic, needy, hungry way Ilya enjoys. More a fumble of limbs and angles and discoveries of new pressure points in Ilya’s body as he contorts within the confines of the chair. By the time his shorts are off, Shane is fully naked, too. 

“Oh, you need a shower too?” Ilya asks. 

Shane starts the water running, a few feet from where Ilya is still sitting. 

“Getting that smell out is a two person job, buddy,” Shane grins, feet splatting against the tiles as he wheels Ilya under the shower’s unambitious spray. 

The heat from the water compensates for the lack of pressure. It’s a luxurious cascade. Ilya’s fast, with his good hand; scooping up the spray and massaging it into his face, careful to avoid the stitches on the right side. Shane’s arm reaches in front of him, offering a pour of liquid gel from a forest green bottle. His favourite body wash, a pine and eucalyptus blend that smells like shared mornings and a little like home. 

They fall into a rhythm as easily as if they’d rehearsed the moves. Ilya massaging his own skin with his left hand, Shane matching the movements to clean what Ilya can’t reach. Smooth, rolling passes of their hands on his body, light over the bruises and firm, kneading, over the rest. 

Shane takes over shampooing Ilya’s hair, holding him steady as fingers swirl and press into his scalp, angling the shower head to push the suds from his forehead. It’s reverent, and thorough. 

It’s not until Shane is facing him again, crouching on the wet tiled floor to scrub at Ilya’s thighs, that the instinct to reciprocate takes over. Except, seeing Shane making himself comfortable between his legs triggers a Pavlovian response in Ilya’s dick. 

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Shane asks Ilya’s crotch. 

“Always,” grins Ilya, using his soapy hand to pull Shane’s chin upwards. 

“We’re in— anyone could walk in?” 

Ilya guesses they have at least eight minutes left before people start knocking on the door. Maybe ten until they’d try and open it. Plenty of time. 

“Is it because I am…invalid?” Ilya teases, over the din of water falling on the plastic arm wrapping. “Am too delicate to fuck your mouth?” 

Shane continues massaging everywhere that isn’t Ilya’s dick. 

“Your voice is really coming back,” Shane comments, as neutrally as the smile on his face allows. 

“I will use it to beg,” Ilya threatens. 

“Uh huh.” Shane slides a wet finger under Ilya’s balls. Another. Uses his wrist to nudge Ilya’s thighs a little further apart, until they’re flush against the sides of the shower chair. “Go on, then.” 

“You are so mean to me,” Ilya complains, tilting his hips. Then, because despite the walls of pain building behind his ribs, it is starting to feel urgent, “Shane. Please.” 

Ilya will never get tired of the sight of Shane’s wedding band, or the finger it sits on, wrapping itself diligently around the trunk of his cock. 

“Oh, fuck.” 

Shane looks up for long enough to glare, and tell Ilya “Keep your voice down,” which, the irony isn’t lost on the man who’s been pretty much mute since he got here. 

“Okay,” Ilya says softly, as Shane sinks his mouth around the head. 

His wet hair falls in a damp cascade in Ilya’s lap, like a shield. Ilya uses his good hand to push it back. If he can’t do anything but respond to the way Shane’s tongue is lapping at the underside of him, he can at least watch. The way Shane’s eyelids close against the trails of water, the way his nose nudges further, further down, scrunching as Ilya’s hair tickles at it. 

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” Ilya whispers, barely audible over the running water. Shane speeds up, expertly deploying every trick and shortcut he knows to bring Ilya right to the edge. One hand pressed between the chair and Ilya’s taint, the other reaching to interlock with Ilya’s own hand. 

Shane sniffs around the base of him, not enough air. Refuses to pull off, and it’s so dedicated, the way he does this. Devoted, his mind supplies. It’s stupidly hot. It’s ridiculous, that they can do this here at all, but if anyone can pull Ilya out of his own mind, it’s the man currently lapping and sucking him into oblivion. 

Ilya grips Shane’s hand tighter. “Shane,” he urges. “Shane.” 

Shane keeps his mouth in place. 

Ilya lets himself go. His eyes don’t leave Shane; fixated by his throat pulsing, his hard, heavy gulps as he struggles to swallow it all. Ilya isn’t stopping. It’s been so long. Shane’s fingers flounder against Ilya’s skin like he’s drowning, clawing his way back to the surface. 

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya tries again. 

Shane blinks as he pulls his mouth off Ilya, and oh, fuck, sweet fucking Jesus. There’s a trail of come spilling from Shane’s open mouth. It would take less than seconds for the water to wash it away, but Ilya is faster; he sees his chance, and pulls Shane towards his open, waiting mouth. 

He tastes himself, salty, soapy and filthy. 

Shane kisses back, starved, the mess of it passing between them. “Fuck,” he says, as they pull away for breath. There’s a ghost of a tug in the stitches, a welcome burn. 

“Fuck,” Ilya agrees, satisfied and boneless. “Better than the smoothie, yes?” 

“Fuck off.” 

Shane switches, too fast, into practical mode, taking the shower head in his hands to jettison the mess from their bodies. He’s hard, and grinning in a way that Ilya hasn’t seen in too long. 

“Can I?” Ilya asks, gesturing to Shane’s bouncing dick. 

“The fuck? Ilya, we need to—”

“What, can’t spare another twenty seconds?” Ilya asks. His throat is aching with the teasing, but it’s too easy. 

“Fuck off, we need to get dressed,” he says, turning the water off. He’s wrapping a towel across Ilya’s shoulders, scrunching it through his hair. Careful across his shoulders and neck, then methodically padding it up and down his arms, down his chest. Blotting out the accumulated bruises with soft, fluffy white towelling as he works. 

Ilya pulls himself to standing, weight balanced on his left leg, holding onto the arm rest of the chair as Shane studiously dries the rest of him, placing soft kisses on each patch of newly dried skin as he works. He’s pulling Ilya’s shorts up past his knees when the first knock on the door comes. 

They both freeze. Ilya imagines, for a second, how an outsider would read the scene they’re creating; Shane, still naked, wet and obviously aroused, tugging Ilya’s shorts up, and Ilya, his dick already thinking about a second round, standing one-legged and trying, so very hard, not to laugh. 

“We’re fine,” Shane calls. “Two minutes,” he adds, optimistically. 

Ilya doesn’t hear what the voice on the other side of the door is saying, because the two of them descend into nervous, stupid giggling. 

“Oh my fuck,” Shane says, tugging a clean vest over Ilya’s head and directing him back into the chair, where he’s laid another clean towel over the plastic base. 

“You are very pretty when you blush, pomidor” Ilya comments helpfully, as Shane rapidly tries to dry himself and shove layers of clothing onto his still damp body. Calling it a blush is an understatement; Shane’s cheeks are closer to scarlet, rounded as he battles with the need to laugh at the ridiculousness of their situation. Ilya hasn’t seen him look this much like himself in a long time, and it makes him want to climb over him, into him, and bury himself in his body with so much more than just his dick. 

Shane is scooping up Ilya’s discarded clothes and the sodden towels when the second knock comes, more impatient.  

“We’re nearly out— just—”

Ilya stares pointedly at Shane’s crotch, and at the obvious protrusion in his pants. Shane offers an answering glance at Ilya’s own tenting. Fuck. 

They only just have time for Shane to fling one of the towels into Ilya’s lap as the door to the shower opens. To the credit of whoever is on the other side, they don’t immediately barge in, which provides Shane with just enough of a moment to position himself behind the chair and school his expression into something slightly less mortified. 

They wheel back out to the corridor, Shane’s heavy gym bag swinging behind them. “Thanks,” Shane mumbles to the nurse, who wears an expression so deliberately neutral that it has to have been rehearsed. 

“I feel much better,” Ilya asserts to the corridor as it whizzes past him. And then, when they’re back in the too-small private room, with an ensemble of staff ready to plant Ilya back into his bed, remove the plastic sleeves and re-attach the lines and cables, he offers a much quieter thank you. He should direct it to all of them; the team of experts who are facilitating his recovery, his safety and his almost-comfort. Except, he’s feeling selfish and sentimental. So this one, this thank you is just for Shane. 

“I love you,” Shane whispers into Ilya’s damp hair as he’s pulled out of his grasp and manipulated back into the freshly cleaned bed. “Asshole.” 

- 

David is the next visitor, in the evening. Like everything about him, his reaction to Ilya is understated. Controlled, gentle, and welcome. 

“It’s good to see you, kid,” he says, planting a bottle of something thick and beige on the table next to Ilya. “I’m not sure this is on your meal plan, but it’s meant to be cake flavoured.” 

Ilya eyes it with suspicion; Shane has an assortment of protein powders which claim to be all manner of delicious creations; strawberry cheesecake, oreo, caramel chaos; they all have one unifying flavour. Which is, mostly, butt. Without the fun. What Ilya says is, “Thank you.”

 “I can’t stay long,” David says, apologetic. “But last time I was here you weren’t— you’re looking better, now.” 

“Everyone tells me so,” Ilya says. 

David nods, like he understands the difference between something that is observed, and something that is true. 

“Yuna’s sorry she couldn’t come. She, uh, she’d thought you’d want to know that the journalist situation has been dealt with.” 

“Dealt with?” Ilya asks, happily visualising Yuna committing a Tarantino-esque takedown of his unwelcome visitor from a few days ago. Something involving exploding kneecaps, busted, bloodied teeth, and Yuna emerging unscathed with a shotgun slung over one shoulder. Or something. 

“Eh, her site’s been taken down, she’s been blacklisted by most majors. Apparently, she’s had to pay back most of her sponsors, but I have no idea how that works.” David smiles grimly. “Yuna’s confident she has a career of latrine scrubbing in her future.” 

Ilya wonders if the taste of revenge will start to feel bitter on his tongue, but this one—the indignity and humiliation he’d felt while she scrutinised his vulnerable, healing body—this one still has an undercurrent of sweetness to it. 

“Did she film it?” Ilya asks. He means the journalist; the way she’d been performing for an unseen audience, like she planned to broadcast him. 

David misunderstands. “They’re not allowed cameras at those kind of hearings, sorry kid.”

Ilya laughs as he clarifies who he was referring to. 

“Oh! Oh yeah, she had some sort of…button camera on her jacket. Yuna crushed it before she got out the door.”

David gets a misty-eyed expression on his face, like he’s basking in the memory of his wife’s efficient ferocity. Ilya can relate; he may not be in love with Yuna, but god, he’s grateful to have her in his life. 

David looks like he’s struggling with his next words. He takes Ilya’s hand as he speaks again. It feels like he’s trying to push the weight of them into Ilya’s skin, deep enough that they’ll feel indelible. 

“You shouldn’t have had to go through that.” His expression gets mistier. “Any of it. Kid, you’re…you’re damn precious. It kills me that anyone treated you like you’re not.” 

Whatever words Ilya might have had for David, they’ve all fled his brain and left behind a hot, cottony sense of overwhelmed gratitude. Something bigger than that, that he doesn’t have a name for. He clutches Davids hand closer, and whispers a quiet “Thank you.” It feels too small for what he’s feeling, but it’s all he’s got just now. 

“It’s probably not much comfort,” David continues, “but they’re burying the guys who did this. To you. I mean, not literally, it’s all legal—”

“Is some comfort,” Ilya says, sniffing. 

“Good,” David says, with a genuine smile. “Just need to take out the people who made them think they’d away with it, next. Might not get too far with that, but. We’ll see.” 

“Ah, does this mean you are mafia now?” Ilya asks, because the way David’s talking, he’s imagining cigars and introductions to my little friend. 

David laughs again, softer. “Nothing that exciting, Ilya. Just, paperwork, emails and media campaigns.” Comfortingly boring, then. Ilya’s okay with boring. “Anyway,” David says, extracting his hand from Ilya’s. “Brought you this.” 

He drops a copy of last month’s New Yorker onto Ilya’s table, next to the shake. 

“We’ll see you at ours for a real dinner soon,” he adds, patting Ilya on the arm. “Night night.” 

- 

Ilya’s dreaming again. He knows it, because his body isn’t hurting. It’s telling him about pain, but in a guarded, measured way. 

He’s looking into the whites of Marcus Leyland’s eyes — too wide around the irises, almost glowing through the shell of his helmet. 

There’s pressure. Everywhere, at first; back pressed into the boards, padded legs pressed snug against his own, his chest armour clashing against Leyland’s. 

It isn’t a regular check. Or a regular fight. It’s uncomfortably intimate. Ilya thinks it probably shouldn’t have lasted for as long as it did. 

Leyland’s eyes look manic. Like one of Luca’s drawings of a character disconnected from their own narrative. Like someone coming unstuck. 

Ilya’s staring at him, feeling guilty: I did that to him. I made him mad. 

The pressure changes its focal point. Stops being a broad pinning of his body, and starts scaring him. 

He wonders if his eyes are that wide, too. 

Leyland is speaking. Words coming out through gritted teeth, with spittle flying from the mouthguard. 

His fucking eyes, though. Marcus Leyland is not a handsome man. He’s built like a rectangle; no discernible angles between his jaw, his neck and his shoulders. Like he’s a mountain of flesh that someone forgot to carve all the pieces off. His eyes are the only part of him that shows there’s a person inside the skin trap, and Ilya thinks that he’d have bitten those eyes from the sockets if he’d been given the chance. 

He’s still not sure why he doesn’t have the chance. He’s laid out bigger men than Leyland, for sure. 

He feels his throat wrapping around words, then closing in on itself before any can come out. 

Someone yelling. He’s gonna fucking kill him. 

When Ilya wakes, he’s gasping into the empty dark room. 

-

The ankle is still not load-bearing. They call it a grade 2 sprain, and tell Ilya that the tearing to ligaments was reasonably minor, in that perfunctory, reassuring tone they use for all his health updates. 

It’s still in the category of temporary, but the timeline for recovery will stretch across the summer months. Which means he’s out of action for their camps. They change the wrapping, check the swelling, and encourage some gentle rotations. In a couple of weeks, he should be able to step lightly on it, but not stand on it. This feels like a bewildering distinction; what use is tapping a foot onto the ground if the rest of his body can’t follow it? 

- 

The wrist and forearm fractures are following a similar trajectory of frustratingly slow healing. The cast stays on, they tell him, for at least another four weeks. Which means, still, no crutches. Which means, in the absence of being able to fucking levitate, Ilya will need the wheelchair. And the person to push it, and him. For at least a month. Probably longer, because the cast being off still won’t mean it’s at full strength. 

“Your husband is already looking into sport physiotherapists,” one of the techs tells him, and, great. Ilya loves hearing about how each part of his life is being managed without him. Truly. 

His rational brain knows that Shane has had limited time with him each day before their arbitrary allocation of time runs out, to make way for more tests or more visitors or more waiting in sheer boredom for this to end. He knows this. And he knows that he has been using these snippets and glimpses of shared time for more important things. Like their shower. And he knows he’d continue to make the same choices, because in the grand scheme of what matters, a sloppy shower blow job ranks higher than reviewing a list of approved physios. 

Unfortunately, Ilya’s irrational brain is louder, and is all but braying for independence. Proof that he can he can be trusted with his own life. 

- 

The damage to his throat remains complicated. They’re confident he’s out of the immediate mortality window for tracheal crush injuries. That he’s beaten some dire odds to still be here, surviving, persisting. 

But, the healing journey is a long one. O2 monitoring will need to be a regular thing, and he’ll need an oximeter for that. He needs to avoid twisting, jolting, jerking or roughly any sort of movement, at all, to avoid a collapse. He also can’t keep the soft collar on full time, because the muscles in his neck need to work their way back to full strength. 

Living in his own body is feeling increasingly like being on a rolling fucking see-saw of potential devastating complications. But it’s fine, because he should be okay, as long as he keeps his balance. 

“Integration of solid food will be assessed on a week-by-week basis,” the tech continues. Ilya doesn’t ask how long until he can safely swallow a load. 

“The good news,” the tech tells him in a voice that belies no indication of positivity whatsoever, “is that your jaw is behaving.” Ilya doesn’t think his jaw has ever behaved, and he’s cataloguing all the many ways his jaw has supported him in being a menace, verbally, or sexually. He keeps these thoughts to himself. 

“Don’t strain it, stay on the liquids, it’ll be fine. Leave it a few months before you look at replacing those teeth, mind. The facial stitches can come out next week. Scarring looks minimal.” 

Wow. One piece of his body is successfully knitting itself back together on schedule. Throw a fucking parade. 

“You’ll need to make an outpatient appointment for that,” says the same neutral voice. 

It takes Ilya a second to parse what’s just been said. Outpatient. A patient who is, by definition, no longer in. 

“I’m getting out?” he asks, not meaning it to sound like he’s been waiting for parole. If his ingratitude was palpable, the tech gives no reaction. 

“Sure. We’re putting your discharge papers together now. Did no one tell you?” 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Oh, David.

There's a lot coming in the next update. Maybe not all of it, but there are a few necessary and tough conversations looming.

In the meantime: thank you for reading, and for the comments.

**Author Curse update: something about life imitating art, I guess. Looks like I'm going to be navigating ICU visitation schedules too, now! Apparently everything is looking cautiously optimistic, but jesus. Still hoping to do another update soon, and in the meantime I guess it's time to play This Year by the Mountain Goats. Again.

Chapter 6: And All The Tumult's Done

Chapter Summary

“I’m so ready to take you home,” Shane says, in a voice that sounds almost as rough as Ilya’s.

Ilya hums an agreement, careful not to say anything about Shane’s current state of disarray, sweat, and thrumming anxiety. He supposes neither of them are looking their best right now. He’s looking forward to that not mattering, and to their lives going back to feeling small, and cosy. Once they get through whatever is beyond the doors.

Chapter Notes

Because Shane deserves more time in the torment nexus, too.

Ilya’s never enjoyed being told “be careful what you wish for” but well, here we are: buckle in.

A couple of content notes for things not already covered in the main tags, in the end notes.

Getting discharged from the hospital is not a quick process. 

The relief—bordering on euphoria, for all the ways Ilya has wanted to gnaw his own arm off in boredom since being admitted—starts fading around three hours in. He’s still in his stupid fucking bed, only he’s now parked in a different room in the hospital. The ceiling in this one is more of a greyish hue. Purgatorial grey. Criss-crossed lines of metal plating holding it in formation. 

Ilya has not seen a single familiar face since he was planted in this room. He doesn’t even know who is going to be escorting him from these pale-toned walls and ceilings. He hopes it’s Shane. Maybe Yuna or David. Hell, he’d even accept Hayden Fucking Pike, if it meant he’d be free of the parade of medical staff and forms and tests. 

A very tall woman whizzes into his room, and hangs a heavy-looking plastic bag off the corner of Ilya’s bed. It clinks as she shoves a thick folder of paperwork into it. “Medications and schedule information,” she explains, speeding back out as fast as she’d arrived. 

- 

Ilya has tried to remember the names of all the people he’s interacted with since he’s been here. He loves people. Mostly. He’s become the sort of person who ekes out the secrets of his teammates’ friends and partners, homing in on the details of their lives like a heat-seeking missile. His calendar is stacked with birthdays, anniversaries. Here, though, he’s barely had a chance to get more than a name tag or a facial feature before duty calls them away again. 

Sure, he has the excuse of a hypoxic brain injury, and the absence of his voice, but even so. He’d at least like to know who to send thanks to, for the fact he’s not currently dead. 

Which is why, when Doctor Marev enters his little square room, Ilya lights up like he’s seen a long lost friend.  

“Will you miss me?” Ilya grins. His face aches with the gesture, but it’s worth it. 

“No,” Marev deadpans. “But the hospital would like to extend their gratitude for testing our security protocols.” 

“Ah,” Ilya manages, apologetic. 

“It’s fine,” Marev says, smiling thinly. “Keeps us on our toes.” 

“Because you would be bored without me, yes?” Ilya asks. 

“Sure. Your voice is sounding better,” they say with some caution. “You can also try salt-water rinses when it’s sore,” they add. 

Ilya nods, assuming that this is also included in the stack of discharge information dangling from the edge of his bed. There’s a question he really wants to ask, and he doesn’t know Marev well enough to know if it’s safe to. Bets hedged, he tries anyway. 

“So…” he starts. “Salty things…aren’t bad for it?” 

Ilya watches Marev’s face carefully, and pinpoints the exact moment the insinuation hits. There’s a soft sigh and a beleaguered knotting of brows, and Ilya thinks he can feel the tangible regret Marev holds for every decision in their life thus far that has led to this moment, and being asked to explain to a high profile patient whether or not he’s allowed to give head. 

“You shouldn’t have anything solid,” Marev says, eventually, “in your mouth, at all. For at least another few weeks. Salty or otherwise.” The arched eyebrow they point at Ilya is magnificent. “You can discuss the details in your follow up appointments. Which are not with me.” 

Ilya grins again, grateful that he didn’t have to completely spell it out. And only a little disappointed with the answer. He and Shane are resourceful; he’s sure they’ll figure out a workaround. 

“There’s a circus out there waiting for you,” Marev pivots, “but we’ve got a few contingencies to deal with it. You’ll be out of our hair within the hour.” 

- 

Circus is not an exaggeration. It’s a shame there are no monkeys. He’d enjoy monkeys. He can hear the noises—annoyingly human noises—clamouring beyond the doors at the end of the corridor. 

He’s settled himself into the new wheelchair. It’s not as cumbersome as the ones they’ve been using inside the ward for bathroom breaks; the canvas fits neatly around him, the wheels just below the padded seat base. The foot plates are adjusted to the right height to support him. It’s compact. Discreet, almost, as much as a mobilised chair can be.  

Shane stands behind him, one broad hand draped over Ilya’s collarbones. His thumb rolls small, soothing circles, and Ilya raises his hand to meet it. 

“I’m so ready to take you home,” Shane says, in a voice that sounds almost as rough as Ilya’s. 

Ilya hums an agreement, careful not to say anything about Shane’s current state of disarray, sweat, and thrumming anxiety. He supposes neither of them are looking their best right now. He’s looking forward to that not mattering, and to their lives going back to feeling small, and cosy. Once they get through whatever is beyond the doors. 

“Two seconds,” Shane says, pulling his hand back to thumb at his phone. “Okay. Ready?” 

“Ready,” Ilya agrees. 

In his periphery, the corridor behind them fills with people. Familiar people. 

“Rozanov!” calls the first one, catching up to the fast pace Shane is setting with the chair. It’s Bood, grinning beneath his ball cap. “We’re your escorts,” he explains, as he’s flanked by Hayes, then Dykstra, then Dillon and Wiebe coming up on the other side. 

David appears, positioning himself in front of them, casting a look of reassurance or possible nerves back at Ilya and Shane as he walks toward the exit. And, because they come as a pair, Yuna joins him. More people swarm forwards. 

Ilya can’t tell who else is forming the wall of people surrounding them; still can’t twist his neck enough for proper spatial understanding. They’re speaking in excitable, rushed tones. Focused, like they’re about to enter a playoff final. Chance would be a fine thing. Through the noise, he swears he can make out Jackie Pike’s voice. 

“We’ve got you, bud,” calls Hayes calls from somewhere behind them, as David pushes the doors open. 

- 

Ilya feels a little like a turtle, if his shell was made out of hulking, protective hockey players, and Shane’s parents. His seated height, and Shane’s hunch over the back handles of the wheelchair, keeps them as a small epicentre of an organised scrum. They move in formation, pushing through the clumps of padded mics, cameras, and the people attached to them. He spots glimpses of it, through the wall of chests and limbs keeping them shielded. He catches flashes of rainbows amongst the black and grey uniforms of the press. 

It’s the first time he’s felt outside air on his skin in weeks. Even through the sweat and bodies, it’s glorious. 

The questions are cushioned in layers of competing voices; words like recovery, optimistic, accountable, and, like a verbal fucking albatross, Montreal. No one gives an answer, to any of it. 

The human wall around him parts for long enough for a car door to open, and he’s met with the familiar scent of Shane’s land rover. A little pine-y, a little musty. It smells like comfort, and the promise of home. Stepping into the passenger seat is easy; all the weight is balanced on his left side. David’s already reaching over him to tug the seatbelt into place, then closing the door as soon as he’s safely inside. The wall of people blocks the windows from prying cameras. Someone pushes the already folded wheelchair into the back, and seconds later, Shane slides into the driver’s seat. 

“So,” Ilya says, still processing the chaos outside their vehicle. “We are going to run them all over?” 

Shane plants a hand over Ilya’s, smiling through his knotted jaw. 

“If Jackie can’t get them to clear out of the way, then, yeah?” 

Ilya knows by now not to underestimate Jackie Pike. Or at this point, Shane’s ability to mow down a crowd. He watches as people peel away from the vehicle, easily corralled by the shortest, slightest person in the crowded hospital parking area. 

“Home,” says Shane. 

Ilya doesn’t call out the slight shake to his voice, and just whispers his agreement. 

“Home.” 

- 

Ilya’s heart clutches in his chest as they pull into the gated driveway of their house. Their home. The cherry blossoms are frothing pink, petals shedding across the gravel. They had barely been buds, the last time he’d seen them. The grassy smell of the air floods his nostrils as the car door opens. The seconds it takes Shane to unfold the chair and set it Ilya’s feet are just long enough to close his eyes, inhale, and just be. 

He lets himself be maneuvered through the front door, through the hallway, and into their living room. It looks…different. For one, there is a suspiciously wheelchair-wide space that runs around and between each piece of furniture. Their large coffee table—chosen for its ability to hold enough snacks and drinks for an entire hockey team—has disappeared, and in its place is something that Ilya would describe as dinky. A modest, cushioned ottoman, with a solid panel strip built into the top for keeping drinks steady. There’s a footstool that Ilya hasn’t seen before. A sturdy-looking table at waist height, tucked next to one arm of the couch. It looks…supportive. 

“Oh, you’ve been busy,” Ilya understates. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, ignoring the tease in Ilya’s voice as though the reason for being busy still causes him pain. “There’s handles, on the wall in a few places. Wait ‘til you see the bedroom.” 

In the relief of being back in a space without strangers, Ilya hadn’t got as far as considering their bedroom. Or the multiple stairs it takes to get there. 

He wants to see all of Shane’s work, in making the space they share into one he can navigate. He wants a bath. He wants, at some point, to test the new limits of his body and to take Shane apart with every bit of him that still works the way he tells it to. He wants to see the friends who’d helped him leave the hospital without having to wrangle any press, or answer questions about events he still doesn’t fully understand. More than that, he just wants a minute to process. 

“Is, what, a few weeks, Hollander,” Ilya chides, pulling himself out of the chair and collapsing heavily onto the couch. There are more cushions on it than he remembers. He stuffs a few behind him, wriggling them into a position of almost-comfort. “I can cope.” 

Shane moves, somewhere outside the room. There’s a sound of a microwave whirring, things being pulled from cupboards. Shane pads back into Ilya’s sight line, planting the bag of medications on the sofa next to him, and the folder of paperwork on the ottoman. He’s already out of the room before Ilya has a chance to ask him to maybe calm down, slow down, and come cuddle him without the obstacles of bed rails in their way. It’s not helping him feel any less like a patient. 

The microwave pings. Something sloshes in a container. Something heavy bangs onto the sideboard. Shane bites out a few curses, and then there’s the deliberate silence of breaths being counted. 

“Shane,” Ilya tries, but his voice still isn’t strong enough to carry to the kitchen. 

Shane appears, a few moments later, setting two gently steaming mugs in front of the paperwork. He sits next to Ilya, staring ahead at the table. 

“It’s Pho,” he says. “Bone broth. Not too spicy, because…”

Because Ilya can’t have spice. Can’t swallow anything with a texture. Can’t, shouldn’t, et cetera. 

“Smells good,” Ilya says, meaning it. It’s fragrant; something like cinnamon, aniseed, lemongrass, and a thousand flavours with more depth than anything they’d let him have in the hospital. 

It tastes good, too. Coating the insides of Ilya’s mouth with heat. It almost feels normal, sitting here with a meal—drink, really—except Shane is rummaging through the carrier bag of bottled medications, pulling out spoons and cups and syringes. Riffling through the papers until he pulls out a checklist. 

“Eat, Shane,” Ilya tries. As though he could coax Shane into the momentary suspension of reality, into believing that everything is still fine, that Shane hasn’t got himself lumbered with caring duties across the whole summer. Just for long enough for them to eat—drink—some fucking soup together. 

Shane keeps his focus on the brown bottles, opening one, then another, pouring out liquid into two small plastic cups. 

“Is early for shots, yes?” Ilya says, feeling the attempt at levity failing before the words are even finished. 

“This one’s every six hours,” Shane intones, pointing at the clearer of the two cups. “I’ve set alarms. This one is twice a day,” he says about the other. “There’s more, later.”

Ilya angles his whole body, because he still can’t angle his neck, towards Shane. Chasing eye contact. His hand reaching for body contact. 

When their fingers finally meet, Shane turns his eyes to Ilya’s and they look wounded. Tired, in a way Ilya hadn’t fully seen under the bright hospital lights. Crevice lines carved into his soft cheeks. “Ilya,” he says, and his voice is shaken, like he’s been using it to scream. 

Ilya runs his thumb over Shane’s knuckles. “Okay.” Pulls his hand away to lift the first of the plastic cups to his mouth. “Chin chin.” He drinks the second one down, and doesn’t grimace at the too-sweet taste masking the too-bitter medicine inside it. 

Shane nods, more to himself than to Ilya, like he’s been waiting for the next round of duty to conclude before he can take a full breath. 

“Is a lot, for you,” Ilya says. He meant to pose it as a question, but it comes out as blunt as it feels. 

“Sorry,” Shane says, still not looking at Ilya. 

“Not sorry,” Ilya says, his hand back on top of Shane’s. He understands, that all those precious shared minutes in the hospital were ones that couldn’t be wasted, and that Shane has been tamping everything down for the sake of preserving whatever hard-won peace they’d been able to claim. And now, alone, together, it’s all brimming over. “Come here.”

He tugs Shane closer to him, wrapping his arm around him as his head burrows into Ilya’s chest. Shane folds himself around Ilya’s body, clutching, clinging, like he’s trying to crawl inside Ilya’s skin and make a home there. It feels necessary, in a way that not a lot has, recently. 

Ilya holds him, saying nothing as his shirt gets damp with Shane’s tears. 

“Fuck,” Shane says into Ilya’s chest. “Fuck.” 

- 

The meds are adding to Ilya’s lethargy. It’s a heavy sort of drowsiness, like he’s wading through silt, or sometimes quicksand. He sank into sleep at some point, and pulling himself out of it now is slow. There’s a heavy weight on his chest, like an anchor. Shane’s breaths come low and steady, the only sound in the room. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been like this, curled into each other on the sofa, but as the golden daylight has dimmed to a blanket of navy, he assumes it’s been a while. 

It’s peaceful. 

It’s peaceful, until a series of alarms starts trilling from Shane’s pockets, and he jerks his head away from Ilya’s fingers, kicking over the medicine bottles on the floor as he rights himself. 

“Shit.” 

“Good morning,” Ilya offers, refusing to acknowledge the very not-morning sky outside. 

Shane speeds into action, consulting the checklist, and pulling a new bottle into view. “This one’s just once a day,” Shane explains, filling a pipette with an opaque liquid. “You need a drink?” 

Ilya blinks himself more awake. Their cold, half-empty mugs of Pho are still on the table. 

“I’ll get you a drink,” Shane decides, scooping up the mugs. He returns a moment later with a cold can of coke, and a glass of water for himself. 

Ilya sucks at the end of the floppy pipette. Whatever’s in it tastes acidic and vaguely evil. Shane’s already opened the can and holds it to Ilya’s mouth and, sure, he doesn’t need this hyper-intensive level of care—he’s more than capable of operating a damn can—but he appreciates it. 

“Next shot’s in two hours,” Shane says, already tidying the bottles and paperwork away inside the little ottoman. “What do you wanna do until then?” 

The usual suggestions are just out of reach of Ilya’s tongue. Whatever the last dose was, he’s not a fan; his brain feels even heavier. He’d imagined that leaving the ward would have felt more momentous for his body; that it would be a clear delineation between being sick and being better. The disappointing reality is that it’s just shifted the responsibility of his care from a team, to one very tired, very stressed husband. 

To reassure himself that he’s not just traded one type of confinement for another, and maybe because he’s missed the smell of a room not tainted by medicine, he asks for something simple. 

“Can I have a bath?” 

Ilya watches the calculations and logistics of reaching the bathtub—the upstairs bathtub—cross Shane’s face in a complicated sequence of frowns and eventual acceptance. 

“Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.” 

- 

Proving that he’s not as hopeless as he’s been feeling is even harder than it looks. Ilya demonstrates his determination to reach the top of the stairs through a combination of hopping, lurching and clinging onto the banister. He is prepared to start crawling, if it comes to it. Shane stands patiently behind him as he navigates the first step, and is there to catch him when his ribs inevitably jolt him into a backwards stumble. Fuck. 

“Ilya, will you let me—”

“Fine,” he huffs. “Show off.” 

Ilya isn’t really mad about it. The idea of Shane bridal-carrying him up the stairs is delicious, and outweighs the frustration of not being able to access half of their home without full-body help. 

“I am like a princess,” Ilya comments with some delight when they reach the halfway point. Shane hasn’t even broken a sweat. Ilya is going to have so much catching up to do when his whole body is working again. 

“Yeah? You don’t feel like one,” Shane comments, just a tiny bit out of breath by the time they reach the bathroom. 

Ilya uses his good arm to pull Shane’s neck downward, demanding “Kiss me,” into his mouth. 

Shane does, and deposits him neatly into the empty bathtub. 

“Oh, I am doing this with my clothes on?” Ilya asks, raising his arms in a gesture of exaggerated helplessness. 

Despite the stress that is all but radiating off him, Shane is apparently still unable to resist the endless ebb and flow of teasing. Maybe, he’s just relieved that Ilya is actively seeking a helping hand instead of biting at it. He tugs Ilya’s shirt off him. Then his shorts. He dutifully fits the plastic protectors over the bandaged parts, and sets the water running. 

- 

They manage a good few minutes of quiet, warm calm. Ilya mostly submerged, soaking and splashing lavender-scented water over himself, Shane, still clothed, balanced on the generous lip of the tub. So far, Ilya has resisted the urge to douse him in bathwater. 

“Your dad is nice,” Ilya says, as Shane scoops water over the back of his neck. 

“Yeah?” Shane asks, because of course he knows that. He’s his dad. 

“He said nice things, when he visited,” Ilya elaborates, draping his plastic-clad arm over the side of the tub. 

“That’s…good,” Shane says, tone hesitating between a statement and a question. Ilya can almost watch the way he’s picking it apart and finding a way for it to mean that he should have been saying nice things, too. Ilya needs to stop the spiral before it crashes headfirst into the ground. 

“Everyone has been nice,” Ilya continues, waving his other hand like he can dismiss the implications. “He was nice like, gangster. Godfather.” He’s really not getting his point across very well at all. He blames the medications. 

“He’s not—” Shane starts, questioningly. 

“He made out like him and Yuna are ‘going after’ people,” Ilya says, finally needling into the snippets of his exchange that matter. “Him, Yuna, all of them. The league.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says again, like this is something obvious that Ilya should have known about. “It’s a whole—didn’t they tell you?” 

Ilya takes a long, grounding breath. Didn’t they tell you? Didn’t they fucking tell you? 

The long grounding breath clearly didn’t work, because the next thing out of Ilya’s mouth is: “Oh my fucking god, Hollander. No they did not. No one. No one told me.” Shane’s stricken expression isn’t enough to still Ilya’s frustration, and it’s hurting his neck to try and look at it. He grits out another breath, flexes at the joints in his hands, hissing when something inside the cast nags at his nerve endings. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane starts, but Ilya holds up his hand to stop him. Because even if his voice still hurts, not saying anything will feel worse. 

“The doctors and nurses, they tell me nothing. They say long medical words, say ‘do this’, ‘do that’ but they do not say why.” He takes another slow breath, still not looking at Shane because those sad, bewildered eyes are more than he can deal with. “They do not say, what happened. And our team. They make jokes. They say nice things. They tell me my man is fucking terminator.” 

“I’m, not—”

“Shane.”

Shane just nods, fingers inching closer to Ilya’s but not reaching to touch them. 

“And when I ask them,” Ilya’s voice is strained to barely a whisper, now. “They say you will murder them if you tell me. So no, Shane. They did not fucking tell me.” 

The silence that follows is punctuated by two lots of breathing trying to self-regulate, and Ilya’s toes splashing irritably at the end of the tub. 

“Ilya, I didn’t mean to…” 

“To what?” Ilya asks, when the rest of Shane’s words don’t come. It felt sharp in his mouth, but it comes out small. Needy. 

“With the injury,” Shane starts again, “the neurologist. She said we had to be careful.” He looks to Ilya like he’s asking for permission to carry on. Ilya doesn’t react. He’s still waiting for the frustration to subside, and maybe some of the exhaustion, too. “Hypoxia is…it can fuck with a bunch of stuff. Motor function. Language. Memory.” 

“Okay.”

Shane inhales again. “The way they described it, it’s like. The part of your brain that deals with memories, it needs, I guess more air? Energy, they said. And because you weren’t. You know. Breathing—”

Their hands find each other’s. Ilya can’t be sure who reached first, but he’s glad for the contact. 

“Mmm,” Ilya says, pulling Shane back from another emotional ledge and back onto the reason Shane had told everyone to keep him in the fucking dark. “So. They worried about memory.”

“They said it was better for you to— they said you needed to rebuild the connections yourself. That someone telling you one version of things, it’d get in the way of you processing it. Like, you’d see it like a…dissociation. Something. Sorry, I suck at this. They said so much stuff. I tried to google, after—”

Ilya grips Shane’s hand tighter. “Okay,” he says again. “So, no peeking behind the curtain.” Except the curtain is one that his own brain has put in place, and has been gradually lifting. He takes a minute, and Shane stays quiet. “You couldn’t have told me the other stuff? Yuna and David going rambo on the league, that would not have hurt my brain, no?” 

The visual pulls a laugh out of Shane. More of a nervous puff of air than a full-barrelled thing, but it still counts. 

“I guess, I just thought they had. The team, and my parents. Told you, more, I mean.” 

It resolves into a horrible, comedic clarity: everyone assuming that someone other than them had taken on the burden of sharing what was allowed, no one wanting to risk saying too much that wasn’t. And Ilya in the middle of it, with his little scraps of paper, asking for the one thing they absolutely could not show him. 

“Fucking hell, Shane,” Ilya says, only it doesn’t sound mean. “I…okay.”

“Okay?” Shane asks, incredulous. 

“I’ll let you make it up to me,” Ilya decides, winking. “Maybe tomorrow. Now I think, sleep.” 

“Right,” says Shane, which is not the magical fix-it reaction they maybe both wanted. 

- 

“Where is Anya?” Ilya asks, gulping down his antibiotics. The liquid tastes like the distillation of foam banana sweets and rot. 

“Hotel,” Shane answers, his voice almost slurred with exhaustion. “With the chair,” he gestures, to where Ilya’s mobility aid rests in the corner, “I was worried.” 

“Oh, you think we will run her over?” Ilya teases. He sometimes wonders how Shane has room in his head for any other thoughts, with all the worries he keeps stored in there. 

Shane just nods. 

“She is smart,” Ilya says, patting Shane’s shoulder. The muscles around it feel like rocks. He wants to tell Shane to get her anyway, but the idea that at this point, Shane’s just trying to prevent having two living creatures to care for instead of one, shuts him up. 

- 

Just before they go to bed—the bed that has now been set up in the downstairs office space—Ilya has a few moments alone in the downstairs bathroom with his own reflection. 

It blinks back, dourly, from the shaving mirror. 

He’s caught glimpses already, so it’s not a complete shock. But it’s his first moment alone, with himself, like this. It’s somehow not as bad as he was expecting, and worse. His eyes look sunken and shadowed. The skate scar is a straight pink line running from a spot just parallel with the top of his mouth, down to the line of his jaw. There’s a smaller bisecting line, clearing a path in his facial hair, from where they’d needed to surgically repair the damage to his bone underneath. The stitches are clear, almost discreet. It’s not as rugged as he’d maybe hoped, but it’s also not nearly as dramatic as his imagination had led him to believe. Like it’s been drawn on with a broad felt pen. The bruising around it has yellowed, mostly, with a few residual smudges of bluish black. The contrast seems worse against the rest of his skin; pallid and waxy and pining for sunlight. 

His neck, though, still looks like it’s been tenderised. There’s most of a full colour palette; the deepest hues over his Adam’s apple, with a few splotches of darkened skin below his right ear. He looks like he’s been hung. No wonder everyone’s been looking at him like he’s a dead man walking. 

The discolouration fades into his shoulders and chest, and it’s this that takes Ilya back the most. The expanse of him looks smaller, in the context of his whole reflection. There’s…less of him. 

Logically, he knew he’d been losing muscle mass. Weeks of inactivity and a liquid diet are the enemy of any athlete; deconditioning, they call it. A daily reduction of tolerance and endurance, until the body ends up cannibalising itself and having to relearn even the basics. His skin looks tight. Pale. Weak, his brain helpfully supplies, in accented Russian. He tells the voice to fuck off, and pushes the mirror away. 

Could be worse. It could have been worse. 

- 

They doze, wake for alarms and meds, and doze again. By the time the morning light cracks through the window, they’re both somehow more tired than before they went to sleep. 

Despite this, Shane is already propelling himself into action. Teeth cleaned, face washed, fully clothed, and noisily blending something in the kitchen, before Ilya has managed to tilt his body into a semi-upright position. 

“We can have breakfast outside, if you want,” Shane calls. Ilya can’t call back; his voice is still a few decibels softer than he’d like, the pain of speaking slowly intensifying since he came home. That, and he’s still terrified of straining it. Can’t delay his healing journey, or whatever he’s supposed to be calling it. 

“I want,” Ilya says anyway. He’s missed fresh air. 

- 

To his credit, Shane’s got better at making smoothies that don’t taste like a lecture about nutrition. Sure, they’re still green, mostly, but Ilya’s getting better at picking out the flavours of things he likes in them. Pineapple. Ginger. He’s even starting to enjoy the taste of turmeric. Along with the vitamin sachets, and the unavoidable whey powder. At least Shane’s given up pretending that Sour Cherry tastes any better than antifreeze, and has switched to the flavourless one. 

There’s thin sunlight dappling over them where they sit. Birds chittering through the leaves of the trees that frame their garden. 

It’s a hopeful, gentle morning, so Ilya doesn’t ask if, or why, Shane has committed to this liquid-only diet for himself, too. 

- 

“So, I think your phone’s broken,” Shane says carefully. 

If Ilya weren’t so exhausted, and moulded so comfortably into the nest of pillows on the couch, he might consider throttling Shane. Weeks. Literal weeks, of “any day now,” and “you’ll get your phone,” and all the rest, from all of them. And it’s been dead the whole time. 

“I bought you a new one,” he says to Ilya’s conspicuous silence. Hands Ilya a box with the seal broken. “Same model, it’s charged. I figured you’d want—”

“Oh my god. Shane.” 

“I tried it—your old one, I mean—with different chargers, in case that was the issue,” Shane continues. His voice is flattening out with every syllable. “But, when we got your stuff back, after, it was really warm. And the screen was dead. And I’ve not been able to—”

“Fine,” Ilya says. “Is dead. The issue is not one specific phone, Hollander.” 

It kind of is, to a point. There are messages, drafts, pictures, saved to that device that he’s not sure he’ll get back. He’s not good at backing things up. The bigger issue is that his phone is a portal to the world that’s been continuing around him, while he’s been festering underneath a blanket of well wishes and worry and vagueness. He powers up the new phone, watching the update screen loading. It feels clunky in his hands. 

“I—I couldn’t get the SIM out, either,” Shane says, and he’s staring forward, away from Ilya. His hands are palming at his bare knees, and there are crescent-shaped indentations around them. Ilya can feel his heart lurching, sinking, dropping, the longer he looks at them. They’re not deep marks, but they are…abundant. Ilya doesn’t have the words to help, but he has enough upper body strength to pull Shane, sideways, into his lap. 

Shane folds in a way that might be comical in a different setting. Just, tilts sideways from the hips, feet still planted on the floor, and rests stiffly across Ilya’s thighs. It is the exact opposite effect Ilya was hoping for; he’s somehow more tense than before he tried to help. 

“Shane,” he tries, kneading at his knotted shoulder. “Shane.” 

“I’m so sorry, Ilya.” 

And, yeah, Ilya’s maybe pissed. And maybe he feels like Shane owes him this one sorry. But only the one. The scales of imagined debt aren’t important against the urge he has to cradle him. It’s more than his ribs or shoulder will tolerate, still. He settles for any contact he can make, resting the bandaged arm over Shane’s head, rubbing circles with the good hand, until Shane tucks his legs up under him and lets his spine curve a little into the touch. 

“You really are a cat,” Ilya tells him. 

“’M not,” Shane answers, sounding less defensive, more defeated. He takes a few heavy breaths before speaking again. “Not just about the phone. That too. But, all of it.” 

Ilya doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just says “I know.” He’s not sure he does. At his side, the new phone flashes with an invitation to start a set up. Ilya taps through the skip options with his thumb, until he gets to the Google login screen. Fucking passwords. What the fuck had he chosen for this one? 

“When they said you didn’t remember it all,” Shane says, “I was…jealous. I know that’s a shit thing to say. I thought—I wanted to trade places, I think.” 

“Oh, no,” Ilya says, because imagining their situations reversed yanks at him somewhere behind his ribcage, more than any bruises lingering there. “That would be…” He doesn’t know what it would have been. “I am not as good a fighter as you,” he tells Shane, who is now burrowing a little closer to Ilya’s crotch. “Would have been worse.” 

He doesn’t say that if he’d seen Shane going through even half the stuff he knows about, never mind the rest, he’s not sure he’d have been able to help him. If he’d have had the strength to turn his rage outwards, not inwards. He tamps the thought back down, and adds it to the ever-expanding list of things he’ll discuss with Galina. 

“I—I don’t think I’m what you need, right now,” Shane says, and he’s shifting himself so he’s on his back, knees folded, looking up at Ilya. His eyes are doing that damp thing, without actively, actually crying, and it’s such a quietly devastating expression that Ilya feels his own face getting warm. “I keep going to fucking pieces,” Shane continues, “instead of helping.” 

Ilya shh-es him, because yes he is but that’s still a fucking stupid thing to be thinking. 

“You are exactly what I need, moya lyubov,” Ilya tells him, resting his hand across Shane’s cheek, like he’s stroking at tears that haven’t yet fallen. Counting the freckles under the pad of his thumb. Freckles. Of course. His fucking Google password. Freckles8124, because he’d reset it during a particularly sentimental period of fuckwittery. “You are helping. We are both in pieces, I think. So we can be this together.” 

Shane half smiles, but it looks like it hurts him; like he still doesn’t believe he deserves the fragment of relief Ilya’s trying to offer him. “I can help you set up your phone?” 

Ilya has got as far as thumbing in his Google password, and is watching the count of unread messages climb from the hundreds into the 2ks, 3ks, and upwards. Fucking hell. 

“Okay.” 

- 

They ignore the emails. Sifting through them will be a full day’s work, and Ilya’s just had the pipette with the Gabapentin infusion. This is his least favourite, but he’s apparently got to maintain the daily dose for at least another four weeks. It makes his eyes and limbs feel floppy, and tastes like the after-effects of vomiting up tequila. More than that, it makes his brain feel like someone’s taken all the folds of it and smoothed them out into a slippery, smooth lump. 

He’s got the neck brace back on, because without it, with this drug, he’d probably dissolve into a puddle of flesh. They’re still on the couch; their base of operations, because it’s where the cushions and the meds live. Shane is a protective wall that Ilya is pressed into; his back against Shane’s chest, the rest of him bracketed by his splayed legs, with his feet up on the footstool. It’s not completely comfortable, yet, but it does feel safe. And this way, they can both hold Ilya’s phone. 

Ilya starts opening Twitter, but Shane makes a noise of grim apprehension. Fair. 

“Instagram, then?” he suggests, like he’s asking Shane’s permission. 

“Sure.”

The first post they see—before he’s even logged in, because how does he have to remember so many different fucking passwords—is a thumbnail sized image of his own grinning face. And Shane’s. And Rose Fucking Landry, stood between them. They all look radiant, even with so few pixels; glittering in camera flashes. 

Ilya remembers the night this one was taken. A lining up of schedules that put them in the same city—Boston—for the same evening. Long enough for Ilya to realise that maybe he didn’t hate Rose Fucking Landry after all. Her magnetism comes from something authentic and grounded, and Ilya had been drawn to it cautiously, and then entirely. Svetlana, too; she’d tagged into their night, and evidently felt the same pull to the actress. Ilya’s tried to interrogate her about this, but frustratingly has got nowhere. 

Ilya taps on the post, noting its 5.2m hearts, and reads the post underneath. 

I have a lot of amazing people in my life. And I’m lucky enough that I’ve never had to second guess how much of that I can share, safely.

“She is a liar!” Ilya announces. Because for someone as high-profile as Rose, there really isn’t much she can safely share, at all. 

“That’s— Read the rest, Ilya,” Shane instructs, stroking lines up and down Ilya’s forearm. 

 As a hockey fan, I know I’m not alone in being horrified by what happened. And as a friend, I’m devastated.

“She is posting like we died, Shane.” 

Shane hums weakly. 

What we heard and saw was unforgivable, in any arena. Blaming it on ‘lone wolf behaviour’, is disingenuous. They said the quiet parts out loud, and it showed us the very real impact of letting words and actions go unchecked for so long. This should never have happened #AccountabilityNow #ProtectPlayers 

“Is a lot of big words for hockey fans,” Ilya comments. 

“She posted that, like, three weeks ago,” Shane says, and Ilya resists the impulse to ask why he didn’t show it to him, like, three weeks ago. “It’s still doing the rounds.” 

“This is nice,” Ilya says, entering his credentials to log in properly. “Even if she writes like we are fallen war heroes.” 

“The Centaurs page has some nice stuff, too.” 

Ilya’s feed refreshes, and with it comes the usual algorithmic content of dogs, terrible real estate (because he loves to taunt Shane with it), and hockey. One of the posts is adorned with rainbow flags. 

“Don’t open the comments,” Shane says, with the desolate weariness of someone who has not followed his own advice. 

Ilya’s curiosity, masochism and self-preservation instincts briefly battle it out, but he follows Shane’s advice, scrolling past a (tempting) MLH - Fights of the Week post on his way to find the Cen’s own page. 

He gets his first jumpscare; as the search function loads up more suggestions, there’s a gif of a shape in black and red being tipped over the boards, a spectacular flip between rink and bench. It’s animated as a back-and-forth, so the same wiry shape springs up and over in each direction, never fully landing. It’s mesmerising, until it’s horrifying. The jersey resolves into view: Haas. Fucking hell. 

“There are…a lot of these,” Shane says, taking the phone from Ilya’s hands before any other snippets of their shared trauma jump at them in the form of content. 

When he hands it back to Ilya, it’s safely loaded on the Centaur’s page. No jumpscares here. And a militantly monitored comment section. 

Ilya scrolls through, and this is a lot easier to process. For starters, there are as many dog posts as human ones. And Harris has done his best to curate a sense of optimism, despite the prevalence of the #AccountabilityNow and #ProtectPlayers tags on a lot of the posts. There’s a picture of Troy, with his newly-fixed front tooth. The gif of him spinning Shane repeats a few times; in its original arena-fresh lighting, then with colourful filters, and then with captions about celebrating, scores, being proud, and, sadly, not one single note saying “fuck Montreal.” 

Then, he’s met by his own decidedly less happy face. Sure, he’s grinning, but it’s a rictus pulling of the muscles in his jaw. He’s a jumble of nasal tubes, lank hair, and a grey blanket that stops short of his shoulders. The music playing over it is The Clash - I’m Not Down. 

“Was this supposed to help?” Ilya asks, incredulous. It’s the first time he’s been able to fully externalise his self-pity, because damn, the guy in this picture looks awful. 

“Read it,” Shane tells him softly, and now the hand that has been stroking his arm is wrapped around it like something protective. His chin sinks into the nook between Ilya’s neck and shoulder. 

It’s been a rough few weeks for our boy, it starts, and if that isn’t the understatement of the fucking millennium. We’re all thrilled to report that he’s healing up better than expected—

“Better than expected?” Ilya’s incredulity ramps up a notch. “What the fuck were we expecting?”

Shane grips his arm a little tighter. “Um,” he says, unhelpfully. Ilya carries on reading.

—and we’re ready to have him back on the ice in time for next season. 

Ilya raises an eyebrow but says nothing. He’s not been told otherwise, but he’s also not met with the sports therapists yet, or been able to take two fucking steps in his own home. 

The events that led to these injuries were a combination of reckless, illegal, and targeted. We’re grateful for the support of the fans, the league, and the criminal justice system in addressing what went down. We’re just asking that you keep looking, keep watching, and keep cheering on our captain. 

And there are those recurring hashtags again. “That’s fucking ominous,” says Ilya. 

“Ominous?” 

“You know, like, ‘keep watching’. What else is meant to be happening?” 

Shane kisses Ilya’s neck, a soft warm thing against Ilya’s escalating pulse. “I figured it’d be the criminal justice bit that got your attention.” 

Well, yes. That too. 

“Leyland’s been charged, Comeau, too. Not sentenced, yet. But the evidence is—” Shane gestures towards the phone, where Ilya is navigating away from the very wholesome but not very informative Cen’s feed. 

“Everywhere. Ilya, are you—”

Ilya is. Like a child let off the reins in a sweetshop, he’s thumbing through the tag page. He lasts around three scrolls of red-black blurs grappling with blue-red-white ones before his eyes settle on one for long enough for the image to resolve. 

“Don’t,” Shane warns quietly, making no moves to take the phone away. 

Ilya loves a bad a decision. He picks out Shane, easily, before the jersey numbers confirm it; his form has a steadfastness and certainty that he could spot in even the largest crowd. The music on this one is Wrecking Ball. The Shane on the screen is almost flying; traversing half the rink before Ilya’s finished blinking at it. Someone’s edited the gif to show animated speed trails in his wake. Screen-Shane flattens a Montreal coloured shape—too fast to even see which one—and one of the stripes gets caught in his path, tilts downward and drops out of frame. 

There’s a reactive clench in Ilya’s groin at the graceful ferocity of it all. Until the clench gives way to nausea, because Ilya can see what Shane’s speeding towards: a tangled wall of scrapping players, and beyond them, flanked by Montreal’s worst, is his own tiny shape curled sideways into the ice. 

He scrolls away from that, and into the path of a close up view of a stick lanced around an ankle.

“Ilya.” 

Ilya stares, transfixed, as he watches multiple replays of the ankle-hooking, and subsequent twisted fall, that he can still feel throbbing through his bandages. This view comes with speculative analysis about the severity and prospective career impact of the injury. Injuries, he corrects, because that was also his wrist he landed on. That explains something, at least. Ilya resists the temptation to reply to the post with his own update. 

Shane folds himself closer around Ilya, thighs pressing tight into his hips. 

The next post is just an image of Crowell’s face, animated devil horns flickering. Fair. The next one, some guy in a ballcap shouting about pussies who want to ruin hockey because they can’t handle a hit. Another arena shot: Drapeau taking an absolute battering, only the focus is on the miserable goalie, not Shane’s lovely fists, so Ilya skims past it. Wrecking Ball plays again, some nonsensical graphic of bowling pins being scattered by a ball with a 24 label. More talking heads. Some actor making jokes before turning Serious and Emotive. A Sensitive Content label. More outrage. A wall of text. Another Sensitive Content label. Another arena shot: like the first scene, except now Ilya’s back is against the boards and his fist is angled at Leyland. It’s not a hit he remembers connecting, and the post rushes to tell him why: Comeau’s there, grabbing it, heaving his arm back, because of course he fucking is. 

Another Sensitive Content label and this one, for some self-annihilating reason, Ilya taps on. And either the footage has slowed down or he has, because the tiny man on the screen is thrashing his legs against the perspex, a heavy, clanging thudding motion. His skates are inches clear of the ground, and the only thing holding this man up is a hockey stick held like a bar against his neck, under the jaw. And Ilya is watching this happen, watching no one else get close to the man who’s kicking against the boards, because the man holding the stick and the guy next to him blocking his fist have formed a human cave and there’s so much going on around them. The suffocating man’s face is getting redder, slacker. Ilya’s ears are ringing, his fingers are heavy and numb and he thinks he’s forgotten how breathing works because his lungs are empty. His skin is too hot, everything inside it prickling, burning, itching—

“Ilya?” 

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t—

“Ilya. Solnyshko. You’re here. You’re safe.” 

He isn’t, because his feet aren’t touching the ground and his body is trying to wrench itself inside out and Shane’s voice is so, so far away. 

The chest wall behind him falls away. He’s drowning in open air. 

“Ilya, you’re safe,” and Shane’s voice is getting closer again. There’s cool air on his neck and warm breath on his face. “Breathe with me, lyubov,” he’s saying, and Shane’s breath is almost inside Ilya’s gasping mouth. “Breathe for me.” 

Breathe. 

At some point, he stops drowning. The ringing subsides to a low hum. He lines up one breath with Shane’s. Then the next. The hot needling inside his skin dims, and Ilya drops into the warm cave of Shane’s arms. He’s breathing. Mostly from his throat, not his lungs, knotting in his shoulders with every inhale, but he’s here and he’s alive. 

“You’re safe,” Shane repeats. Quieter and quieter, until it’s a whisper in Ilya’s ear and they both start to believe it. 

- 

A few hours later, Ilya is settled onto the couch, playing Candy Crush on his phone. He’s disabled notifications from every app, and moved the icons for his socials from the home screen. It’ll all be there when he’s ready. 

Shane has gone out. It had taken some persuasion, and included Ilya needing to reassure him that none of the disastrous eventualities he was imagining would come to pass in the ninety-odd minutes it would take to collect Anya.  

Yes, there are enough grab-rails to get to the bathroom. Unless they have all magically disappeared from the walls since the last time they were used, it will be fine. 

No, I will not run out of water or starve to death while you are gone. Is ninety minutes. 

Yes, my last O2 reading was a solid 97% and yes we can check again in case it’s changed in the last hour. 

By the time they’d got to planning for contingencies for a spontaneous and explosive house fire, Ilya gave up rationalising, and told Shane he’d start the fire himself if it would speed him out of the door. 

He understands it, he thinks. It isn’t just about this one trip to fetch Anya. It’s about all the other hours Shane would need to spend walking her. The times spent leaving the house for groceries. Working out. Living the components of a life that exists outside the bounds of caring for his enfeebled husband. If he doesn’t find a way to distract them both, fast, it’s going to be a very long summer. 

- 

Anya’s return is heralded by a scrabbling of paws against the wooden floor, and Shane calling after her to be careful, as though she’s ever followed an instruction. 

Her presence is so instantly and completely soothing, that Ilya is considering contacting Galina to tell her that her years of psychiatric experience have got nothing on the curative benefits of little paws on his shoulders and a tongue on his face. 

Then, he thinks of Galina trying to emulate Anya’s current pose, and feels a specific type of discomfort that he never wants to revisit. 

He has the feeling that Anya is going to be doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting, for a dog. He hopes she’s up to the task. 

- 

Ilya’s phone stays glued to his side, the promise of everything it contains weighing it down like a curse. 

They have a plan, now. Because Ilya won’t avoid his phone forever, and he’s already started the slow process of manually adding his contacts to it. And he can’t engage with the world outside of his sphere until he knows as much as they do, if he wants to avoid being clotheslined by some secret new knowledge of his own pain. He has enough pieces of memories, now, and a loose idea of what to expect. 

So. They’ve agreed, tomorrow morning, after the scheduled meds and breakfast shakes, they’ll watch the footage from the game. Together. There’s another tape, Shane tells him, that shows some of the stuff that wasn’t included in the broadcast. A compilation. A best of, if you will, but Shane doesn’t call it that. He just refers to it obliquely as though it’s the single worst collection of footage that has ever existed. 

He tells him there was a diary, too: a hand-written series of notes about each stage of Ilya’s stay in the hospital. The questions he’d asked the medical teams, and some of their answers. “It’s meant to help,” Shane had said, unconvinced, as though if he so much as opens the notebook it’ll bring every desperate, hurting minute of that time back to life. 

So, once again, Ilya has a promise of tomorrow. 

Before then, there’s something Ilya can do with his phone that won’t cause either of them distress. Unless Shane murders him for it, but it’s a risk he’s determined to take. He’s logged into his Amazon account, after multiple authentications and emails alerting himself to the fact he’s logged in. He’s waited until Shane’s in the kitchen to do this, because he doesn’t want to ruin the surprise. It’s just that, he really does need Shane to understand that he’s a very good nurse. And he’s found just the thing to prove it to him. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Additional content notes:
- References to Shane’s disordered eating (not fully explored)
- References to self-soothing being self-harming adjacent (brief)
- Additional tag added to main tags for panic attack (described in detail)

Additional story notes: The chapter count is once again threatening to increase because we ARE getting our happy ending, however many words it's taking to get there.

Additional author/AO3 curse notes: Family member is out of ICU (still in hospital) so we're in an optimistic limbo while we wait for news. Thank you for the good wishes <3

Chapter 7: Your Body's Over Me

Chapter Summary

Shane nods, like he’s steeling himself. Determined to remain unaffected. “Shane. Is okay,” Ilya tells him. It’s not. It’s really not, and he doesn’t know how not okay it’s about to get on the screen. But the screen can be paused and turned off. The screen is in the past, and they are in the present, safe, and home, and holding onto each other.

“Shane,” Ilya asks, because a realisation is hitting him right in the heart. “Did this all start because we had a fucking hug?”

Chapter Notes

It's a long one, and most of the tags apply here. Into the trauma pit we go...

- 

They settle into the couch like it’s movie night. Except, no popcorn, because that has a texture. Also, it’s early morning, and the blinds are drawn to block out the rain. Ilya jabs his spoon into a pot of frozen custard, and Shane pretends to enjoy his protein smoothie. Anya bats her bone across the carpet, alternating between gnawing on it and batting it away like a reluctant playmate. Watching her chew, Ilya finds himself briefly but entirely jealous. He wonders if he’s hit a new low in his recovery, because those things smell like farmyard sweat and slobber. Except, Shane’s giving it an appraising look, too. That looks like a conversation for…later. 

“The full version has been pulled from most streaming,” Shane says, remote in hand. “Or, edited. There were…broadcast complaints.” 

“Is because we were, how do you say, not safe for work?” Ilya teases. 

Shane looks stricken. “It wasn’t— oh, you asshole. Not now.” 
 
Ilya smiles into his custard. Taunting Shane about the prospect of getting fucked, mid-game, in front of thousands of people, is one of the gifts he insists on giving, often. No matter how dire the mood or circumstance. And this morning, it feels pretty fucking dire. Beyond the spectre of looming trauma, Ilya’s body is reminding him in vivid detail that it’s a long way from healed, with steadily amplifying aches and jolts and tingles that he is choosing not to voice aloud. 

He’s running out of (clothed) ways to help Shane unwind about The Event, so he needs his tricks. Even if at this point, they’re as much for him as for the hyper-tense bundle of anxiety cuddled into him. 

“Are you sure?” Shane asks, not for the first time. It’s a loaded question. Are you sure you want this to be made real? Are you sure you want to watch this with me, and not a team of trained psychiatric experts? Are you sure you want to permanently stain our home by reliving the worst moments of our lives to date on our 70” OLED display? Are you sure this won’t just make you feel like you’re about to die all over again?

“There’s the other footage, too,” Shane reminds him, shuffling a little closer to wrap an arm over Ilya’s shoulders, leg hooked over Ilya’s unsprained side, covered by a fleece blanket. It’s not cold enough to need it, but it makes it feel like they’re in more of a cocoon. Protected. “We can. We can watch it, after. If you want.” 

Ilya still doesn’t know if he wants, yet, so he just says “Okay.” 

Shane presses play on the remote, and the giant TV screen swallows them whole. 

- 

They speed straight to the middle, because Ilya has no need or desire to watch Montreal’s lousy gameplay, or hear any more of their shitty jabs. Or to see the under-penalised high stick from Schneider that had caught Shane in the face in the first period: the one that Shane dismissed as inconsequential, because he’d osmosed it, along with all the others, into his new normal. 

What Ilya does want, is to see the moment when Shane’s carefully maintained shell of compliance started splitting open. 

So, he skips ahead, to just before the moment where the camera latches onto Andropov, and Shane’s beautiful butt-ended destruction of his teeth. The more often Ilya sees it, the more he appreciates the sheer brutal stealth of it. 

“He’s always chewing his fucking mouthguard,” Shane says, and there’s something cat-like in his expression. “When he was saying that shit about you, I…I wanted him to choke on it.” 

“Fuck, Hollander.” Ilya isn’t sure what else to say, because up until now Shane’s been apologetic or avoidant about everything that went down. The idea that he enjoyed some of it is…it’s hot. There’s probably something deeper going on with that—maybe the idea that Shane’s doing more than just acting in well-behaved defence in a shitty situation—but Ilya doesn’t want to psychoanalyse it. He wants to enjoy it. He taps Shane’s jaw. “Kiss, please.” 

Shane sighs, kisses Ilya softly on the mouth, just as the footage cuts to him in the penalty bin, winking. 

- 

The commentary drones on, non-committal, even when Gagnon barrels into Shane a full second later than justifiable, with more force than needed, but no more than they’d expected. What they do start to call out, because it’s impossible not to, is how Montreal aren’t so much playing a game as they are trying to bait and instigate. And how, Shane’s minor act of retribution aside, the Centaurs aren’t doing a lot to react. The commentators call them hesitant, and Shane does a full-body shudder that vibrates through Ilya’s arm. 

Maybe, they should have been on the offensive from the start. 

- 

When they skip to the start of the third period, a red ‘Viewer Discretion Advised’ ticker tape starts running along the bottom of the screen. By now, Ilya knows enough pieces of what’s coming, but it doesn’t do anything to loosen the knot in his stomach. Or the one in his throat. 

- 

The announcers pick up on Ilya chirping Pike about being pregnant: 

“It’s typical Rozanov,” one voice-over chastises, “But,” cuts in the other, “he’s not wrong, and that’s mild compared to some of what we’ve heard on the ice tonight.”

The some of what we’ve heard including a suggestion that Rozanov and Hollander belong in a fucking camp. 

“Leyland said he meant the summer camps,” Shane had said wearily, “in his statement.” All that sensitivity training paying off, clearly.  

- 

The first goal of the third is gorgeous. The technicalities of it are nothing flashy; it’s the synchronicity of it that makes it look so good. The way Ilya had been able to make the pass to Shane because he knew the exact feint he’d use to keep Montreal off his back. The glide, the misdirect, then the smack of the puck into the net. The palpable defeat in Drapeau’s face on the close up as the goal horn rings out. 

“If I had broken his legs,” Shane muses out loud, “it wouldn’t have made him any worse in goal. At least he wouldn’t be jumping out of the way of shots.” 

“Wow,” says Ilya. “So now you chirp.” He’s hopeful that even if he doesn’t get to watch Shane break Drapeau’s legs in the next few minutes, he’ll at least see a partial maiming. 

“Hindisight is twenty twenty,” Shane says mildly. 

“That’s gotta hurt,” the commentators narrate about the goal, and then. Then there’s the spin. Ilya watches his screen-self scoop Shane up, and he wasn’t joking when he said he wanted this moment framed, immortalised. They both look so damn happy. A beautiful fuck you to every naysayer. 

“You love to see it,” says one of the voice overs, to a backdrop of crowd reactions. A lot of cheers, sure, but a few other noises, too. A lot of naysayers. A lot of them on the ice. 

“Not everyone does, apparently,” says the second. Behind them, there’s a Montreal jersey speeding across the ice to where he and Shane are still grinning. In front of them, Drapeau looks like he’s about to go to fucking war. 

“Uh oh,” says the commentator. 

The video pauses on Drapeau emerging from his net, stick raised. 

Ilya becomes very aware of Shane’s breathing getting faster and lighter next to him. 

“Shane.” 

Shane nods, like he’s steeling himself. Determined to remain unaffected. “Shane. Is okay,” Ilya tells him. It’s not. It’s really not, and he doesn’t know how not okay it’s about to get on the screen. But the screen can be paused and turned off. The screen is in the past, and they are in the present, safe, and home, and holding onto each other. 

“Shane,” Ilya asks, because a realisation is hitting him right in the heart. “Did this all start because we had a fucking hug?” 

- 

 It all started because they had a fucking hug. 

The playback stays paused while Shane pours out the next round of medicines, and heads to the kitchen for another shake. He’s got a bunch of them pre-made, now; sweet ones for Ilya, miserable ones for Shane because he doesn’t want any joy at all, apparently, and the suggestion of just having sugar-free alternatives made him pull a face akin to experiencing war flashbacks. “Whoever invented Maltitol is the fucking devil,” is all he’d said about it. 

It wasn’t started from some stupid chirp, the three goal lead, or a hit that went too far. 

Hell had broken loose, because Montreal had to suffer the indignity of watching their least favourite people being happy. Perfectly, brilliantly happy. For all of about twelve fucking seconds. Christ. 

Compared to the shit that other players do, all the time—hell, what they’d done, before everyone knew—it’s such a tiny thing. And maybe it was unfair, to every other player who doesn’t get to play with their stupidly competent, violently attractive partners. Ilya hadn’t realised Montreal were so fragile that they’d be taken out by a fucking hug, is all. 

“I forgot your fucking Buprenorphine,” Shane announces, interrupting Ilya’s bewilderment. He hands Ilya the bottle of shake. 

There’s pink juice on his white shirt and he looks like his body is trying to claw itself open from the inside. He’s a fitful combination of scared and ashamed, and it’s making Ilya nervous. He has no idea what the fuck the word Shane said is supposed to mean. 

“Painkiller,” Shane clarifies. “I—with all the others, I fucking—I forgot about—”

“Is okay,” Ilya says, taking a sip of the drink. Strawberry flavour, this time. It’s better than he’d expected it to taste, like there’s real fruit in there. He’s lost count of the different things he takes throughout the day; he’d just assumed one of them was for pain and that it wasn’t working as well as it should.  

“It’s not,” Shane corrects. He’s getting uncomfortably good at self-recrimination. “Fuck. How bad is it?” 

“Eh, is not good. Not terrible, either. Shane,” he says, like he’s trying to call him back into his body. “Really. Is okay. Is just another shot to take.” 

“It’s not, it’s a— Scale of one to ten?” Shane asks, opening the lid of the ottoman to rummage through the bag of meds he’d only just put away. 

“No, no. We are not doing the pain chart of sad faces,” Ilya says. The sight of those squiggly-mouthed ratings will haunt his dreams for years to come. He’s not having his husband invoke them too. “Pain is…in the middle. Is fine.” 

Shane’s shoulders drop an inch or so. He places a large, flat sachet of something next to Ilya, and tidies everything away before he sits himself down. Perches, really. 

“It’s a patch,” he says, plucking it from Ilya’s fingers. “Slow release. Should last a week, but if you—”

“I will tell you if pain gets bigger,” Ilya says, taking the now unwrapped, oversized plaster from Shane. “Where do I put it?” 

“Will you?” Shane asks, eyes narrowing. 

“Yes, I will. Now where?” 

Shane clambers over him, straddling him, blocking the view of the screen and keeping him nestled in the warm space between his thighs. He grabs the patch back, peeling the backing off with his teeth, then smacking it over Ilya’s left bicep. “You’re not allowed hot baths with that on.” 

“Is stupid,” Ilya grumbles, helping Shane manoeuvre back into the space next to him, cupping his face. Describing him as tense feels like an understatement, at this point. He keeps opening his mouth like he wants to say something else, but all the words get swallowed up by anxiety or uncertainty or whatever else is keeping the hinges of his jaw knotted tight. Ilya’s not sure there are any words that exist, in any language, that can talk Shane down from the tightrope of worries he’s clinging to. He tries instead for contact, pulling his face to his to kiss the side of his jaw. It’s a soft kiss, not a hungry one. Plants another one on his neck. His ear. Pulls his head to his chest, and strokes at his hair. 

“I’m so bad at this,” Shane says into his chest. “I’m sorry, Ilya. You need—”

Ilya shushes him, and because he can’t bend his neck to kiss him at this angle, he presses his lips to his fingers and pushes those to Shane’s mouth instead. “Solnyshko, stop. You are what I need. Shush.” Because he can’t take any more of Shane trying to claim he’s in any way less than. Not after…everything. 

Shane makes a non-committal noise. Opens his mouth, closes it again. Holds onto Ilya like he’s a life-raft. 

“You are the sexiest nurse,” Ilya says, because this is their default. “And you are best husband,” because he means it. 

“You haven’t had any other husbands, Ilya.” 

“Oh my god. Shane. I’m trying to tell you,” Ilya says, and there’s still a bit of a pause needed for his voice to catch up to his thoughts, and for his thoughts to arrange themselves. “That you are my… everything. That I don’t want to watch this,” he gestures at the screen. “I’m…scared. To watch. I know, I know it’s stupid—”

“It’s not.”

Ilya waves his hand to dismiss Shane’s dismissal, then stills it. “Okay,” he accepts. “What I mean is. It’s. This is a horrible thing we are watching. A terrible thing that happened. I don’t want to see it, I have done that, it is past. I also do not want to see your ugly old teammates.” 

Shane nods, looking up at Ilya and those big sad eyes are twisting at his insides. 

Ilya continues. “I know if I don’t watch it, my brain will make it worse.”

“You mean like, nightmares?” Shane asks, with a little too much knowing familiarity for Ilya to not pocket the worry about it for later. 

“Yes. That. But also daytime, too. Or if I look at my phone. All of it. Is scary.” Ilya takes a breath, because words, like everything else this morning, are still difficult. “But I am safe with you. No one else. You, Shane. You get that? No more of this ‘I am not the right person’. You are only person. You are my heart, lyubimyy. And,” he grips Shane’s cheek between his fingers for emphasis, “you are so stressed that it will be you in the hospital if you do not—”

“I know,” Shane says, tight. “I’m trying.” 

Ilya hadn’t meant it as a criticism, or a challenge. “Hey,” he says, and again, he’s working with the feeling that he’s calling Shane back to him from somewhere very far away. “I will help you unwind?” 

Shane twists around so he’s facing Ilya, their faces close enough that they can catch each other’s breathing. “How are you— How? No?” 

He’s offering half a smile, at least, even if he doesn’t make any other sign that the soft sentiments of Ilya’s confessional have had an impact, at all. So much for being poetic. “We will find a way,” Ilya asserts, because he’s already scheming. 

Shane doesn’t seem to process the suggestion, and presses the play button on the remote. 

-  

On the screen, Drapeau swings his raised stick towards Shane’s back. It’s the kind of move you might see in the beer leagues, or a bar fight. It’s designed to do damage. 

 Ilya watches himself grab Shane for the second time that period, this time to pivot him out of range. Watches as Shane clocks the threat and retaliates, enthusiastically. Drapeau tries to follow through with his stick swing, missing Shane by a breath. Ilya’s backed off, letting Shane have his moment. 

“Can we get a lip read on what’s being said?” the commentators are asking, because Drapeau is yelling underneath the pummeling of Shane’s fists. The voice-over guys are idiots, or maybe just feigning it, because they’ve all seen the shape a mouth makes when it’s shouting faggot, even through the cage of a goalie mask. 

What the audio does pick up on, is Shane’s voice. It coincides with the on-screen Shane grabbing Drapeau by his oversized leg pads, lifting them up, and slamming the goalie chest-down into the ice: “Eat shit, Drapeau.” 

It’s not the smartest chirp he’s ever delivered, for sure. But, combined with the fucking hulk smash he’s just delivered, it’s beautiful. 

“Look at him go! That’s more aggression than we usually see from Hollander—” offer the commentators, wildly underselling things. 

Ilya keeps his focus on the goal end of the screen, where Drapeau is trying to wrestle with Shane, pulling him down to his level and if that isn’t the perfect metaphor. It looks like Shane’s fighting a fucking marshmallow, and the marshmallow’s fists have knocked Shane’s visor back, connecting with the bridge of his nose, but Shane hangs on to his advantage like he’s on a bucking bronco ride. 

“Would have been funnier if you’d said the thing about breaking his legs,” Ilya whispers to Shane. Shane, who is all but vibrating next to him, pulling the blanket back over their shoulders. 

“Shut up,” Shane says gently. 

Ilya doesn’t. “I am glad you got him,” he says. “Was a long time coming, yes?” 

Because it had been. Shane’s last season with Montreal had been miserable, and at times, brutal. The locker room had shifted from neutrality into hostility, each loss making them meaner. Shane had underplayed it; nothing they’d said was new, the only difference was that now, it was about Shane specifically. It was just words. Relentless, undercutting words, delivered behind snickering laughter. Until it wasn’t just words: things going missing from Shane’s cubby, a word scrawled in sharpie on a compression vest, a jersey splashed with piss, and a coach who saw it all and turned his back. 

And then the locker: the one that Shane hadn’t been able to hide, because the blood was crusted at the back of his scalp when Ilya had run his hands through his hair later that night. And then stroked that same hair again later, when Shane had been hunched over the toilet bowl, puking from the effects of a head injury he wasn’t going to report. The way Shane told it, it could have been passed off as an accident. He’d just been in the wrong place, at the wrong moment. Thierault had told him as much, after. It’s why you don’t stand behind someone’s locker, because really, someone slamming the metal door of it open, not seeing the man stood behind it, it was a mistake anyone could have made. 

So, yeah. Watching Drapeau getting smacked, repeatedly and brutally, is a long overdue sight. 

Shane just hums, because Shane isn’t looking at the goal end of the screen, where two officials are already poised to break it up. 

Shane is looking at the centre of the screen, where Ilya’s sprawled on the ice, the blade of Comeau’s stick retreating from his ankle. A rapid sequence of replays showing the way his wrist broke the fall. 

- 

Comeau’s voice comes through on the replay; “Your gay ass shit doesn’t fly here,” he’s yelling, throwing his gloves off and folding his body over Ilya’s. He’s never been one for eloquence. 

Ilya watches his screen-self right himself, smack his helmet into Comeau’s, and correct him: “Bisexual, Gil, is big word for you—”

Comeau punches into his stomach. Ilya swings his fist into his neck, except it doesn’t land right. Ah. The same fist he’d landed on.  

“Spend more time reading the puck,” screen-Ilya is shouting at Comeau, left fist picking up where the right one failed, “and less time reading where our dicks are going—” lands it right under the jaw, “—maybe you would not be losing.” 

Shane pulls the remote from Ilya’s hand and lowers the volume to zero. 

“But you love my voice, lyubov,” Ilya protests. 

“I do,” Shane says into Ilya’s thigh, “those words of yours are literally everywhere. But if I have to listen to those guys give their opinion on this one more time, I’m gonna claw my ears off.” 

Ilya nods, captivated by the scene of Barrett helping to pull him out from under Comeau, and a little pleased about having got another wind-up in. He’s pretty sure he didn’t manage any more, after this one. 

“How many times?” 

Shane doesn’t answer, just pulls himself upright, like he’s acknowledging that it’s his turn to provide the comfort. He wraps his arms around Ilya’s shoulders and holds onto him like he’s shielding him from time itself. 

“Shane. How many times have you watched?” 

His voice is hollow. “Too many.” The screen is filling with movement. “If I hadn’t been trying—” Shane starts, then stops when his voice catches on a hiccup. “If I hadn’t been stuck on that fucking asshole—I would have seen. I could have stopped—”

Ilya pulls Shane’s face towards him. Thumbs at his cheeks and softly kisses him quiet. “You know it does not work like that,” he says, as kindly as he can. “You are not the only player on the team.” And then, because this is feeling more serious than he wants it to: “Besides, you are not captain. No one expects rookie to step up—”

“Oh my god,” Shane says, but it’s worked, enough. There’s enough of a hint of a smile—more a twitch at the corners of his mouth, really, but still—that the room doesn’t feel like it’s going to split wide open or fall around their ears. 

- 

What should be happening, is the next shift swap and a couple of officials escorting players to the penalty bin. What is happening, is that the double-pronged attack—Drapeau on Hollander, Comeau on Rozanov—has sent a signal louder than the ref’s urgent whistles that it’s open season.  The animosity that’s been brewing, now boiling over like it’s been given permission. The second line are spilling onto the ice before the first line’s left it. The Centaurs have a downed Captain, and the Metros have…a forlorn looking goalie being punted to the back of his own net. 

- 

No footage ever really captures the energy of a brawl. The angles go too wide to catch the brutality; lots of shapes folding and weaving into each other, trying not to fall over in the middle of it. It’s a messy combination of “oh, shit,” and just, slightly ridiculous. But there’s also nothing that belies the intimacy of the violence: the desperation of everyone there, trying to fight their own corner, protect their captains, and vent out years-long grudges with any part of their body they can make contact with. 

It’s worse when the angle shifts to close ups; whoever they focus on, there’s usually someone else out of shot getting pulverised. 

Ilya is not in shot. The last Ilya saw of himself on the screen, he was making his way back to his bench, using his stick as a paddle to keep the weight off his newly fucked up ankle. He knows, from memory, and the evidence in his own body, that he didn’t get that far, but for now, he exists in a sort of limbo. One where, because of where he’s facing, he wouldn’t have seen Leyland behind him, fast, and inevitable. All he sees on the screen now, is perspex reverberating from a heavy impact. 

“I still hadn’t seen you,” Shane says, and it’s coming out like another confession. An admission of failure. “I was heading to the tunnel, after…” 

After his first game misconduct for laying into Drapeau, presumably for intent to injure. The one Wiebe had said was “under review”, in light of the shitshow that unfolded after. Why the fuck Comeau wasn’t also making the same journey is beyond him, but he figures everyone’s had long enough to review their mistakes from this, by now. 

“It’s when I heard Leyland shouting shit. That I knew something was wrong.” 

Ilya doesn’t ask about the shit being shouted. He pulls Shane’s hand into his and traces a path between each healed knuckle, looping round each one in turn, then back again. 

- 

Barrett is trying to square off against Stedlund. Except there’s another Montreal player crowding into view, and then it’s a swarm, and Barrett disappears inside it. Both teams’ colours, and the black and white stripes of the officials, convening on a central mass of brawling bodies. The rest of the teams on the benches tapping sticks, and the harried faces of the coaches. 

The whole thing is mesmerising. 

Two seconds later, Barrett’s out of it, spitting blood and shouting at the ref. 

- 

Ilya takes up so little space on the screen. He’s a small shape in the top right corner, pushing back against where Leyland has him pressed to the boards. Just with his body, this first time. What’s happening with him looks minor, all things considered. He’s a couple of metres from the bulk of the drama. When Ilya goes down, from some too-close stickwork and a badly placed ankle swipe, he’s barely visible at all. And when Comeau swings in and crowds the space around him, he only knows to keep watching because he knows what’s coming. 

- 

“You can see it, on the other footage,” Shane says, too intimate with every detail of this. “You—you were trying to get back up. It looked like you were winded. It’s when Comeau, uh—”

“Trod on my fucking face, yes,” Ilya completes for him. Because only a couple of seconds have passed on the screen, between him dropping from view and having one man’s anger permanently etched into his skin. 

“And then pulled you back up,” Shane adds, and this is where Ilya sees Comeau wave dismissively at the bench, where the coaches and medics are shuffling. Sees the posture of someone hoisting him up with a hand under an arm. It almost looks sporting. 

The logistics, the violence of it, is one thing. He can process it, assemble it like a puzzle, and find the relevant corners of his brain to file it away in. It’s the rage behind it that’s making him feel queasy, like his stomach is trying to push its way up and out of his mouth. 

He’s been hated. He’s been hit, beaten and the rest, and a lot of those times, he’s given as good, if not better, in return. Watching himself as nothing more than the recipient of violence, made passive, makes him feel like a victim. It’s a nasty, itchy feeling that pokes at his brain and needles his skin. 

He’s stuck on the why, more than the what and the how. Why these men, with their cosy careers and good standing, chose to put that in jeopardy because Ilya had somehow made them that fucking angry.  

- 

Leyland doesn’t stay quiet at the best of times, and he’s watching the side of his jaw snapping and spitting. And he’s watching himself, yelling something back. 

He’s glad, at least, that the volume’s off for this. 

“You were saying “He’s not a fucking rug,” then,” Shane narrates, which is something Ilya definitely does not remember, or understand. Because Shane has every second and every angle of this committed to his memory, ready to upset himself at a moment’s notice. 

“He uh, was doing the whole ‘oriental’ thing,” he continues, and Ilya feels the nausea inside him grow teeth. He’s heard enough shit like this from them before to piece together the rest. 

“Am glad I didn’t die,” Ilya says, instead of what he’s feeling. “Those would have been terrible last words, yes?”

Shane makes an uncomfortable noise in the back of his throat and holds Ilya more tightly. 

- 

The sound of gravel crunching underfoot from their driveway offers a distraction. Anya mirrors the path of the footsteps from inside, until there’s the sound of keening, and little paws scrabbling at the door. 

Any remaining colour drops from Shane’s face as the outside footsteps still. Three knocks follow. 

“Wait here,” Shane instructs, peeling the fleece blanket away from him and tucking it over Ilya’s shoulders. Under it, Ilya makes a gesture that conveys his lack of options to do anything else. He stays quiet. 

On the screen, he’s watching Gagnon speeding towards the clump of players, and watching Luca’s attempt at an interception. It’s—the kid deserves points for bravery, for sure, but not for self-preservation. Gagnon moves him like he’s nothing, a full body tip that sees Luca’s legs flailing in the air for an entire second, before landing, hard, on the empty section of bench he’d just sprung from. Jesus. 

He pauses it, screen frozen on the evidence of everyone being in just the wrong place. He guesses they’ve still not even watched a full minute of this, by now. There’s quiet conversation happening in the doorway, a rustling of something, and then the sound of Shane’s (calmer) footsteps padding back. Anya follows dutifully. 

“Just Amazon,” Shane calls from the hallway. He grimaces at the screen as he walks back in, brown packet in hand, frowning. “But I didn’t order anything?” 

Ilya does an excellent job of hiding his smile, mostly because he’s biting back a roiling wave of dread so profound that even the surprise he’s bought for Shane won’t be enough to offset it. 

“Open it after,” Ilya tells him, patting the seat next to him. “First tell me why you were scared.” 

“What?” 

Anya jumps into the space Ilya patted, so Shane switches sides. Ilya is effectively sandwiched, and this is good. Nice, even. 

“Your face, Shane. You heard the door and was…panic. Like ghost. Who did you expect? Your parents? SWAT team?” 

Shane curls into Ilya’s chest, still side-eyeing the Amazon bag like the contents will jump out and reveal themselves to him. “Crowell,” he says, chewing the name like it’s something unpleasant. 

What the fuck? In lieu of words, Ilya gesticulates with eyebrows and hands, trying to convey the sheer scale of what-the-fuckitude that name inspires, in this context. Because why in the everloving fuck would the fucking Commissioner want to make a fucking house call. 

“His team’s been trying to get in touch,” Shane starts, and well, yes, evidently, if Shane is worried about him appearing on their literal fucking doorstep. 

“Why?”

“You remember we had that meeting, last year?” 

Ilya does, vividly and beautifully. When Crowell had tried to dissuade them from coming out, from getting married, from doing a single thing that might harm the heteronormative image of the league or its star players. He’d threatened their careers. Obliquely, of course; he’d skimmed the line of outright blackmail. But he’d posed an ultimatum; carry on hiding, and stay in the good graces of the league, or suffer the repercussions. And Shane, who’d never met a rule he didn’t immediately want to follow, who had spent a lifetime analysing, predicting and avoiding repercussions, had looked him dead in the eyes and chosen whatever this is, instead. 

As well as it being one of the hottest things Shane has ever done for them (despite there being a very long, vivid, sweaty list of hot things Shane has done for them), it was also one of the smartest; he’d recorded the whole exchange. 

And now, they’re clearly still in the thick of some of those repercussions Crowell had alluded to. 

“Does he want a rematch?” Ilya asks, hopefully. 

Shane fiddles with the corner of the blanket, before his hand finds Ilya’s hair and starts fiddling with that instead. “One of Kip’s friends got hold of a couple of emails.” 

He fucking what. Ilya knows that sometimes, getting answers out of Shane is a little like eking out the last dregs of piss from a dehydrated workhorse, but with enough patience and prompting, it’s still possible. 

“And?” he prompts. 

“He said shit about not wanting another Scott Hunter situation,” Shane elaborates. “It wasn’t, damning, on its own. Said he didn’t want the playoffs overshadowed by ‘heart eyes or worse’.”

Ilya can’t help laughing. He thought Montreal were cowards for being upset about a hug, but the fucking Commissioner fretting over ‘heart eyes’ is just…Christ. 

“This is public?” Ilya asks. 

“As of two days ago, yeah,” Shane says, and even he’s smiling now, too. “Farah and mom managed the leak. They’ve been sitting on it for a while. And the recording. And…everything else.” 

Ilya thinks back to an overheard conversation; Yuna, verbally haranguing someone on the phone about emails, and something about giving someone enough rope to hang himself with. And the whole time, she’d been talking about fucking Crowell. He owes her a very expensive flower arrangement, for starters. Some whiskey. Or maybe a suit of armour. Something with a sword. Or maybe—

“His people wanted to set up a meeting,” Shane continues. “With us. We said no, but. He’s getting desperate.”

 “I think I would like a meeting with him,” Ilya decides. “When I am strong again. Not here.” 

The silence that follows stretches out long enough that the TV has gone to screensaver mode, as both men create their own happy imaginings of the Commissioner’s downfall. 

Ilya breaks it. “Let’s watch me get nearly killed,” he says, meaning it to sound flippant. 

The smile drops out of Shane’s face and he murmurs a quiet “Fuck me,” before they resume play. 

- 

The more he tries to keep up with the movement on the screen, the more his head starts to ache and his eyes feel sticky. He can’t see it yet but he knows, from the timeline they’ve assembled and the rest of the evidence on the screen, that he’s upright again and about to see himself get pinned by the fucking throat. That in that corner on the ice, Leyland’s got both hands on the shaft of his stick. Two hundred pounds of pressure siphoning through carbon fibre, directly into his neck. That he couldn’t even push back, because fucking Comeau had his right arm pinned. And, his cast nags at him, presumably broken by then, too. 

- 

There’s a pixellated blur in the corner where Ilya should be and, nice, that whatever was happening to him was considered too upsetting for the casual viewer. 

The Shane on the screen moves like a tornado. He’s one of the furthest away, but the distance shortens fast. The first obstacle, Ilya can’t read the number on the jersey before Shane’s shouldered him out of the way. It’s the same moment from the gif he’d seen on Instragram, but with the context of the rest of the rink, it makes perfect, beautiful sense. The official tilting sideways, stumbling onto his knees. 

- 

The problem, as Ilya sees it, is that there a giant clump of aggression sprawling between screen-Shane, and screen-Ilya. For every Centaur who’s trying to hold their own or get to Ilya, there’s a fucking Metro tangling with them. Still more of them on the ice than there should be. Hayden’s in there, trying to at least keep Berkes from doing anything substantial to anyone, but it’s hardly enough. The officials are deep into the fray, too; except it’s going beyond performative fighting. There’s pockets of real anger, real damage, unfolding in real time. 

There is no direct path to Ilya that doesn’t go through someone else. 

It’s the sense of time that’s fucking with Ilya’s head the most. Everything they’ve watched so far has been no more than seconds. And everyone he’s watching, all tangled up in the scrapping, has barely clocked the escalation of the something worse taking place just behind them. 

- 

Ilya has seen a lot of fights. He’s been in a lot of fights. What he has never seen, is a human fucking cannonball tear into a pile of men and rip them out of formation like he’s scooping the stuffing out of a pillow. He has never felt so proud to be married to the human fucking cannonball as he is in this moment. The Shane on the screen moves like he’s forgotten he’s a person confined by gravity or pain or the limitations of having limbs that need to be protected. 

Gagnon is the first to drop; taking the weight of an entire Shane Hollander to his torso, he didn’t stand a chance. 

Berkes folds next; a single punch to the back of his neck, a knee in the small of his back, and then he’s down. Scooped away from the fray by an official who looks relieved to have a moment to breathe. 

Shane burrows further into them, and they’re starting to scatter, except more of Montreal’s bench is clearing. 

“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya offers, because the handful of seconds he just witnessed were worth at least some of whatever’s still to come. “You should have been an enforcer.”

“Fuck off.”

- 

“Most of them thought it was just a brawl, still,” Shane says in a dry, hollow voice, echoing something Troy had said back in the hospital. “It was the coaches. And the crowd, who saw it. Someone in the crowd who called 911.”

- 

The ringing in Ilya’s ears has started up again. It’s not loud; a gentle warning bell. 

A replay shows Ilya’s shape—still pixelated, from the shoulders up—but it shows the seconds between him thrashing his legs against the perspex, then slumping, chin over the shaft of the stick. Like the bones had fallen out of his body. Then, sliding down the boards, limp. 

Comeau, already backed off, like even he’s realised that something’s gone too far. Except, Comeau is still in the fucking way of Wiebe, who’s trying to get close enough to see how too far it’s gone. Terry, the team medic, stood just behind, bag at the ready. 

Comeau, no longer in the way, because Shane has both hands scruffing him by the back of his armour. He moves Comeau like he’s a fucking broom, sweeping him into the path of the players who still think this is part of the game; the ones fresh off the bench, who haven’t seen anything more than Shane Fucking Hollander take out half their team and swing their captain like a mop, right into the path of Stedlund’s skates. 

Shane—the real one, soft and numb on the couch—puts his warm, wide hand on Ilya’s face. Holding him the way he’d have wanted to then, Ilya guesses. He’s not quite blocking his view, but he’s making a shield, ready. 

- 

Somehow, it still isn’t over. 

The footage is still going. It’s pointed at where Ilya is on the ground. He’s still, completely. Face flush to the ice, still blurred, except the pixels under his jaw are pink-toned. 

Leyland is crowding over him—over his body, Ilya corrects, because he’s pretty sure he wasn’t fully in it at this point—yelling. 

“He was telling you to get up,” Shane says, like he’s recounting the lines of a play he’s been performing for years. 

“Oh, he thought he had made mistake? That I was pretending?” Ilya asks, because all the other things he’s feeling about watching this are too big, too rotten to put words to. 

“No,” says Shane quietly, as the on-screen version of himself heaves Leyland onto his back, lifts him by the shoulders, and slams him helmet-first into the ice. “He knew. He sounded…scared.” 

- 

It’s been at least a minute, on the screen, since Ilya stopped breathing. Maybe longer. There should be medics, a back board, people crowding Ilya’s space and putting air back into his lungs. 

Instead, there’s an official trying to bat back the three Montreal players crowding the space. Most of the people left on the ice have started to clock the unnerving wrongness of what’s happening and are following the frantic signalling of the officials. Except these players aren’t looking at the very still figure on the ground; they’re still calling after Hollander. Hollander, who’s punched into Leyland’s visor hard enough to crack it. And then there’s Barrett, and Bood, and another set of stripes, forcing them back out of the way as Terry crouches over Ilya and makes a frantic signal towards the tunnel. 

- 

“They didn’t know they were in the way,” Shane says, as the footage of the arena shrinks to a quarter of the screen, taken over by the talking heads wearing grim expressions. “The others. Not until they saw you. Leyland did. He kept trying to get up.” 

Ilya nods, biting down something hot trying to climb up his windpipe. 

The shrunken footage shows the backboard getting closer. A lot later than it should have. 

“Bathroom,” he tells Shane, swallowing the word. 

- 

They make it in time, mainly because Shane is already expert in the ways he can scoop Ilya, bodily, and transport him to where he needs to be. 

That currently being folded on the floor of the downstairs bathroom, one leg tucked under him, the other splayed, and his arms wrapped around the outside of toilet bowl. 

This morning has been…rough. 

What’s helping, right now, is Shane palming lines up and down his back, under his vest, in time with his breathing. 

“I knew I would get you on your knees today,” Ilya says, between spitting out the remnants of whatever’s left in his stomach. His ribs are burning and his throat is worse. He’s pretty sure he’s not meant to do that. 

“Do you ever think about things that aren’t your dick?” Shane asks, in the tone of someone whose mind is so crammed with everything else there isn’t space for a single dick-shaped thought. 

Ilya sinks back into Shane and lets himself be wrapped by his arms. “Mmm yes. But they are not as fun.” 

“I get that,” Shane says, almost wistful. 

- 

A shower, a tooth-clean and a smoothie later, they’re back on the sofa. The curtains are open, now, the rain smattering softly against the window and softening the light spilling onto them. 

The TV is off. 

“There’s more footage,” Shane says, “if you—”

“No,” says Ilya, decisively. The pixelated, muted, edited version was plenty. He doesn’t need to see the views taken from camera phones from the crowd, the versions with the blood, the versions with the yelling or the ones where the noise from the crowd would have gone from raucous to tentative to a ghastly silence. 

He has the timeline. For every mark on his body, he has the identifiable action to attribute it to. He has the visual of Shane trying to raze the Metros to the ground to reach him, pulling Comeau and Leyland away from him, and that is plenty. 

“You don’t want to see when they arrested them?” Shane asks. 

At this point, Ilya doesn’t think he cares that Leyland and Comeau got arrested. Or that they’re awaiting sentencing. Or any other retribution they’re getting, because it’s not doing anything to change the fact that their anger was so fucking toxic that it’s still burning a path through his thoughts. He’s sure it’ll pass. 

What he says, is, “Tell me about it instead.” 

- 

“I, uh, sat on him,” Shane says. He’s currently fighting with Anya for space in Ilya’s lap, and Anya is winning; every time Shane nestles his head across Ilya’s thighs, she shuffles her body a little closer to his face until his nose gets lost in her fur. It takes one more attempt to reshuffle before he gives up, sits up, and leans into the soft collar on Ilya’s shoulder. 

“Leyland. Comeau was already being led away. I mean, I punched him too,” he says, as if he needs to justify it. “I just—if I’d carried on, I wouldn’t have been able to stop. So. I sat on the back of his legs. Until he got cuffed.” 

“I do not like you sitting on other men,” Ilya says, bandaged hand resting on Shane’s head, fingers toying with his hair. 

“Yeah?” 

Ilya pats Shane’s thighs. “These are for me only.” 

“Just these?” Shane asks, and oh god it feels so good to hear something light in his voice at last. 

“Mmm no. This too,” he says, patting Shane’s tummy. Saying nothing about the way it barely protrudes past his hips. “And this,” he says, turning himself so he’s facing Shane fully, climbing his hands under his shirt to tweak a nipple. “This is mine.” 

“Just this one?” Shane asks, and his mouth is a little wetter. Eyes a little wider, darker. “Just the left?” 

“Yes. You can share the right one with Hayden.” 

“What the—why would you say that?” 

Ilya continues running his hands under Shane’s shirt, wrapping them under his arms, over his shoulders, sinking his head into the nook of Shane’s neck and kissing him there. He’s almost at the limit of movements he can make before his body will start to protest more aggressively, but it’s worth it. “Because I saw he tried to help,” Ilya says, “and because you love him.” 

“I really don’t,” Shane starts, because he’s been so good at avoiding baiting from everyone else, but when it’s from Ilya it makes him stupid. “Fuck you,” he says, but the smile in it is audible. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, hopeful. He’s kneeling over Shane’s legs and his right side is going numb, but it’s not hurting enough to stop him from chubbing with the friction. 

“Ilya.” 

“Yes, lyubimyy?” 

“It’s nearly time for your meds. And you’re holding your breath weird.” 

Ilya offers a long and pitiful groan and clambers off Shane, sitting back on the couch a touch too forcefully. Maybe, Shane has a point. 

Maybe, in a few hours, when they’re less raw from the upset of the morning, and when Shane’s voiced a few more of the things he’s been buttoning in, they can revisit this. He still hasn’t opened the brown Amazon bag, still tucked between the cushions. Maybe that’ll help. 

- 

Shane’s phone starts flashing, while they’re sat watching some zombie heist movie that, according to Shane, is “one of the better ones,” as though this is an entire genre of films that has enough content for there to be a gradient of quality. 

“Shit,” Shane says, suddenly sitting upright. 

“Yes?” 

“It’s Scott Hunter?” 

“You are asking me?” And then, because Shane isn’t doing anything other than staring at the lit up screen, “Maybe answer it?” 

Shane nods as though this is a very clever suggestion that he would not have come up with by himself, and Ilya makes a mental note to look into getting hold of some Xanax for him, because that brain is so close to going offline from stress that it’s giving him anxiety. 

“Scott. Hunter. Hi,” Shane says. 

Scott’s sweaty, chiselled face fills the screen. “Hey, Hollander. How you holding up?” 

Shane nods like he’s forgotten how words are meant to work, and stammers out a “Yeah, good,” that convinces none of the people hearing it. 

“Yeah?” offers Scott. “Are you with—how’s Rozanov doing?” 

Ilya sees his chance and takes it. “I thought your generation did not know how to use phones,” he offers. His voice is still quiet, but loud enough that Scott hears him just fine. 

“That never gets old, huh?” Scott says as Shane angles the phone to show them both together, then winces because he’s left himself wide open for Ilya’s inevitable comeback: 

“Never as old as you, Scott.” 

“Yeah, yeah. So glad your voice is back now. Truly. You, uh, you in the loop with what’s been going on?” 

Shane looks a little sheepish, but speaks up before Ilya can let loose any of the passive aggression that’s hovering over the tip of his tongue. “A bit,” he says, diplomatically. “We, uh, watched the game earlier.” 

Scott lets out a big whooshing breath and his eyebrows fold into the centre of his face. 

“Was very good watching Shane play hockey with those guys’ faces,” Ilya says, because he’s not going to talk about the other things it was not very good to see. Probably not with anyone, ever, but definitely not with Scott Fucking Hunter. 

“Yeah, it was fucking brutal to watch,” Scott says, and with all the tact of a hammer, adds, “Never seen anyone go off like—”

“In all of your hundred years?” Ilya cuts in, less because he wants to get yet another dig in, more so that he stops invoking any more of the visuals that are currently carouselling in his brain. 

“Jesus, dude.” 

“Yes, I have been resurrected too now. We have much in common.” 

Shane lets out a very small noise of…something. 

“So uh, the reason I’m calling—” 

“You and Kip need to make your boring love life better and want to, how you say, play. I am very sorry, Scott, but Shane and—”

“Rozanov, do you ever stop?”

“No,” say Shane and Ilya in unison. 

“I wanted to say,” Scott says, already sounding a lot more tired than before the call started. “I was gonna retire, after this season.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says. Scott waits patiently for more ribbing. When it doesn’t come, because Ilya is still fighting his throat and because he enjoys the anticipatory squirming, he continues. 

“I’d planned it all out. I was still gonna spend time with the Diversity Adv—”

“Scotty’s Hotties,” Shane interjects. Scott shoots a murderous expression through the screen. 

“Thanks, bud. Really.”

“You’re welcome.”

“…But after everything with you guys— it didn’t seem right, to disappear. Figured it’d just be making the league’s job easier for them. So I guess I’m calling to say thanks? ‘Cause now I’m sticking around at least another season—”

“I thought you were giving us good news,” Ilya sighs dramatically. “Now we have to hear you creaking across the rink and worrying you forget who’s on your—”

“That’s awesome,” Shane interrupts, side-eyeing Ilya. “For real.” 

“Thanks,” Scott says, the sincerity a little guarded, like he’s waiting for the next chirp to drop. Ilya chooses silence. “It’s not just me. There’s a few more people in the league, talking about it.”

“About retirement?” Shane asks, revealing just how badly he needs a full night’s sleep for some of his neurons to start functioning at a regular speed. 

Scott laughs softly. “About being out. In the league,” he clarifies. “I think what happened scared people, at first…” The familiar cloud of dread, doom and general discomfort crowds back into Ilya’s brain. Even he’d have been fucking scared of being out if he’d seen that. Most people would. “But, what’s followed it— it’s changed a few people’s minds. Probably more.” 

“What has followed?” asks Ilya. Because he’s not sure how a few rainbow gifs and well-meaning posts are enough to offset the visceral fear of being half-killed on a live-streamed game, but maybe that’s just his personal experience clouding his perspective. 

“I’m gonna let your guy field that one,” Scott says, looking over his shoulder at something out of view, like he’s being called away. “I’m guessing you’ve got a lot to catch up with on the socials. But today’s news is, Thierault’s finally resigned, formally. It’s bad news for Crowell, good news for us.” 

“Holy shit,” Shane offers, clearly grasping a little more of the context than Ilya has. He’s sure Yuna mentioned it as a foregone conclusion a while back, but the relevance is still outside his understanding. 

“Anyway,” Scott says, the someone in his background getting more insistent. “I gotta go, but just, thank—”

“Time for afternoon nap?” Ilya says, because he can’t help himself. 

“Go fuck yourself, Rozanov. I’m glad you’re healing up. Peace.” 

The call disconnects. 

“It’s nearly time for your afternoon nap,” Shane says, pointedly. 

“Who the fuck says ‘Peace’ when they end a call?” Ilya mutters. “Man who lived through the 1960s is who.” 

“You should be resting your voice, and he’s not here to listen to you mock him,” Shane says, fishing out the pipette and muscle relaxants. “I’m gonna take Anya out. You’ll be okay?”

- 

Ilya does nap, through the last twenty minutes of the movie. It’s not the worst feeling; the way his body decides it’s had enough of trying to function and just needs a short time out. A recalibration. 

What wakes him, is a damp dog climbing up his chest and licking his cheek. She smells of moss, and dog food, neither of which are things that should make his stomach grumble, but this is his life now. For now. She’s followed by a similarly damp Shane, who has apparently forsaken his immediate post-walk shower ritual in favour of planting himself next to Ilya on the couch. He twines his hand in Ilya’s like it’s the first time he’s touched it in a week. Feels safe. Secure. 

“Good walk?” Ilya asks, and Anya thumps her tail into his chest because he’s just said the magic word and she thinks she’s about to get a second round. Oops. 

“Weather’s meant to be better tomorrow,” Shane says instead of answering the question. “We could go out, if you want?” Ilya wants. “Doesn’t have to be far, or anywhere public,” he continues, and Ilya can hear the pre-planning that’s gone into even these few words. Because if they’re in public, there’s a risk of cameras, strangers asking them questions, and a lot of things neither of them have the strength for right now. “Or the lake. We could have a picnic—”

“Picnic with no food?” Ilya asks, because hunger is now governing a lot of his thoughts. 

“We can take sh—”

“Or,” Ilya starts, “you could eat real food. And then I could lick it from your mouth. Like baby bird being fed by—”

“Ilya, that’s disgusting,” Shane says, visibly revolted by the image Ilya has so generously put inside his brain. It is, but Ilya has yet to come up with a more tactful way to introduce Shane to the concept of self-care through food choices. He does, however, have ideas about helping Shane out of the self-punishment spiral he’s been stuck in for however long. And how to crack his own brain out of its rut of misery. 

“Some of the guys wanted to visit, too,” Shane adds. “If you’re up for that?” 

“Would be nice,” Ilya agrees. For him, sure. But also, in the handful of moments they’d spoken to Scott Fucking Hunter, Shane had started to sound…different. Not exactly relaxed, but able to wind up their beloved dinosaur without a hundred new anxieties crossing his pretty face. Other people would be good, maybe. “We can do that.” 

Shane hums an agreement, and starts thumbing through the TV menu for something new to watch. 

“You are forgetting something,” Ilya says, not meaning to add to Shane’s feelings of inadequacy, but from the look Shane throws him, clearly it didn’t work. Fuck. “You have not opened your post,” Ilya adds, quickly. 

“My—oh, that,” as his hands find the brown paper bag. His eyes narrow. “Ilya, what did you do?” 

Ilya smiles happily to himself, adjusts the soft collar from where it’s been gathering sweat at the base of his neck. He’ll let the gift explain itself. 

Shane peels the top of the paper open, tipping out a thick, clear plastic bag into his lap. It’s a classy looking thing; a bundle of black and red fabrics contained in a paper sleeve. The picture on it shows a cheerful blonde woman modeling the garment: a black thong with a mesh overlay, a set of almost bra-shaped strings with a little black and red cross sitting over the nipples, and a dainty little black PVC cap, with a red cross in the middle. 

“Your tits will look better in it than hers,” Ilya says, helpfully, pointing between the image on the paper and pawing at Shane’s still-damp chest. 

Shane still hasn’t spoken, and Ilya worries for a moment that he’s finally done the thing that has caused a cataclysmic shut down. 

“Is your size, I think,” he continues. 

Of all the many, many wonderful and weird things Shane is into, and sometimes hints that he might be into but hasn’t yet found the words or circumstances, Ilya’s fairly sure that this is not on the list. He’s not into humiliation. Not the way most people read it, at least. And he’s not the most adventurous when it comes to dressing up, but it’s something they’re working on.  

Shane remains silent, and a bit too still, but he’s tipping the contents of the bag out into his lap, like they’ll reveal something less harrowing than the grinning picture on the cover. 

“Shane,” Ilya prompts, with a hand still on his chest. “Will you show me?”

Shane doesn’t make eye contact. His shoulders start shaking, and Ilya thinks, oh fuck, I’ve done it, I’ve actually broken him, this was supposed to be a joke but we’re both too fucked up for humour right now and this is the final straw that’s going to—

“You are such a fucking asshole,” Shane wheezes. His shoulders are still shuddering, little up and down movements. His whole chest is moving, his cheeks are rounded and his mouth is somewhere between a grimace and a grin. He’s laughing, only it’s his whole body that’s laughing, more than Ilya thinks he’s ever seen him laugh at anything, ever. It’s a little unhinged, for sure, but it’s better than the alternative. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Shane says, dumping the insubstantial bits of costume over Ilya as he straddles him at the waist. “You’re…ridiculous,” he says between hiccups of laughter, and oh god, the relief. Enough that Ilya’s laughing too. Softer, but no less happy for it. 

Shane kisses messily at Ilya’s forehead, then hungrily at his mouth. 

“Only you,” Shane says as he sits back. “I hate you. I love you, you fucking liability.” 

“Ya tebya lyublu,” says Ilya, because the kiss just short-circuited part of his brain. 

“I’m still not fucking wearing that,” Shane says, sinking back down to kiss the thoughts back out of their brains. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

So the chapter count is going up by at least one, possibly 2. It's set at a question mark for now while stuff gets worked out.
Because much as I love Ilya's optimism, they need more than magical dick to help them through this.

Chapter 8: Your Mouth Is Open Wide

Chapter Summary

Ilya likes kisses from Shane. Loves them, really. And he loves that they’re happening more easily, now. More frequently. Like each one of them puts more distance between them and the antiseptic hospital wards they’d haunted.

What Ilya doesn’t love, is the way that they’re starting to feel like apologies.

Chapter Notes

Oh we are STILL deep in the angst pit for this one. Usual trauma tags and the rest still apply.

The little blue twitter icon on Ilya’s phone beckons like the light of an incoming train. It’s a terrible idea. It’s a terrible idea under normal circumstances, but right now, it’s more like lighting one end of a fuse and then sitting on the dynamite as the wick burns down. But, as the current mediator between Ilya and his worst impulses is currently in the basement gym, probably doing something with balls, it’s basically inevitable. It’ll be fine. He’s also promised Shane he won’t start any international incidents in his absence. 

Ilya doesn’t use twitter often. Mainly because the people on it are fucking weird. He includes himself in this definition, but he tries to ration his time online, if only because he prefers to perfect his trolling attempts in person. Also, he usually has more fun things to do than sifting through a few hundred @s of people asking him to explain game strategies, or chirps they’re too thick to understand. Or the fucking thirst tweets. 

Right now, though, he is full of synthetic opiates and muscle relaxants. He’ll fit right in.  

One of the trending topics, nestled between the usual disaster politics and, for some reason, fucking Morbius, is #CrowellOut. 

The opinions, much like assholes, are abundant, and a lot of them should probably not be on view. 

The first shitstream he chances on is a debate about violence in hockey. ‘Debate’ is polite; it’s pile-on after pile-on. One person helpfully suggests:

@puckmylife: the real issue is not drafting psychopaths and pointing them at your star players??? 

The counter arguments flood in with suggestions that the entire sport be rebranded to include group hugs, musical numbers and gentle love taps. They come with the usual tides of misogyny and the rest, descend into gripes about neck guards, concussion protections, and personal challenges to each poster to eat ice, their opinions, and each other’s dicks. 

The next thread starts off more promisingly: 

@hockeyhorse02: but fr there is gonna be less violence at ottawa cos everyone’ll be terrified 24 will take their head off if they so much as look at his man wrong

That’s…almost sweet. 

It’s followed by a handful of gifs, a lot of them showing what is being affectionately referred to as a rampage. And Ilya can watch these, when they’re just Shane. Until they’re not, and then he has to tap away again. 

What he does tap onto, is text that simply reads FAFO LMAAAOOOOOO, over a picture that on first glance looks like Comeau. Except the face is more…textured, than he remembers. His forehead—fivehead, as Shane calls it—is a blue-brown lump, and where most people might have cheekbones, he has a red puffy protrusion with stitches running through it. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, really. The satisfaction of seeing it is thinned by the intimate understanding that maybe, there are just as many people ready to salivate at a glimpse of Ilya’s own injuries. He’s about to tap away, except there’s a post beckoning just underneath it: 

Montreal Captain Apology: Comeau breaks silence. 

Well. This’ll be interesting. 

Ilya clicks on the link, to a nested page where one of his sleep paralysis demons has been given an opportunity to defend himself. 

Hockey can be a rough sport, the statement starts, and well. No shit. Not the most contrite opener, for sure. 
It’s also my entire life. I’ve given blood, sweat and tears to the game and to my team.

Not nearly enough, thinks Ilya, but fair. And still, not much of an apology. It’s mealy-mouthed and non-committal and was probably drafted by his lawyer anyway.

 
I’m not proud of what happened. I have nothing but respect for Rozanov—and oh fucking hell, this gets worse with every line. Comeau wouldn’t know what respect looked like if it spat between his teeth and told him to swallow. 

Things can get heated on the ice. It’s no secret that there’s a healthy rivalry between our teams. This is the bit that pisses Ilya off the most. He’s making it sound like they’re equals. Like he deserves the same space and attention as them. Also, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Comeau use this many sequential words, ever, so there’s no way this is his own work. 

I wish I’d done things differently. I had no idea how far Leyland would take it and I’m ashamed I missed it. He was my teammate and I let him down. I just hope he gets the help he needs. I’ll be using my time away from hockey to do some reflecting and I hope he gets the chance to do the same. 

Ilya lets the rage wash through him. Flexes his fingers, pushes out a long, irritated breath. He shouldn’t have expected better; he knows enough about people like him not to. It’s just, what a fucking weasel. Like he hadn’t been a part of Montreal’s shittiest trifecta of antagonists. Like he hadn’t set out to do real damage. He’s also not sure how any of that was an apology.  

He navigates back to the original tweet that linked this PR abomination. 

His reply is, he thinks, very succinct. It’s also the first contact he’s (voluntarily) made with the outside world since the whole thing happened. And, he’ll reassure Shane when he’s back, it’s not like it’s going to make anything worse. He taps it out, all three letters, posts it, and logs out. 

@IlyaRozanov81: LOL

- 

Ilya’s somewhere between awake and dozing. The dozing part of his brain has chosen kindness, this time. It’s constructing a compelling visual of Shane kneeling between his thighs, the elastic strings of the cursed costume pressing indents into his chest. The little PVC cap balanced in his hair, and a furious blush blooming across his freckled cheeks. 

In this soft daydream, Ilya is using his teeth to pull one of the little crosses out of the way of a nipple, and he’s sucking it into his mouth. Alternating biting with softness. Lapping at the sweat forming across Shane’s heaving chest. Shane would be making breathy, gasping sounds. Maybe Ilya’s name in there, too. He’d be smiling. Loose and unselfconscious. His head empty of everything other than holding himself open and obedient. 

The more awake part of his brain is hearing sounds that aren’t the sweet happy gasps of someone coming undone under his tongue. What the waking part hears, is Shane’s voice sounding very small, carrying from just outside the room. 

“Your dad’s gonna be okay,” he’s saying. “I promise. He’s gone through so much. But we’re gonna help him.” There’s an answering keening sound, and a little scrabble of paws. “I know, sweet thing,” Shane says, as though Anya’s answering him in real words. “But we’ve both gotta be good for him. Can you do that?” 

There’s the sound of ruffled fur, and the happy sounds Anya makes when she gets scritches under her chin. 

“We can do this,” Shane says. Then, “Fuck.” 

Ilya has to stuff his knuckles into his mouth to keep quiet. 

- 

The schedule for medications, for taking Anya out, and for keeping the endless supplies of liquid food replenished, becomes their punctuation. There’s only so deep into a conversation they can get, until some necessity or urgency pulls them out of it again. 

Right now, they’ve barely made it past soft check ins with each other’s comfort before Shane’s phone starts flashing, silent. This time, he grimaces at the screen and puts it face down on the bed. They’re only here, horizontal, because it felt like enough of a change of scenery to warrant the transfer from the couch, to the chair, to the makeshift bedroom. The windows are bigger, here, and the grey rain continues its soothing patter around them, the soft light slowly being swallowed by the encroaching dusk. 

The offending ‘healthcare assistant’ costume has been left in the living room, stuffed behind the cushions, because Ilya, in his infinite generosity, has decided to gift Shane a moment’s peace. For now. 

“Mister popular?” questions Ilya about the ignored phone call. They’re not meant to be keeping secrets, now. Ilya’s seen the things Shane wanted to protect him from, and he’s learning, fast, about the rest. Dodged phone calls don’t fill him with confidence. 

“It’s…mom,” Shane says. Abstractly apologetic, either to her, or to Ilya. Not to himself yet, but there’s time. 

“You are hiding from your mother?” Ilya asks. He’s doing his best impression of a big spoon, lying on his left side with his bandaged limbs tangled over Shane’s. 

“I’m hiding from conversations about sponsors,” Shane says into the pillow, tugging Ilya’s arm over his chest. Clings to it like it’s a pool noodle and he’s forgotten how to swim. “Adidas pitched some fucking atrocity they wanted you for. They were gonna use that Survivor song—”

“I like Destiny’s Child,” Ilya says, indignant, but as he follows the thought through, it does sound fucking terrible. 

“Your market value’s gone up.” 

Ilya doesn’t mind feeling like a commodity, sometimes; it’s one of the unrealities that comes with this life. A side-effect of getting to spend the rest of his time playing a sport he’s good at, with a man he’s also very good at. Right now, though, he’s being used for more than clout. And really, right now, he’d rather be used for something that doesn’t grate at the inside of his brain. 

“Am very valuable,” he says into Shane’s neck. 

“You are,” Shane agrees, and holds on a little closer. Shuffles back so the meat of his ass presses against Ilya’s dick. 

Arousal doesn’t grip Ilya immediately, not the way it usually would, pressed close against Shane with all their perfectly tessellated warmth. It’s closeness he needs, now. Safety. To know that the things they’ve been through haven’t broken anything more than skin and bones, and that those things can heal. It’s not completely absent; the tugs and twitches that know the map of Shane’s body still nudge at him, through the background hum of aches. Even more when Shane lets out a breathy, happy noise. It’s a familiar presence, not an urgent one. 

Ilya nips at Shane’s earlobe. Edges his fingers towards Shane’s mouth, and lets out a groan when Shane sucks his pointer, then the next. It’s languid, the way he suckles at them. 

“Can you?” Shane asks around the weight of Ilya’s fingers. 

It’s a valid question. Ilya can, he thinks. Like this. If they’re gentle, and slow, which they rarely are. Instead of answering, he closes his mouth around the top of Shane’s ear, then snakes his tongue behind it. Drinks in the responsive shudder as Shane backs closer into him. Presses his fingers down on Shane’s tongue, hinging his mouth open with his knuckles. Ignores the ache in his wrist as he shifts the angle, because Shane’s pliant moan is worth more than his pain. 

He extricates his left arm from under Shane’s weight, climbs it over Shane’s shirt and up to his neck. Feels saliva gathering at his fingertips. 

“I think yes,” Ilya says eventually. His left hand strokes under Shane’s jaw, just a hint of pressure. Shane’s breath stutters with something hopeful. 

Shane’s arm is winding a slow path behind him, reaching for where Ilya’s stiffening against him, when his phone starts flashing again. No longer face down, and whatever intimacy they’d initiated dissolves, because it is impossible to carry this on when Yuna’s face is filling the tiny rectangle that’s still in the bed. A video request, this time. 

They synchronise the disentangling of limbs as quickly as if she were in the room with them. 

“You should answer,” Ilya says, with just a hint of regret. “I can pretend I am asleep,” he suggests helpfully, because he doesn’t want to be lying down for this, or for Shane to have to move rooms. Doesn’t want Shane to leave his side, really. 

“I can help you sit up?” offers Shane instead. Because yes, Ilya can do it himself, but the call is still ringing and it will take too long for Ilya to do it himself. He nods. Accepts the help, as Shane wraps his arms by the waist and hoists him to lean against the headboard. He’s still adjusting his hips, chasing comfort, when Shane answers. 

“Hi, mom,” he says, doing a terrible job of hiding the irritation in his voice. 

“Shane, Ilya. Hi,” Yuna says, voice sharp and urgent. “You’re both doing okay?” she asks, in the sort of tone that suggests there is only one answer she has time to process. 

“Yes,” Ilya answers, because he understands authority, and he doesn’t want Shane to have to lie. 

“You’re looking better,” she says, more kindly. “And you’re eating?” she asks, and this one, Ilya lets sit in the room because the question is definitely for Shane, and Ilya wouldn’t mind knowing the answer too. 

“What’s happening?” Shane asks instead. Presumably meaning, why are you calling, multiple times? Is this a panic scenario, or can I feel justified in being annoyed without letting the guilt of it eat me alive, along with everything else?  

Ilya watches Yuna pocket the non-answer with a small curl of concern, before she takes a breath. 

“Nothing to worry about,” she says, except the rising intonation contradicts her words. “It’s just…time sensitive. Crowell’s doing a live interview tomorrow afternoon,” she continues. “Not a major network, as though that’s going to protect him,” she scoffs. 

“Okay?” Shane asks. 

“I’ve emailed you both,” she continues, and, well. If it’s an email, it’s lost in the pile of shit to deal with Another Time That Isn’t Right Now. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a chance to look at it yet?” she asks. 

“No, we’ve been—”

“That’s fine, hon. You’ve both got a lot on,” Yuna says, and the sharpness has left her voice now,  replaced by a kind of urgent exhaustion. “It’s there when you need it. The short version is, he’s going to be annihilated.” 

“Oh,” Ilya says. That sounds nice. 

“Clyde Banner is doing it. PuckBeat. You’ve met him, Shane.” 

Shane gives no indication that he remembers either the meeting, or the name. He just blinks at the screen, waiting for Yuna to get to the reason for the urgency. 

“He did the documentary on hazing in the junior leagues. You must remember that?” Yuna presses. 

“No?” 

“He’s good, is what’s important,” Yuna continues. “He’ll get him on the ropes. We just need something from you two to help with the final knockout,” she says, and for the first time since the conversation started, she smiles. Broad, optimistic, and with the certainty that what she’s about to ask for is something her boys will be able to deliver. 

“What do we need to do?” Ilya asks, because Shane appears to be mentally flatlining next to him. 

“A short video,” Yuna says. “To drop just after it airs. No one’s heard from either of you in a while—”

Ilya assumes that his three letter Twitter interaction hasn’t pinged on Yuna’s radar yet, so he keeps that to himself. 

“—It’s nothing too complicated,” she continues. “But you’re going to tell him to fuck himself.” 

Ilya snorts out a laugh. 

“Not literally,” Yuna says, and, shame. Because that would be an easy video to film. “But you’re going to be yourselves—”

Shane’s panic gets palpable at that suggestion, and Ilya grabs onto the hand that isn’t holding the phone and runs his thumb over Shane’s knuckles. Back and forth, back and forth. Shane knocks his knees into Ilya’s and calms, a little. 

“—You just need to say a couple of words each. About your aspirations for next season, and how hopeful you are that no one else will have to deal with…this…in future.” 

“That sounds like more than a couple of words,” Ilya says. Shane nods in quiet agreement next to him. 

“Farah’s done a short script. It’s in the emails,” Yuna reminds them. “I promise it’s simple. But the most important thing, is that you show yourselves as you are.” 

Ilya catches Shane looking at him, at that, and they’re sharing the same quizzical expression. Except their eyes can’t help but soften as soon as they catch each other’s gaze. 

“Like that,” Yuna explains helpfully. “The way you look at each other. You two against the world. That’s what we want to show them.”

This, they can do. Ilya loves the way they can document snippets of their affection, and keep it immortalised, digitally. Proof of them existing, tangibly and undeniably. The detail of it being used for league politics doesn’t cheapen it, too much. 

“Now, logistics. It needs to be full body, bandages and all, I’m afraid,” Yuna continues. 

Right. Because Ilya’s body is also part of league politics now. “If you don’t have a tripod, I can pop—”

“We have a tripod,” Shane jumps in. 

“Oh,” Yuna sounds surprised, and Ilya knocks his knees into Shane’s, because they are not explaining why. “Great,” she says, very kindly not pressing. “Send it over when you’re done. Harris will cut it with the other stuff, and then we just need you to post it tomorrow, when it’s ready.” 

“What other stuff?” Shane asks, and at least now it’s both of them on the back foot when it comes to knowing what’s going on. Solidarity in ignorance, or something. 

Yuna gives a smile that borders on savage. “Player stats, highlight goals, that sort of thing. Enough to remind everyone who they tried to fuck with,” she says, preemptively triumphant. “Call me if you need any help. And both of you—I’m sorry we need to do this. But you’re—I’m so proud. Of you both.” 

“Thank you, Yuna,” offers Ilya, because his eyes are doing that prickling, warm thing they do when he’s reminded of all the people who care about him. 

“You take care, and we’ll speak soon.” 

- 

Filming the video is relatively painless. The bit that takes the longest, is Ilya’s insistence on shaving before they do it. Much as his thickening facial hair has become something of a shield, it’s starting to piss him off. And he’s not sure he wants his first voluntary public showing to be when he’s looking like some smoothie shop hipster, no disrespect to Kip intended. 

Shane had helped him, careful to keep the stitches clear from the razor’s edge, and even more careful with the kisses he’d planted across Ilya’s newly naked jaw. “You look like you,” he’d told him, fond. 

“I am ready for my close up,” Ilya had said, and watched as the reference sailed past Shane’s understanding. They’d chosen to film it in the gym, which meant Shane having to carry to Ilya down the stairs. 

“I’m gonna get lifts installed,” he grumbles, depositing Ilya on the padded bench next to the pair of treadmills. 

Ilya protests that he’s malnourished and therefore light as a feather, to which Shane curses something about feathers made out of fucking bricks, before fussing over Ilya’s hair and smoothing down his vest. 

Farah’s script is, as Yuna promised, mercifully brief. It says nothing about the past; it doesn’t need to, not with the evidence still vivid across Ilya’s skin. Most of it visible outside of his workout gear, from the bandaged ankle and arm, the collarbones and shoulder still flushed with the shadows of bruises, to the mess of Ilya’s neck—free of the soft collar, for this—to the pink lines etched into his jaw. Visual storytelling at its finest. Maybe, the backdrop of gym equipment gives a more hopeful perspective. 

They read through the piece a few times before Shane presses record, and they position themselves next to each other. The words are easy and simple, and like magnets, they punctuate them with glances to each other. Non-confrontational touches, even with their thighs pressed flush against each other. Not nearly as disgustingly affectionate as they’d be without this camera, but enough that who they are to each other is something fierce and undeniable. 

“We’re looking forward to our next season being just about playing great hockey,” Shane continues in his press conference voice. 

“With no distractions,” Ilya says on cue, parodying Crowell’s earlier admonishments to them, “from anyone who wants to take that away, from the players or fans.” His voice is still hoarse, too quiet, but he assumes that’s something Harris can fix. 

They both pause, smile towards the camera, then each other. Job done. 

Except, “Which means no more shitbag Montreal players, because they’ll be too busy eating dirt,” Shane adds with a violent smile, staring directly at the camera. That part definitely wasn’t in the script. 

“Fucking hell, Shane,” Ilya says, reminded once again why this man has his whole heart. And then, because they’re still recording, “Sorry, Yuna.” And then, because it’s probably not going to be her doing the splicing of the footage, and because he’s seen enough of him eating Troy’s face for a lifetime, “Not sorry to you, Harris.” 

Obviously they’ll cut that last little bit from Shane. But Ilya still hopes they won’t, because, well. He’s not wrong. 

Shane reaches to turn off the recording, plants himself over Ilya, and kisses him hard on the mouth. 

- 

Ilya likes kisses from Shane. Loves them, really. And he loves that they’re happening more easily, now. More frequently. Like each one of them puts more distance between them and the antiseptic hospital wards they’d haunted. 

What Ilya doesn’t love, is the way that they’re starting to feel like apologies. 

- 

They’re lying in bed again, this time with the lights off as they settle in for the promise of sleep. Ilya on his back, because that’s what’s best for his neck, Shane on his side, leaning on his elbow. It’s been a hell of a fucking day. There are a few quiet moments of calm, of them just breathing, processing, and accepting the calm, until Shane’s anxieties start bubbling out. 

“I think I could have stopped it,” Shane says. “Or done more. Back when I was their captain.” 

Ilya hates these guilt spirals. Especially when they’re both too wrung out and fragile to address them in the usual way. 

“This is idiot speak,” Ilya says simply. Because really, it is. Some people are determined to remain unchanged in the face of…everything. One person’s good intentions are no more effective at changing things than pissing into a waterfall. Besides, Leyland wasn’t even on the team when Shane was. “What, you would have said ‘Hey, don’t be homophobic assholes’, and,” he pauses, traps a little more breath in his lungs to keep going, “they would say ‘fine, okay, we learn the error of our ways, Cap’ and start a sing song?” 

Shane glares. 

“Don’t be— look, someone on your team calls another player a…I dunno. Cocksucker. Something like that. In the locker room. What would you have done?” 

“No one would say that it in my room,” Ilya says, defensive. Because even if that’s one of the mild ones, they still wouldn’t fucking dare. 

“What about back in Boston?” Shane perseveres. “It wasn’t exactly a utopia there, right?” 

And, fair. It really wasn’t. The room there was a typical testosterone pit, and full of the usual talk you’d expect to hear. Ilya hadn’t known half the words bandied around, at first, but he’d been a quick study. And he’d learnt that it was less about the words themselves, than how they were used. No one starts a moral crusade over the word homo. But, someone talks about an opposition player being shit for no reason other than them being a fucking weak ass predator who shouldn’t be allowed in the team showers, and that’s when you say something. 

“If someone is acting like a dick, you tell them, ‘that’s a fucking weird thing to say’,” Ilya says. Knowing he hadn’t done it often enough. “Or just to shut their stupid face. Does not always work.” 

“I…didn’t do that,” Shane says, quiet. 

Ilya doesn’t know how to reassure him, so he just reaches for Shane’s hand, to hold it. It’s not a solvable equation. “They wouldn’t have listened,” he says eventually. He doesn’t say, because it’s you, and you were already on the back foot; whether you were aware of it or not, you were already navigating a kind of othering that no amount of role model behaviour negated. Your head was already above the parapet; raising it higher just makes the shots easier to take. He just says, “They would have turned it on you, somehow. Even before they knew.” And then, because sometimes Shane forgets this, “Because the coaches were just as bad, no?” Because even the most valuable player knows better than to challenge the coach. 

Shane doesn’t look reassured, at all. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, and his head is too far away for Ilya to reach his mouth to kiss the words of self-reproach away. “Until it was my turn, and then I expected other people to do it for me. For us.” 

Ilya wonders if he could show Shane a picture of Atlas, hunched beneath the weight of an entire globe. Wonders if this visual clue might give him at least some indication of what he is trying to bear. 

“Tell me what you would have done differently,” he asks instead, knowing that Shane has run every variable through his brain more times than he can reliably process. And that at least one of those variables will contain the weapons he’s been using against himself. The “If I’d only…” that he’s been whittling to a point to poke at himself with. 

“If I hadn’t fought Drapeau…” he starts. 

“Drapeau wanted to break your spine with his stick,” Ilya points out. “You stopped him from doing that. Are you saying you would let him?” 

“No, he wouldn’t—”

“No you would not,” Ilya counters. “You showed him he is pathetic, terrible goalie. Showed everyone.” 

“Well, yeah, but—”

“But what?”

Shane sighs, defeated. “I might have seen what Comeau was doing. To you.” 

Ilya reaches so that his hand can knot itself into Shane’s. He might have seen. It wouldn’t have helped. Whatever got set in motion was more than any of them could have handled. 

“You did more than anyone,” because Ilya cannot imagine another person on this earth being able to manage half of what Shane has. “You are doing more even now. Past is past. Now is what matters.” 

Shane hums something that might be agreement, or might just be acquiescence. “Okay,” he says, eventually. Plants a soft kiss on Ilya’s forehead, then his shoulder. 

“Go to sleep, solnyshko.” 

“Night, Ilya.” 

- 

Ilya wakes a little before dawn. He’s used to the erratic patterns of his current sleep; between the 2am antibiotics, and the other warring chemicals that can’t figure out if they need his body to rest or fight, he’s still on a hospital schedule of rest. Which is to say, never for very long at a time before something yanks him out of his slumber. Plus, the nightmares. 

What’s woken him now, though, is Shane’s fingers, hovering just below his nose. Edging closer to his nostrils. Just…there. 

When he opens his eyes, the rest of Shane assembles in the moonlight. He’s a crescent curving over him, rigid. 

“Shit,” Shane whispers. “Sorry.” 

Ilya bats the fingers away. “What is this,” he’s murmuring. “Why am I sniffing your fingers?” 

“Nothing,” Shane says, folding back into the bed. “Ignore me. Go back to sleep.” 

Ilya would, except his brain is very slowly linking Shane’s actions back to a memory of something half a lifetime ago. A person lying too still and too quiet. A nightie clinging to too-cold skin. And the way he’d needed to know, then, that what he was seeing was wrong. That what he saw couldn’t be real, because if he just put his hand in front of her face, he’d feel the breath passing through her and they might get more time. 

His heart might actually kill him. 

“Shane,” he whispers, twisting onto his side. Shane is lying on his back, glossy eyes staring at the ceiling. “Sweetheart.” 

Ilya needs to climb over him, press his body into the shape of Shane that is made just for him. His own body won’t support it, yet; the collar holding him stiff, the way his mid-section still won’t curve enough and his limbs still sit too straight. So he does the next best thing; he pulls Shane over himself, prompting with an arm first, until the rest of him follows, until they’re interlocked, chests rising and falling together. 

- 

“Is not the first time you’ve done that,” Ilya says when they’re fully awake. He’s trying hard to not think about how often Shane’s reached across him to check for a pulse, a breath, as proof of life. They’ve got their breakfast shakes, except this time, they’re drinking them outside. Ilya’s in the wheelchair, tucked neatly under the small glass-topped garden table, Shane opposite. The sunlight is still thin, but it’s enough that Ilya can feel his shoulders starting to warm under its heat. 

“In the hospital,” Shane starts, “it was…easier. There were machines. Even when you were really, really still. When you looked…they’d keep beeping, and I’d know you were alive.” 

“I’m alive,” Ilya says, knowing the words aren’t enough. They need a bigger conversation about this, but it’s still very early. “I’m alive and I am here and I am drinking your weird not very chocolate shake—”

“I put nutella in that one,” Shane says, slightly offended. “Like, half a jar.”

“Thank you,” Ilya says, reaching for the hand that Shane is tapping against the table. It stills in his grasp. “I think I can show you I am not dead,” Ilya says, stretching his legs under the table, leaving his sliders on the ground. The bandaged one is not much good for this, but he’s still strong on his left side. And he does need to do his stretches. “Dead man can’t do this,” he says, climbing his toes up Shane’s calf muscles. 

“Ilya.”

“What? Is leg day for me,” he says, pressing his foot into the inside of Shane’s thighs. Extends his leg further, until he’s toeing the hem of his shorts. 

“Ilya—”

His heel presses flush to Shane’s crotch, foot extended upwards. Shane shifts, angles back from the pressure. Not completely; enough that there’s space in his shorts for his dick to swell against the dancing pressure of Ilya’s toes. It grows, trapped against his stomach. Ilya flexes against it. 

“You have not come in a while,” Ilya says conversationally. Shane’s cheeks are getting flushed and his pupils are starting to bloat. Neither of them have, but for once it feels less urgent for Ilya. 

“Had other things on my mind,” Shane understates, as Ilya swings his bandaged leg up to Shane’s lap for reinforcement. “Fuck.” 

He rolls his foot side to side over the length of Shane’s dick. Keeps the gentle teasing going, reveling in the twinges and pulls of his own muscles as much as the slackening of Shane’s expression. 

“Mmm. Already leaking,” Ilya comments, because his big toe has just found a damp spot near the waistband of the shorts that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Dead man can’t make you do—”

“Stop saying that,” Shane pleads. 

Ilya strikes the necrophilia jokes from his repertoire and focuses instead on how he’s supposed to use his fucking feet to get Shane off. Because he’s started, and there needs to be a finish. Somehow. 

Shane is already ahead of him, hands dipping below the table. 

“Uh, no,” Ilya protests, leaning forward to grab at Shane’s elbow. Except with the leaning, the skidding propulsion from his chair, he’s just accidentally jammed his heel right into Shane’s sac, and elicited a high pitched keening noise from his throat. Shit. 

“Do that again,” Shane murmurs, before Ilya has a chance to apologise. 

Okay. This is…new. For them. But, Ilya is nothing if not obliging. He does, more deliberate, pulling Shane forward by his wrist so he’s almost curled over the table. Uses his bandaged leg to kick his thighs further apart, and presses in again. It’s less like a massage, and more like a punishment. “You like this?” he asks, careful not to sound mean about it. He needs to be sure. 

Shane lets out a puff of a gasp. He likes this. 

“You could come like this?” Ilya asks, dragging his toes along the contour of Shane’s cock, still trapped inside his shorts. Shane shakes his head. It’s not like him to back down from a challenge. Ilya flattens his foot against the length of him, pressing and rolling. “I think you could,” Ilya persists. This is not how he’d planned to undo Shane, and they feel so far apart this way, but fuck it. He’ll try anything if it will get him to unwind, and he’s got limited tools available to him, now and here. Pulls back an inch and watches Shane’s hips chase the contact. “So needy,” he appraises. 

“Please.” 

“Please what?” Ilya asks, holding his foot a breath away from Shane’s strained shorts. This might be more exercise than he’s had in a while, and the burn in his calf muscles is a welcome heat. The burn in Shane’s cheeks even more so. 

“Please do it again,” and then, as Ilya increases the stretch in his legs, grinds his heel in, “fuck.” 
 
Ilya alternates pushing, pressing, and dragging up the length of Shane as his breaths get shorter. It has to be painful, except Shane’s mouth is lax between his gasps. Eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. He’s so stupidly beautiful, like this. 

“More?”

Shane nods, and this has got to be too much. Enough that imagining the crush he’s creating is making Ilya’s own arousal hesitate. “I need my hands,” Shane says in a single breath. 

This isn’t the time for edging, or teasing, or for infusing any more tension than already exists. Shane needs this, and as Ilya can’t leave the fucking table to do it himself, he can do the next best thing. 

He nods, pulls Shane’s right hand to his left. “Open.” The extra jolt of pressure does something complicated and beautiful to Shane’s face. Ilya spits into the well of Shane’s palm, watching him take it like a gift as he tucks his hand under the table and inside his shorts. Jerks his hand and it only takes three short strokes until he’s coming apart. His thighs clamp shut on Ilya’s legs and fuck, that is not good for his busted ankle but it doesn’t matter, because Shane folds like an inflatable that someone’s let the air out of. 

For a second, there’s relief. An exhale. A long enough second for Ilya to retract his (sticky) toes and ease the cramp from his calves. 

And then Shane’s shoulders start shaking. Short up and down movements at first, and then his arms fold over his head and he’s shuddering, face down, into the table. Gasping, hiccuping sobs. Like he can’t get enough air to even cry outright. 

He’s less than three fucking feet away, and Ilya can’t reach him to hold him. 

“Shane,” he tries, but he’s too far away to reach with his voice, too. 

He can do this. It’s only a small snap of pain, pushing the chair out and leveraging himself against the table to traverse the stupidly small, too big distance to Shane’s side. It takes a few seconds, which is long enough for the sounds coming out of Shane to grow in volume and wrench, hard, at Ilya’s insides. 

By the time he’s upright, balanced on his good leg, Shane’s crying the way people cry at funerals. Grief-heavy wails, thick with mucus. “Shane,” he tries again. Wraps his arms around Shane’s back until they’re a cave of arms, neither fully supporting the other. 

He doesn’t even have a tissue to offer him. For the other mess, too, but right now Shane is crying into his bare arms and the glass-topped table, and that surface is no comfort at all. Ilya peels his vest off, because it’s the best he’s got right now, and places it under Shane’s chin. 

“You are upset because you think you have a foot fetish now?” Ilya says, because his mouth still works faster than his fucking brain and this is literally the one time he should be shutting up. 

“Ilya, fuck,” Shane manages, wiping his face. “Don’t stand,” he says into the fabric. “Fuck—”

Ilya shh-es him, because he’s right, he really shouldn’t be trying to stand and his ankle is going to remind about this later, but it’s still easier to do this than to bear the sight of Shane coming completely fucking undone in the worst way, and not be able to do anything about it. 

“Then we sit,” Ilya tells him. Meaning not in a chair, where they still can’t touch enough of each other. “Ground. Sit.” He’s not strong enough, yet, to pull Shane to him, but he can sit himself down on the concrete, back against the short planter wall. 

It takes a minute. Like Shane’s forgotten how his body works, how to extricate himself from the table and find balance, but he gets there. Buries his face in the vest, and lets his body fall into Ilya’s. 

“I’m s—”

“If you say you are sorry,” Ilya says into his hair, “I will smother you. Let go. Let it out.” 

He does. Long, shaking, heaving noises that drown out the birdsong around them. 

“The top is a mess,” is the first thing Shane manages to say when his cries eventually subside into low, guttural huffs. Yes he is, Ilya thinks, but he keeps that thought to himself. The garment is too; a crumpled mess of cum, snot and tears, but Shane keeps it in his grasp like it’s a cherished childhood toy. Ilya keeps one arm tucked tight over Shane’s shoulders, and uses the other to thumb tears from his cheeks. 

“The post nut clarity was not good?” Ilya asks. 

It’s a wet laugh that Shane gives him, but it’s a real one. “Where’d you learn that phrase?” 

“Shane. You have been in locker rooms before, yes?” 

Shane just hums, and maybe mentioning that environment isn’t the best thing right now. Except, maybe it is. They’ve been toeing at conversations, about this, without talking about it. Everything’s been about Ilya. How Ilya’s been coping. How Ilya’s recovering. What Ilya’s remembering. And Shane has been the nexus of it all, absorbing and liaising and regurgitating events. He’s been the buffer between Ilya and everything else, and there’s been no one to protect him from the impact of it all. 

“Tell me one thing,” Ilya says gently. “Tell me the worst thing.” 

He nods. “Injuries like yours,” he starts, tracing his fingers across the front of Ilya’s neck. “Tracheal crush injuries. The mortality rate is between forty and seventy percent.” 

That is definitely a solid worst thing to start with. 

“It’s higher, depending on how it happens,” Shane continues, settling into a comforting monotone that doesn’t suit any of the words he’s saying. “Single impact ones have better odds,” Shane says, and Ilya is visualising Shane sat at his laptop, glasses on, researching all the ways his husband might not have made it out of there alive. 

“Fuck,” says Ilya, because there isn’t really any other word. 

“Yeah. Want another one worst thing?” 

Ilya doesn’t, but he needs to hear it, almost as much as Shane needs to say it. He needs to let some of those ugly thoughts out of the cage in his brain they’ve been rattling in. 

“Go on.” 

“I couldn’t go with you. When it happened.” 

Ilya clutches Shane closer to him, enough that their bodies feel merged. A way to prove that he will close that distance a hundred times over, to make up for the lack of it then. It’s an echo of what he’d felt, back when he’d watched Shane take a wipeout hit. He’d not been able to do a damn thing about it, then, except let the hole in his chest grow teeth. The kind that gnashed at the space he swore his heart lived. 

“You were so…still,” Shane continues, his voice drier. “When they moved you onto the board. Your arm just. It flopped. Just, hung off the side. They didn’t move it, and I know—I know now, it’s because they were too busy getting that fucking tube into your throat. Re-opening your airway. I just. It didn’t look like they were taking care of you. And I couldn’t either.” 

“I hate that you saw that,” Ilya says, meaning that he hates that anyone saw that. That everyone saw that. But that Shane had to bear it, under the scrutiny of thousands of horrified spectators, and so many cameras ready to immortalise his terror. “You are taking care of me now. Always, I think.” 

Shane nods, and this might be the first time he’s accepted any admission that he’s actually helping, not just creating more circumstances he has to apologise for. “A few of them, they tried to make a wall around you,” he says, still with that purposeful, low voice. Like he’s grinding out every new revelation. “Staffers, mostly. They’d sent the teams to their rooms. Police had taken—they’d left. By then. It was so fast, but also. Not fast at all.” 

The then presumably being the moment Ilya was considered stable enough to be escorted from the ice. Ilya can see it, and he’s trying not to. Because he’s seeing Shane keep the weight of the entire fucking arena off his back, and he’s seeing him fold under the strain of it. He grips Shane’s hand in his, kisses the back of his ear, because he needs to be touching him at every point, just to prove that they can, now. 

 “I was meant to stay. Get checked out. Answer questions.” Shane turns to look at Ilya, then. His eyes, red-rimmed and glittering. “I couldn’t. I was so fucking scared, Ilya.” 

Ilya presses his mouth into the little knot forming between Shane’s eyebrows. Like if he only kissed it hard enough, it could press some of the pain out of him. 

“Hayden got me out of there,” Shane says eventually. “Drove me. His eye was so swollen I don’t know how he saw the fucking roads, but he got me to you.” 

Up until now, Ilya’s been silently absorbing Shane’s words, not wanting to be another reason he has to keep them walled up inside himself. What comes out now is impulsive and incredulous. 

“Fucking Hayden?” 

Shane splutters out a laugh. “He was—he’s not the worst. He was pretty great.” 

"Oh, so you do love him,” Ilya says. 

“Fuck off.”

“No,” Ilya says. “Never.” 

The warmth from the morning sunlight glows on their skin, enough that Ilya feels like they’re being baked together; a clay sculpture curing in the kiln, permanently fixed. 

“Even if I tell you Hayden wants to come over later?” Shane says eventually. “Jackie, too. Some of the team-”

“Hayden will be coming over you?” Ilya asks, because again, now his voice is back it doesn’t know how to fucking stop. 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, and the smile in it feels warmer than the sunlight. 

“He fucking won’t,” Ilya says. Then, “Fine. He is allowed to visit. But I am not having our first threesome with Hayden fucking Pike.” 

“Our first?” Shane asks, slowly disentangling their limbs from each other to lift Ilya from the ground, pulling the wheelchair closer to them. “We’re having more?” 

For once, Ilya’s horny brain is quieter than his soft, mushy one. “No, moya lyubov,” he concedes. “I am not sharing you with anyone.” Because he’s just watched Shane wrenching his own heart out of his mouth, and he might not be strong enough to put it back into place just yet. But he’s going to try, like it’s the only thing he was put on this earth to do. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Yes the costume is still sitting there like Chekhov's stupidest impulse purchase.

They've got some happier moments (really!!!) ahead as they navigate their way out of the trauma mines.

Updates are slowing down a bit - I'm trying to keep up with this, because we are still speeding to the resolution and this fic has taken over my life, but want to warn that it'll probably be around a week until the next one, because life continues to happen.

Stay safe <3

Chapter 9: Note The Trees Because The Dirt Is Temporary

Chapter Summary

Later, he’s got the promise of watching Crowell being dragged to the metaphorical gallows on live TV at some point later today, if Yuna’s predictions come to pass. And, a visit from Hayden. And friends.

Now though, Ilya has his fourth fucking liquid meal of the day sat in front of him, and Shane’s body pressed closely to his, face tucked into his armpit.

“We’ll be okay,” Shane says, only it comes out more like a question.

Chapter Notes

The house is starting to feel both too big and too small. Big, because of the logistics involved in moving—being moved—from each space to the next. And too claustrophobic, because Ilya and Shane are locked in a tight orbit of dependency, with Anya running loops between the two of them at every step. 

Now, they’re in the kitchen. Because Shane is working to claw back the control he’d let go of, and he’s doing it one batch of liquid meal prep at a time. It’s mesmerising, watching him shuffle ingredients in and out of their designated spots. Rinsing bunches of green leaves. Shaking them dry—four shakes for each bunch—then stripping out the central stalks in precise knife strokes. Weighing out powders on his digital scales. Sniffing the turmeric jar, in case the flavour of it has somehow changed since yesterday morning. 

Ilya likes this part. The calm domesticity of it all, he adores. He could watch Shane measuring out apple juice and still find him enchanting, the way he focuses his concentration like he’s planning a particle physics experiment. The thing Ilya’s mad at, is the kitchen island sitting between them. The clean white barrier that’s stopping him from wrapping his arms around Shane’s back and making him mess up his count. Licking juice off his fingers. 

Instead of voicing his frustrations—because at this point, he’s boring himself with them—he says: “When do you add the burgers?” 

Shane pauses, his hand hovering over the lid of the blender, expression only softly exasperated. “You really want that?” He genuinely looks like he’s considering cooking a batch of them just to blend them into a pulp, and fuck. It’s adorable. 

What Ilya really wants is to eat a whole burger, in a bun, with pickles, cheddar, a smear of garlic mayo, crispy lettuce. In a toasted white bun. Maybe one with sesame seeds. Food that he can eat with his hands, and for it not to cause a medical emergency. 

“No,” Ilya concedes. “But you could? A real burg—”

Shane turns the blender on. Keeps blending, way past the thirty second mark. 

They’ve been here before. Ilya still doesn’t know the right way to push, without pushing Shane away. He takes his next suggestion—that he’d be happy just for the chance to lick the flavour of it from the seams of Shane’s mouth—and stashes it. When the whir of the blender finally stops, he tries instead for a different angle. Like it’s a game of pool with an impossible ball to pocket. 

“Would you see someone?” Ilya asks, as Shane starts sloughing the liquid into containers. It takes Shane so long to interpret words that Ilya had thought were very simple, that he’s upgrading his original xanax plan and is now considering just knocking Shane out cold so he gets some effective shut-eye. “Like I do,” he prompts. “A therapist, maybe?” 

Shane fills the blender with water and dish soap, mounting it back onto its base. “Management made us—we each had to have a session. After,” Shane says, with a vaguely harrowed expression. Ilya can only imagine what MLH-mandated therapy would sound like. “He, uh, the guy. He was fucking weird. Kept asking if I felt ‘responsible’, if I had any…outlets. It was a lot of words about nothing.” 

“Sounds like therapy with a lawyer,” Ilya says, grateful, in a roundabout way, that he was too far out of action to have to endure any of that himself. There’s probably an email about it waiting for him somewhere. “Would you—”

Shane presses the blender button again, and they both watch the bubbles foaming in rhythmic pulses. When it’s done, and he’s sloshing the contents into the sink, he answers. “I talk to my parents—”

“I do not think they can help with this.” He doesn’t specify which this he means. 

Because Ilya loves Shane’s parents. More than he ever expected to. But he has also watched, and heard, and felt, Shane being managed by them. From his career down to his feelings. He’s loved by them too; without limits, and with every support imaginable. And no matter how fiercely they love him, they can’t be the ones who drill down into the roots of everything that’s hurting him, without hurting themselves, too. “They love you,” Ilya says, as part of an explanation. “But I think they are better at things that aren’t…head things.” 

“I have you,” Shane says, and now it sounds like he’s reaching for a life-raft that’s bobbing further away. 

“You do,” Ilya assures him. “Always. I will always listen. But I am also not good at head things,” he says, as a massive understatement. He’s barely managed to convey a fraction of the things he meant. “Would be like asking Dykstra to DJ at a club. Well meaning, but would be terrible for everyone.” 

Shane gives a short laugh. “Is it hard?” he asks, and he sounds younger than he ever has, with those words. Shane has never shied from anything difficult, and Ilya understands that this might be the thing that’s too big, even for him. 

“No. Yes. At first, yes. But helpful, I think.” 

Shane nods, processing. “Maybe,” he says. “Probably. You want one of these now?” he asks, holding up one of the containers of drinkable green gloop. Ilya nods, and Shane looks pleased. 

“I’m gonna take Anya out,” Shane decides, grabbing one of the gloops for himself. “You okay here for a bit?” 

“Okay.”

Shane kisses him on the forehead, and goes to fetch Anya’s lead. 

- 

Ilya’s glad he decided to disable notifications from every app on his phone. When he dips back into twitter, the count of @s, quote tweets and DMs has climbed to numbers he’s never dealt with before. 

It’s nice to feel popular. 

He swipes into the notification tab, and is met with a wall of excitable reactions. Nestled amongst them is a blue-checked drag queen who’s quote tweeted yesterday’s LOL: 

The SHADE of it all. None of y’all take my queer card for talking about sportsball, this is c*ntier than any y’all looks last season xo 

Huh. 

The replies go in a hundred different tangents, a few of them being bewildering enthusiasm for whether Ilya should be a guest judge on RPDR, or simply be one of the awarded prizes, so he exits out of it before he has to think about that too hard. 

He skims through more of his feed, eyes lancing onto the word slay more times than a man in his line of work would ever expect to. A player from San Jose celebrating coming out, and how thankful he is for the support of his team. A ref—one he recognises, from the number of times he’s been sent to the bin by him—announcing his engagement. To a man. A few PWHL players taking (fairly) good-humoured shots at guys who think that being queer in sports is something new. Fucking Gritty weighing in with words of support, which is something that he hadn’t expected from the hairy cheeto but he’ll take it. From a distance. 

And, as a recurring reaction meme to anyone who makes the internet cardinal sin of saying gay when they mean something else: Ilya’s face, punching Comeau under the jaw, with the text overlay of Bisexual, Gil, is big word for you. He’s glad people at least got something funny out of that. His arm twinges its own opinion. 

There’s serious stuff in there, too. He’s still not ready for serious. He’s also not ready to read anything about fucking Montreal, or Comeau or Leyland, but the names are still spreading through his feed like mould spores. Attached to chatter about locker rooms, slurs, league track records, and for some reason that he’s absolutely not delving into, mental health. 

The whole thing is Crowell’s literal nightmare, probably. Even the fucking New Yorker has a linked article about the moral duty of coaches, except it’s paywalled. It’d probably be boring anyway. 

It’s…a lot. But his team weren’t wrong. There is a lot of shit out there, but there’s a lot more of the good stuff, too. Like a tide that’s been slowly turning while he wasn’t looking. A tide apparently being pulled by drag queens and fucking Gritty. 

- 

Ilya’s feelings of utter uselessness are compounding by the minute. He is a creature of wants and needs, not enough of which are being met. They’ve started bristling under his skin, itching like something restless. He needs to fuck about it. Go on a run. Do one of the workouts that skims the point of nausea before it settles into a tendon-warming burn of satisfaction. 

His body, though. 

He’s had to sit this kind of thing out, before; injuries are part of the job. He’s had to wait out games from the bench, lie in dark rooms waiting for concussions to ease, clench his fists through more dentist visits than he can remember and lie his way through pain assessments. What he hasn’t had to contend with, until now, is drafting a multi-step plan that will get him from the kitchen, where he’s still parked against the counter, to the bathroom. 

His bladder is already trying to persuade him to forgo steps one-to-five and just bodily launch himself into the hallway, and maybe crawl the remaining distance on hand and knees. It’s also eyeing up the kitchen sink. Except, Shane might kill him for that. Be upset with him, he corrects, because he’s trying to ease up on the death-adjacent internal commentary. 

It’s not impossible. He’s already fucked up his ankle once this morning; a few extra steps won’t hurt. Too much. 

He takes a breath, braces, and lunges for the nearest grab-rail. 

His vision only goes a little spotty. He pushes through it; treats it like a workout, and pretends the pain signals are just his body rewarding him for resetting his endurance. His body is generous with the rewards. He wraps a hand around the sturdy wall-mounted handle and clings to it like it’s saving him from drowning. It’s only nine more steps. He can do this. He is an elite athlete. He is invincible. He is Ilya Fucking Rozanov, and he will not be defeated by half a fucking hallway. 

By the eighth step, he’s shaking from exertion. On the ninth, he folds his knee onto the stool that Shane’s placed next to the toilet, shucks his shorts, and tries not to think too hard about how proud he is that he made it. Three cheers for Ilya. 

- 

“You’re supposed to message me,” Shane says. He looks wrung out. Still pink-eyed, after his morning’s breakdown, and sweating from his walk—run?—with Anya, but not as rigidly coiled with the force of too many unspoken things. Ilya can match him in sweat, even if their physical achievements were wildly different in scope. “This is literally— why didn’t you text?” Shane asks. 

Ilya looks up, as guilelessly as he can, from his cosy spot on the bathroom floor. 

“Am right where I need to be,” Ilya says, instead of I remember that phrase about straws and the backs of camels. He says it casual. Dismissive, even. Because he is; he’s just gathering his breath, his strength and his dignity, enough to put on his bandage guards and seat himself in the shower. 

“You’re under the fucking sink,” Shane points out. And, well, technically yes. But he is almost in the right place. Ilya doesn’t offer any elaboration. Just extends his arms out in front of him for Shane to pull him out. “Jesus Christ,” Shane says in his most put-upon voice, failing to hide the fondness from it. “You’re impossible,” he complains, heaving Ilya upright and wrangling him onto the shower bench. 

“Yes, but you love me,” Ilya says, sticking his leg out for Shane to put the plastic covering over it. 

“Fucking hell. I do, but. Fuck. Ilya.” 

“You love me,” Ilya repeats, because Shane is walking a fine line between ribbing and genuine irritation, and Ilya’s feelings are still too close to the surface to cope with much of the latter. 

“Of course I do?” Shane says, running his thumb under the elastic seal so Ilya’s leg hairs don’t get snagged in it. “You massive fucking idiot.” 

-

Ilya lets Shane help him with the shower. He sits on the bench and leans into each touch, like a cat being groomed. Accepts the care from him, because he wants to, and to prove that he can. That he will, despite his earlier ill-advised bout of willful independence. Maybe, a little dependence isn’t the worst thing, especially when it places his head in the nest of Shane’s wet chest as he massages into the back of Ilya’s neck. 

They’re on a strict five minute timer; any longer, and apparently the heat from the water will turn the slow release opiate patch into a fast release one. Which, Ilya assumes, would probably be bad. Except, the way his ankle is twanging and biting at him, a bit more might not be such a bad thing. 

He waits until he’s out, dried, and dressed, before he offers his gratitude.  

“You are very good nurse,” he reminds Shane, as his chair is pushed into the living room. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” says Shane.

- 

An itinerary for recovery is starting to take shape. The first of the sports therapists is visiting tomorrow; someone called Angelo, who Shane says has a meticulous reputation. Friday, they’re going to a clinic in central Ottawa to get the stitches in Ilya’s jaw removed. “It’s looking really good,” Shane had told him, stroking the raised skin. Ilya preferred his face without the shape of a cross etched into his jaw, but he still can’t wear his necklace, so. 

The scans are the week after; one for the arm, and another, with a bandage change, for the ankle. These are in Ottawa Civic, and should give Ilya enough time to come up with some sort of gift for the staff who’d seen him through the worst few weeks of his life. He’s not sure how to say “thanks for not letting me die” in flowers, but he’s got time to figure that one out. 

More pressingly, he’s got the promise of watching Crowell being dragged to the metaphorical gallows on live TV at some point later today, if Yuna’s predictions come to pass. And, a visit from Hayden. And friends. 

Now though, Ilya has his fourth fucking liquid meal of the day sat in front of him, and Shane’s body pressed closely to his, face tucked into his armpit. 

“We’ll be okay,” Shane says, only it comes out more like a question. 

“Da,” Ilya answers, fingers running lines through Shane’s hair. He believes it. If only because he has been living with the alternatives and he needs them out from under his skin. The worse that it could have been. The fear that those men were not the only ones who would sharpen their anger into real weapons. Not just against them, but anyone who falls outside their narrow view of how things should be. That career-ending injuries were promised to them in that game, and worse. And despite it all, they’ve emerged on the other the other side. Supported, celebrated. Loved. 

There’s more, he thinks. More reasons bolstering his optimism, but his brain is still slow. And Shane is sliding down his body, nestling on the floor, resting his head between Ilya’s spread legs. Any thoughts that were bobbing around his brain have now fully fled the party. 

Shane’s face is a closed off sort of calm; the way he gets when he’s found purpose. Direction. Even if Ilya hasn’t given it to him, yet. Shane walks his fingers up Ilya’s bare thighs. Skims his hip, and hesitates at the waistband, looking up at Ilya for permission. With those serious eyes boring into him through his lashes, Ilya would give him the fucking moon. He nods. 

Shane shuffles Ilya’s shorts down, past the curve of his butt, leaving them stretched above his knees. Pulls out Ilya’s soft cock, and handles it like it’s something precious and delicate. 

Ilya’s fingers find his hair again. Gentle strokes of encouragement, as Shane nuzzles into the curls of hair of his crotch, flattens his tongue, and sinks his warm, wet mouth around his dick. He’s so still. Legs tucked under him, one arm wrapped around Ilya’s thigh for balance like it’s an armrest. It’s a posture designed for longevity, and for comfort. Ilya feels the measured breaths filtering through Shane’s nose against his skin; in for four, hold for four, out for four. 

It’s rare, having Shane’s mouth on him and not instinctively thickening to a throat-grazing hardness, but, the medications. The exhaustion too, probably. And this is—this is perfect. He doesn’t even want to tease Shane about his habit of reaching for his emotional support crotch. He doesn’t want anything to shake him out of the calmest he’s been since they both got home. Probably the calmest he’s been since the season started. It’s been a long fucking year, for sure. 

So, they stay like this. Shane making occasional noises of…something. Maybe contentedness. He’s never beating the secretly-a-cat allegations, like this. Ilya thumbs through channels and streaming services, eventually settling on an animated Spider-man movie. Something where the main guy is guaranteed to come out the other end of whatever adversity, changed, but stronger. Hopefully. He’s not seen this one before. 

It’s not until the film gets to the end of the first arc, that Ilya’s body starts to protest the easy comfort. He doesn’t want to disturb it, and from Shane’s quiet posture, he doesn’t think Shane wants to, either. But, the downside to relentlessly trying to fill up on calories through liquid alone, is that his bladder is continuously doing more workouts than the rest of his body combined. 

“Solnyshko,” he starts, calling Shane’s eyes up to his. “I need to piss.” 

What Ilya does not expect, even if he should know by now to never underestimate him, was for Shane’s eyes to widen. Or for them to look so hopeful. And oh, Ilya could. He really could, because what else would say devotion as loudly as that? Except. They have guests, later. And he doesn’t doubt Shane’s determination, but he’s also not convinced it would be as…neat, an experience as they’d both want. 

“Not now,” he tells Shane gently, trying not to feel wounded by the shadow of disappointment that flickers across his face. “You can carry me, maybe?” he offers, like it’s a favour. Another way for Shane to show his love with supplication. 

Shane slides his tongue off, pressing the softest of kisses as his mouth leaves Ilya’s dick. He suddenly feels very exposed. Bereft. 

“You want me to drag you by the ankles?” Shane says instead, and there he is. 

“How could you! I am wounded,” declares Ilya, bandaged hand placed over his heart in a gesture of exaggerated betrayal. All the position does, is make it easier for Shane to lean over him, scoop him bodily, and keep his arms trapped from any mischief he’d try and cause in the handful of steps between here and the bathroom. His shorts still being half way down his legs really adds to the brief but lovely feeling of being utterly under Shane’s care. Helpless. Helped. 

“You uh, need a hand?” he asks, planting Ilya in situ. 

“You don’t want to leave it alone now, is that it?” Ilya asks, because Shane is still hovering behind him. Like he’s expecting him to wilt, the second he takes his hands away. “Am fine,” Ilya says, hoping that the gratitude is audible above his habitual defensiveness. 

“I’ll just let you crawl back then, okay?” calls Shane, already retreating down the hallway. And. Well. Fine. There are enough wall supports there to manage it, by design. He could. 

Instead, he finishes up, washes his hands, and digs his phone from his pocket. Types out, help me Shane kenobi, you r my only hope and presses send. 

“That name doesn’t even make sense,” Shane says, his voice getting louder as he reappears behind Ilya’s shoulders, a whole eight seconds after the message got sent. 

“Piggy back?” 

And so, Shane crouches as Ilya climbs onto his back, legs wrapped around his middle. And for a lovely, long moment, Ilya doesn’t resent the house for being too small, because if he gets to see it from this vantage point, then, well. Maybe parts of it can still feel new. 

- 

In the handful of minutes before the televised live character assassination of Crowell is scheduled to begin, Ilya does a spot of homework. Not enough to get into the guts of it; he’s happy to have the television-friendly account of things, this time. But if there were leaked emails, he wouldn’t mind seeing what they said. 

It doesn’t take long to find an article about them; ESPN still has it on the front page. Beneath a second one about toxic locker room culture, with a picture of Thierault’s face. Fitting. 

“JJ gave them a ton of material for that,” Shane comments about the locker room piece. He’s just finished a fresh round of vacuuming the ground floor, because he presumably imagines that his teammates (new and former) will be interested in the cleanliness of their carpets. Despite his entire social circle being comprised of hockey players and Rose, he still follows this routine every time he’s playing host. His reward for a job well done is more teasing from Ilya, and a kiss. Then another. And a third, until Shane flopped into the cushions next to him and decided to backseat-drive Ilya’s phone scrolling. “All anonymous. Obviously. Some of the rookies. A few from some other teams.” 

“Was it about you?” Ilya asks, because he doesn’t know how he feels about the events of last year being dragged into the spotlight. The way Shane had felt so ashamed; that it happened, and that he felt like he’d let it happen. 

“Mmm mm,” Shane says. “Not. Not directly. It wasn’t just Montreal. It was more about—”

He’s cut off by the sound of wheels slowing to a stop on the gravel driveway. Shane shoots Ilya a look of accusatory panic. 

“Amazon do not have gate access for cars,” Ilya says in his defence, as his thoughts assemble in enough order to remind him who does have gate access to their drive. 

“Oh, shit,” Shane says softly, at the efficient sound of a key turning in the front door. Then, more loudly, “Hi, mom.” 

- 

“My boys!” announces Yuna, simultaneously checking her watch, handing Shane a bag of suspiciously wet-sounding groceries, and leaning over the sofa to place the most delicate of hug-shaped embraces across Ilya’s now very tense shoulders. “It’s about to start,” she adds, not offering any further explanation as to why she felt she needed to help the two of them find their way to the right channel, in person. 

Ilya thinks that part of Shane’s therapy agenda should include a conversation about boundaries, but he keeps that as one of his inside thoughts. 

She disappears to the kitchen, and the swift back and forth with Shane about what needs refrigerating, freezing, and serving, carries through the house. An observation that the house looks clean, and. Right. Maybe Shane’s compulsive housecleaning makes a little more sense. 

“It is nice to see you,” Ilya says, remembering to be polite because when Shane returns to the living room, all his earlier floppiness has seemingly solidified into a pole-straight tension that vibrates through his jaw. No politeness happening from there. And, element of surprise aside, he does enjoy Yuna’s company. When he’s ready for it. 

Shane dishes out a shot of anti-inflammatory and another of antibiotic. Returns with three glasses of thick beige liquid, which he sets down on the ottoman. 

“Oh, you too,” Yuna smiles, settling herself down on Ilya’s bandaged side. Shane takes the left, and at least this means they can still hold hands. Which they do. Yuna busies hers with the remote, seeking out the right channel. “And you’re active on the socials again, I see,” she says, a little more pinched. 

“Ah, yes,” Ilya says. Not apologetic, because he isn’t. Just…sheepish, maybe. It’s difficult not to be, when under the scrutinous gaze of Yuna Hollander. 

“Just don’t say anything that gets in the way of the class action,” she says, patting Ilya’s thigh. The gesture draws Anya out of her slumber, and she takes her cue, jumping into Ilya’s lap. It’s very cosy, and only a little awkward. 

Ilya needs to ask what she means by class action. Because he thought he was up to date on the broad strokes of consequences and fallout and all the rest, but the volume on the TV is increasing and Yuna is nudging Ilya to take a sip of the new mystery liquid. “Popcorn flavour,” she whispers, conspiratorial. Then, “This should be good.” 

- 

The first few minutes of the broadcast—PuckBeat, a low-budget talking heads slot that relies more on footage and opinions than on big name guests—are taken up with discussion about the ongoing playoffs. The Admirals are doing great, apparently. Yay for Scott Hunter. 

The three of them—four, if they include Anya, but she’s more interested in nuzzling at Ilya’s lap, so maybe not—wait for it to get interesting like they’re waiting for a guillotine drop. 

The screen switches to two chairs, and Yuna sits forward. 

“See, Shane, you remember Clyde,” Yuna says, about the placid-faced interviewer shaking Crowell’s hand. 

Shane makes a non-committal noise and threads his fingers more tightly in Ilya’s. 

The two men on screen exchange pleasantries, but even the neutral words from Crowell come out like they’ve got slime on them. 

They start by talking about the now infamous game, which gives Crowell the opportunity to talk about how decisively the league addressed things. How they performed their due diligence and terminated the contracts of both Comeau and Leyland, after. “Not even a suspension, straight to termination,” Crowell says, as though this is somehow an unprecedented action that still deserves credit. “Player safety is of the utmost importance,” Crowell continues, confident. Clyde Banner nods along, encouragingly. Nods through more rehearsed rhetoric about the importance of protecting their players, on and off the ice. How the events were disappointing, but the aftermath was managed. 

“It took over a week for that decision; the termination, to be communicated,” Clyde says with his calm, steady voice. He sounds like he’s wrangling a wild animal into a trap. “Would you say the delay was due to indecision? You’ve been a vocal supporter of Leyland in the past,” he says, of Crowell’s praise of Leyland’s strong, traditional approach to the sport. Meaning, the bilious, regressive shit-talking that appeals to the worst of their fans. “It must have been disappointing to have to let a player like that go,” Clyde says kindly. 

Crowell continues like he’s still on firm footing. Sitting back in the chair like he’s an honoured presence. Gives a lengthy answer about logistics, about how the decision took time because it required certainty, and says nothing about his alleged endorsement of Leyland. The way he’s talking makes Ilya want to take another shower, to scrape the grime of his words out. 

“Asshole,” mutters Yuna. Like mother, like son. 

“Of course,” Clyde agrees. On the screen, Crowell smiles at him like he’s an idiot. Smiles like he’s already calculated the conversation, how it will play out, and is banking the win. “It’s just—” Clyde continues, “—and I do want to express my gratitude, that you’ve agreed to talk about this with us today—we can’t overlook the elephant in the room.” 

Crowell meets Clyde’s easy chuckle with a much less casual sound. 

“Now,” Clyde says, and again he’s so amiable about it. No wonder Yuna respects this guy; he’s an expert in understatement and misdirection. “There’s a lot of speculation about the context of those emails,” Clyde begins. The screen behind their faces helpfully shows the first of them:  

>If those two get to playoffs, and god forbid win, it’ll be so much worse than Scott Hunter. I don’t want to visualise that. No one does. Our sponsors definitely don’t. 

Crowell has the audacity to roll his eyes, as though this is a childish game he’s been roped into and he has better things to do with his time. 

“The assumption is, the ‘those two’ you’re referring to there, are Hollander and Rozanov. Is that a fair assessment?” 

Crowell doesn’t answer the question, just waves his hand as though the answer is both obvious, and inconsequential. “Those were private exchanges between friends, these weren’t…directives,” he says. He’s had time to prepare his stock answers, but everything about his posture has pivoted to say that he doesn’t want to be there. “I think we all know that hockey fans feel strongly about some things, and I’m not alone—”

“You’re not just a hockey fan, though, Mr. Crowell,” Clyde cuts in. “You’re at the head. You set the tone. By default, your words are the directive. Don’t you—” 

“Are you telling me that you’ve never had a gripe about a co-worker over beers?” Crowell counters. Ilya can see the sweat beading at his hairline. Despite it, Crowell’s face remains curled into a confident, irritating smugness. 

“And of course there’s this,” Clyde continues, as the screen shows the next email. 

>These guys are hemorrhaging money from the league every time they make heart eyes, shut it down. Fix it. 

Ah, the heart eyes comment. If the ‘fix it’ at the end wasn’t so fucking ominous, Ilya might feel proud that the looks of adoration between him and the tense man currently knocking his knees into his, are so damn important. 

“And this one,” Clyde adds, “Shared with Thierault, shortly before finalising Leyland’s transfer.” 

The graphic resolves into the third and final email: 

>I have just the guy to help with this

“Some may find it irresponsible at best,” Clyde continues, “alarming at worst, that these exchanges of yours seem to advocate taking measures to stop these two players from being able to play a fair—”

“I just don’t feel like we’re looking at the most important thing,” Crowell interrupts like a blunt force instrument. “We’re only talking about that, because of what happened. That event, the one we’re really talking about here, was over the line. It was. It got out of hand—”

Out of fucking hand, Ilya thinks. He’s gratified to find his sentiments echoed by the reporter. 

“That’s a very polite way to refer to criminal charges, plural, a class act—”

Crowell jumps in again, like every word spoken by the frustratingly competent interviewer might re-ignite the same furore he’s trying to quash. “Those were the isolated actions of someone who was clearly struggling with…” he pauses, as though the term causes him difficulty. “…with mental health issues. That we were not aware of.” 

“Fuck,” offers Ilya as commentary. Because, what the fucking fuck. He thinks he understands the term blood boiling, because his veins feel ready to combust from the sheer force of rage Crowell’s dismissive words are firing up in him. The idea that the main inhabitant of his nightmares is being dismissed as a mental health struggle is…offensive, at best. 

“What a cunt,” Yuna agrees, and Ilya has to use all his willpower to not twist his neck to stare at her and confirm that those words came out of her mouth. Shane does it for him, mouth agape, then curling into a wonky grin. 

On the screen, Clyde only smiles in that same way a lion does before it launches itself, claws and all, onto its prey. 

“Putting aside the physical, evidenced contradictions to it just being the fault of one man,” Clyde continues. “Is it fair to say that the league was uncomfortable with the perceived success of two openly queer players, and orchestrated the transfer of a volatile player into an even more volatile team, with the intention, or hope—”

Ilya is impressed with this Clyde guy. He’s looped multiple verbal nooses around Crowell’s neck, and isn’t giving him the chance to undo any one of them at a time. If it were him in that chair, he’d have just punched Crowell in the teeth. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Crowell intones, turning bodily away from the display of emails. “The MLH is proud of the work we do for inclusivity,” he says, and the sourness in his voice is something rancid. “We support all our players, and we’re committed to making sure that hockey remains about hockey. This is all out of context. You’re making it sound like some…some vendetta.” 

“Isn’t it?” Clyde asks mildly. 

Crowell ignores the interjection. “This was only ever about upholding league standards. Avoiding distractions. You’re making it sound like it was planned. I’m not sure what this,” he gestures behind him at the screen showing the emails, “is supposed to prove.” 

The interviewer sits back in his chair, relaxed. “It’s not about proving, sir. It’s about giving you an opportunity to address some of the speculation. Some of which suggests that—” 

Yuna pats Ilya’s leg, catching Anya’s tail. She looks excited. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the longer he watches the discussion of his world reduced to verbal volleying, the more sick he feels. Like these men are rummaging through his insides and scooping out the soft bits to lob at each other. With his left hand, he untucks his thumb and presses it up and down over Shane’s pulse point. Staying connected to what actually matters to him, now. Shane presses himself closer until they’re a soft tangle of contact. 

Clyde continues on the screen. “—it suggests that you, the league,” he emphasises, making it clear that he isn’t going to be reductive about how wide the fallout of blame truly is, “took coordinated measures against these men.” 

Ilya can feel Shane’s pulse increasing under his thumb. He’s going to need to fast-track that therapist search. And make an appointment with his own. 

“And,” Clyde is still holding the floor, despite Crowell opening his mouth like he’s trying to find the words that will claw this back from the cliff edge it’s already shot over. “Whether you intended it or not, you—the league, that is—encouraged the culture of homophobia that emboldened these players to act the way they did. They’ve said they believed their coaches expected them—”

“That’s ridiculous. This is…wild speculation. I’m not saying we didn’t like the new rivalry,” Crowell says. As though half of Montreal staging an assault was just regular PR. “But we have never penalised anyone for…being themselves,” Crowell answers, the words coming out like a bluster. “We’ve always been supportive of diversity. Just look at Scott Hunter,” he says, dragging out the one almost-acceptable face of being out and proud, like he wouldn’t have scoured him from the MLH if he’d only had the right leverage in place. 

“Bullshit,” mutters Shane. 

“So you’ve never warned players not to express PDAs? Or personally requested a player be benched, or disciplined, for being, as you call it, themselves?” Clyde persists. 

Crowell flounders, for a microsecond. On the screen, that’s long enough. “Of course not,” he answers flatly. 

“There’s something I’d like to play you,” Clyde says, and Yuna pats Ilya’s knee again, a satisfied expression on her face. “Because I’d like to hear your interpretation of this.” 

A moment later, and the audio of Shane’s own voice is playing at them through the TV. The recording of their encounter in Crowell’s office, last year. The barely veiled threats, that Shane and Ilya’s marriage would spell the end of their careers. In light of everything that’s happened since, it sounds infinitely worse. Crowell’s face is getting slacker and more ashen by the second. 

“When you promised these men consequences,” Clyde says, once the recording ends, “is this what you envisioned?”

Crowell has the look of someone who’s finally seen the executioner’s blade hovering above him. 

“Of course we didn’t mean…that,” Crowell says, only his voice sounds smaller. 

“Then what did you mean?” Clyde asks, implacable. “Thierault, in his resignation statement, seemed to think you meant—”

“It was never meant to go that far,” Crowell says, words bitten out with spittle on them. And in that tiny admission, the metaphorical blade comes down. 

Clyde Banner smiles grimly. “So it was meant to—”

 “We only meant…we’re at cross purposes here,” Crowell says, like he’s just realised what he’s admitted and can’t recover from. His face is reddening, legs uncrossing, his whole demeanour faltering. “I came here in good faith,” he says, planting his hands on his thighs, leaning towards his host. “Whatever…agenda you have here isn’t…it’s not…” 

None of them have ever heard, or imagined, Crowell speechless. 

“We’re done here,” Crowell says eventually, pushing himself out of the chair. Clyde Banner extends a hand to shake as he departs, which Crowell ignores. He all but scampers from the camera’s view. 

“Oh, he’s done here!” announces Yuna. “He’s not coming back from that,” she says, decisively. “I’ll bet money it’s on ESPN by this evening.”

“Holy shit,” Shane offers in agreement. 

Ilya is feeling a lot of things at the same time. Some of Yuna’s satisfaction, for sure: it really was a spectacular takedown. There’s relief in there, too; that the toxicity that’s plagued them since last year has been dragged into the open and shown for the cruelty it is. 

It’s just that it also feels like the aftershock of a gut punch. A radiating nausea that’s already made its way to his throat. Because however much the commissioner could have reasonably predicted, or manufactured, the conditions that allowed it to happen were in place decades before any of them came along. Like it was inevitable. The MLH has been stacked with kindling against players like them, and all Crowell needed to do was throw Leyland into it as the lit match. It just sucks to have been on the pyre for it. 

“You’ve got the video ready to post?” Yuna asks, because basking in anything is an activity she apparently limits to mere seconds at a time. “I’ve just bluetoothed it to you both.” 

Ilya and Shane nod in quiet acquiescence. The video they’d shot yesterday, talking about how optimistic they were about playing in a league without the threat of a fucking hate crime getting in the way of a good game. Except, phrased more diplomatically than that. They coordinate the shared posting to Instagram with a nod. No text or commentary, on this one. Just their positivity statements, and whatever else Harris has spliced into it. 

“You did this?” Ilya asks Yuna about the whole Crowell…thing, because, personal horrors aside, it’s difficult not to be awed. 

“Technically, you did,” she answers, already standing up. “And he did, I suppose. He got sloppy, putting any of that in writing. I think your team has worn him down.” She downs the last of the popcorn milkshake like it’s a shot. “It’s been a team effort,” she says, gesturing for Shane to stand up from the sofa. “All of it. The lawyers working on those asshole’s cases, Clyde’s takedown. Scotty’s Hotties…” 

Shane snorts back a laugh, because if even Yuna’s calling them that, Hunter’s never getting the real name back. 

 “I’ve just been doing what I can to help them,” Yuna says, smoothing down Shane’s t-shirt before pulling him into a hug. As though she’s not been masterminding and wrangling all the pieces into place. “No one messes with my boys and lives to gloat about it,” she says, deadly serious. Ilya wonders if her extensive list of contacts extends to actual hitmen, and decides that he doesn’t want to know the answer. She releases Shane, leans over Ilya, and gives him one of her careful-not-to-damage-anything shoulder hugs. 

Her parting shot is an ask if there’s anything else either of them need, which Ilya declines because really, she’s done plenty. His head is still spinning from it all. His guts, too. 

- 

“What can I do?” Shane asks. He’s holding Ilya upright by the sink, supporting him as he rinses the taste of vomit from out of his mouth for the second time this week. Not exactly how he’d imagined celebrating Crowell’s televised humiliation, but he’s nothing if not adaptable. 

“Mm. Fix my fucking ribs?” Ilya suggests. Because everything else aside, the clenching of his midsection is brutal. He would very much like a way to process visceral reactions to stress that is less…visceral. 

Shane wraps an arm round Ilya’s middle, splaying his fingers across those ribs, and this is nice. Not a fix, but definitely a comfort. 

“We can call the hospital—” Shane starts. 

“No.” Because this is just a small thing. Two small things, really. But small things don’t have to mean going back to those white grey walls and ceilings. “Will be fine,” Ilya asserts, his voice feeling rougher than it did earlier. “I just…maybe no more TV. TV is bad for me, I think.” 

“It must be bad,” Shane agrees. “Because when I asked what you needed, you didn’t bring up that fucking costume, for once.” 

Ilya spits out toothpaste. Rinses his mouth again. “So you bring it up?” he challenges. “This means you want to wear it, yes?” 

“You know I don’t, you fuck,” Shane tells him, bending at the knees to lift Ilya into the air again. There’s enough pink blooming across his freckles to let Ilya know that the idea has at least taken root. 

“You should wear it when our friends come over,” Ilya says. “Show them how well you have been taking care of me.” 

Instead of volleying back, Shane turns thoughtful. It’s a treasurable expression, when he does it. The bridal carry, for the handful of metres between the bathroom and the couch, gives Ilya the perfect vantage point to appreciate it. “We can cancel,” Shane says, setting Ilya down. “If you’re not up for seeing people. Today’s been a fucking lot.” 

It has been. It’s not even 3pm and they’ve already fitted in one catastrophic emotional breakdown, one foot-assisted orgasm that Ilya is definitely not going to tease Shane about (not to mention the other thing), the fucking Commissioner, and another throat-burning trauma response for Ilya, as a little treat. Why not throw Hayden Pike into the mix? 

- 

Once the cramping in his belly has fully passed, Ilya’s feeling more optimistic about the whole Crowell of it all. Yes, it was absolutely fucking monstrous, thinking that any part of what happened was in any way professionally endorsed. Even if it’s not even surprising, anymore. It’s given him a newfound appreciation for just how dedicated someone can be, to being a terrible fucking person. 

It’s also making him appreciate how dedicated everyone else has been, to being…better. Brighter. Warmer. That between him and the architects of his suffering, there are so many people creating a shield. 

Maybe it’s the drugs, or some sort of emotional crash that’s making him floppy and soft and sentimental, and maybe it’s the way Shane’s hands are tangled in his hair. Whatever it is, he’s starting to feel more like himself again. More like a person who’s finally earned the love he’s being given. 

- 

The first person to walk through their door, a couple of hours, kisses, and medications later, is Hayden. Fortunately, he’s flanked by Jackie, and it’s her grinning face that pulls a smile to Ilya’s. 

“Jackie! I have missed your beautiful face. How are your wonderful children and your terrible husband?” 

“I’m right here, dude” Hayden bristles, like he’s trying, hard, not to be antagonistic. Ilya is determined not to make it easy for him. 

“They’re all fine, the kids miss their favourite uncle,” Jackie tells him diplomatically, handing a bag of something to Shane. “I brought ice cream.” 

Ilya’s stomach does an honest to god flutter at that. 

“It can’t have—” Shane starts. 

“It doesn’t have bits in it,” Jackie reassures, following Shane through to the kitchen. “I checked. Ruby checked, too. We had to buy a second tub.” 

Hayden stands awkwardly in front of Ilya, unsure of whether he’s allowed to sit yet. Ilya stares him down. 

It takes a few moments, and a few aborted attempts of opening his mouth and closing it again, before Hayden finally asks, “How are you doing?” 

“Jesus,” Ilya groans. All those thoughts in Hayden’s brain, and that’s the one he chooses to speak aloud. “Fucking wonderful, Pike. Please, pass on my thanks to your team. I needed the holiday.” 

Hayden has the good grace to look mollified, gulping down whatever he was about to say next. He settles instead on, “Yeah. Yeah, they…” 

“Sit,” Ilya says, because it’s less fun watching Hayden flounder when he looks legitimately shaken. Still. And then, because Ilya is apparently feeling a little more gracious than he planned to be, he tells him, “I know is not your fault.” 

That might have been a worse thing to say, because Hayden is wringing his hands in his lap and staring at his knees. Has he been learning social skills from Shane? Ilya takes the shovel and keeps digging. “You cannot help being on most embarrassing team in the league.” 

Hayden waits until he’s sure that Ilya is teasing, not fully hating, before he mumbles a quiet “Fuck off.” 

“I would,” Ilya answers, “but your teammates have crippled me.” He waves his bandaged ankle and wrist in the air, to punctuate. “So I cannot fuck off, even if I wanted to.” 

Hayden looks like he’s about to say something serious. He opens his mouth, leaves it hanging there for a moment. Closes it. Opens it. Jesus Christ. It’s almost mesmerising. On the third go, he finally gets a few words out. 

“When coach said ‘fuck them up’ before the third,” Hayden starts, and, ah. Ilya maybe understands the hesitation. “I legit had no idea that’s what he meant. Or that they were gonna. I’d...have tried to warn you, dude.”

Ilya forgets to be mean for a second, because he hadn’t given any thought to that side of things. He’d given up caring about the state of Montreal’s room after Shane was safely out of it. Only for a second, though. 

Ilya looks at Hayden with as much sincerity as he can. Lets the expression of intentional kindness sink into his face, and speaks gently to him. “I get it, Pike,” he tells him, the epitome of graciousness. “Would not expect you to understand secret meaning. Would mean both braincells talking to each other.” 

Hayden gives the limpest “Fuck off, dude,” Ilya has ever heard, before crossing the room and crowding him into a hug that neither of them really seem to be invested in. He sits back down, sheepish. Then, “I mean it, though, yeah? I’m s—”

The doorbell interrupts what Ilya imagines would have been a continuation of an uncomfortable apology. Hayden springs back out of his seat like there’s dynamite in it, calling “I’ll get it.” 

“If only you moved that fast on the ice,” Ilya says, but his voice is too quiet for it to land. 

-

Wyatt and Luca arrive next. Luca still has his crutches, but he moves like he’s ready to weaponise them at a moment’s notice. 

“Cap!” he exclaims, like he’s surprised to see Ilya in the flesh, as though they haven’t played seasons together and like he hadn’t been in and out of his hospital room over the last few weeks. “You look…” 

“Awful,” Wyatt finishes for him, but he’s smiling when says it. He places a pack of brightly coloured paint pens on the ottoman and settles himself on the couch next to Ilya. Luca settles in one of the chairs opposite, balancing his crutches against the back wall, and Ilya can feel his nervous stare. One day, maybe, Luca will stop being quite so skittish in his presence. But it is clearly not this day. 

“Thank you, Hazy,” Ilya says indignantly, watching as Hayden returns to the room.

The fact that neither of his teammates are immediately tackling Hayden to the floor or banishing him from the house is either reassuring, or disappointing. He’s not sure which, yet. What he doesn’t expect, is Luca reaching into his backpack and retrieving a suspiciously comic-shaped book, which he then hands to Pike.

“The one I was telling you about,” he says. Hayden’s face lights up, and it’s the first real smile he’s had since he arrived. It’s a bright enough smile that Ilya chooses mercy, and doesn’t tease him about needing all his books to contain pictures. Wyatt just peers at the book with mild scepticism and says nothing. 

“We can only stay an hour,” Jackie says, ushering Shane back into his own living room. She’s carrying a small crate of 0% beers, and Shane’s brought the ice cream, decanted into a bowl, and a spoon. “We just wanted to see your face on something that wasn’t a newsreel or a think-piece for a change,” she says with a warm smile. Shane stiffens, because Ilya’s recent notoriety is still the metaphorical elephant in the room. The thing they have to dance around. 

“Uhhhh,” Hayden says, intelligently. 

“We’re gonna decorate your cast,” Wyatt blurts, heralding an end to the uncomfortable almost silence. “Bood’s gonna be here any minute. We’ve told him he’s not allowed to draw dicks on it.” 

“None of you are drawing dicks on me,” Ilya bristles. “Shane, you asked them to do this?” 

“Yup,” Shane says. “Consider it enrichment.” 

“Is not enrichment for me,” Ilya complains, as Wyatt uncaps a blue pen with threatening determination. 

By the time Bood arrives, Ilya’s cast arm is already an assortment of chaotic doodles, only two of which look like genitals. Dykstra follows a few minutes later, handing Shane a tub of something that he dutifully carries into the kitchen. Ilya hopes it’s more ice cream. 

Luca draws a rendition of an uncomfortably buff centaur, with a ripped 8-pack, arms like cannons, and horse-haunches that look a little too anatomically realistic for comfort. Ilya doesn’t say anything, but he’s even more determined to get to the bottom of the human conundrum that is Luca Haas after seeing it. 

Conversation flows around plans for the summer camps (which Ilya won’t be able to coach at), the spiced chicken tagine that Bood’s been perfecting (that Ilya won’t be able to eat) and the collective bewilderment that Buffalo appear to be doing well in the playoffs (that Ilya doesn’t want to believe, because what the fuck). Despite it, Ilya finds himself enjoying the easy company, and the way that Shane’s shoulders have dropped, and his smile’s grown looser. 

Time flows easily, until Jackie announces that it’s time for her and Hayden to leave. Ilya taps Shane on the shoulder with the energy of a small child asking for a balloon. “Shane. Carry me?” Because he wants to move through the house like he lives in it, which means saying goodbye to his guests at the door. And also because he wants to see if Shane will actually pick him up in front of everyone. 

Shane chooses the sensible option instead, because of course he does. Coward. So, Ilya bids his farewells at the doorstep from the comfort of his wheelchair, Shane’s hands resting on his shoulders. 

“It is so good to see you looking better,” Jackie says, leaning in for a tentative hug. It takes Shane a few seconds to back away enough to let her. 

“I heard you visited. The hospital,” Ilya says. “And when I left. Sorry I was not—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jackie dismisses gently. “The WAGs all wanted to send their love, too. Even Claire.” 

The name doesn’t latch onto anything familiar. JJ and the Pikes remain the only links to Montreal that Ilya gives a shit about. It’s Shane who clocks it. 

“Claire Comeau?” Shane asks, the name coming out like something bitter. 

“Yeah,” Jackie clarifies. “Not for long, with that name. She’s been…I think she’s as glad to be shot of him as the rest of us,” she says. “Anyway, you don’t need to hear about that, and we’ve gotta go, so…” 

“Thank you,” Ilya tells her. Meaning, for the visit, even if he was unconscious the first time. For keeping them out of the way of reporters, when they left the hospital. For all of it. “And Hayden,” Ilya says, watching as Hayden’s shoulders instinctively tense in preparation for the next chirp. “Thank you. For looking after my Shane.” 

“Oh, he can look after himself, dude,” Hayden starts, proudly, before realising he meant after. For getting him out of the arena, and to Ilya’s bedside. “Oh,” he says, quieter. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He looks more offended by the sincerity than if Ilya had hit him. 

- 

By the time they’re back in the room, the conversation has turned like a compass point to fucking Montreal. It’s Dykstra, asking if anyone’s been following the class action that Ilya has thus far managed to avoid learning any more about. 

“Tell me about it,” Ilya says. He doesn’t want to admit the extent of his ignorance, but, he’d also rather hear about it through the filter of a bunch of hockey bros who won’t dress it up in legalese. 

Dykstra looks to Shane like he’s looking for permission, and Ilya can almost feel the guilt radiating off him as he nods. Ilya wraps his arm behind Shane’s waist, communicating something that might be forgiveness. Reassurance. 

Luca’s shifted seats so he’s on Ilya’s other side, and is eyeing up the paint pens again. 

“They’re like, suing the Mets for emotional distress,” Dykstra says. Backtracks, remembering he’s forgotten to say who ‘they’ are. “A bunch of people who were at the game,” he explains. “Said it was super traumatic, seeing it.” 

They were traumatised? Fucking hell. “I did not realise we could do that,” Ilya says instead. His voice is still quiet, but everyone’s been very good about giving it the space to be heard. “I would have sued Detroit for making me watch them fumble every pass for two seasons.” 

Luca tentatively starts dabbing the point of the green pen onto the cast, careful not to touch any skin as he works. 

“While we’re at it,” Shane starts, “Sue Anaheim. You’ve seen Coultard’s face? Having that in the face off circle is emotional damage.” 

Ilya loves it when he’s an absolute bitch. The conversation gets stuck into the ins and outs of each team’s sue-able offenses, and even Luca chances a few tentative chirps. Except, he loses his focus and drops a pen lid into the sofa cushions, and spends the next few seconds in concentrated silence while he tries to locate it. 

Ilya takes one of the zero alcohol beers. He’s missed this. So much. The easy conversation. Feeling like a team, not a defensive unit. Being able to drape an arm over Shane’s shoulders, and have Shane curl into him, even when they have company. Talking about things that are fun. Being doodled on. Except, Luca has stopped his drawing and has gone very, very still next to him. 

“Oh,” Luca says quietly, the sound almost drowned by Bood’s barrel laughter at something Wyatt said. Ilya twists his body to get a view of why Luca’s suddenly acting like he’s just met Jesus. 

The nervous silence from Luca spreads through the room, as each set of eyes gradually finds him. 

“Nothing!” Luca says, his voice an octave higher than usual. He stuffs his hand back into the gap between cushions, pulls out the missing pen lid, adds, “found it!”

Ah. Fuck. Oops. Ilya’s only just remembered what else was stuck between those cushions. At least it wasn’t one of Shane’s dildos. 

Dykstra and Bood take Luca’s deflection at face value. Wyatt, directly opposite, clocks the tiny corner of a black PVC cap still poking up between the seat pads, Luca’s blush, and Ilya’s grin. He doesn’t say anything. Just, inhales and closes his eyes for a second. Opens them with an expression of I don’t know what I expected, and resumes the communal shit-talking. 

“What?” Shane asks, because now Ilya’s trying not to giggle, and he’s failing. 

“Nothing, medsestra,” Ilya says, navigating his expression back into something semi-serious and sinking back into the sofa. Counts out the seconds for Shane to interpret the word. 

“Nur—” Shane starts, frowning, and now Ilya is sandwiched between two blushing men. He could get used to this. “Oh, you fucking asshole,” Shane whispers. “I will murder you.” 

“Seeing you in it will murder me, yes,” Ilya says, still grinning enough that his face is aching with it. To Luca, he says; “I am sorry. You probably should not have seen.” 

It takes him a moment. Luca licks his lower lip as though his mouth is suddenly very dry, and quietly says, “I didn’t see anything,” except he’s started drawing little red square crosses on Ilya’s cast. 

- 

They leave in a whirlwind, coinciding with the next round of beeps from Shane’s alarm. Ilya thanks them, because he means it.  He offers Luca another quick sorry. They’re a good group. Even Hayden, he admits to himself, grudgingly. 

He swallows his shot, and settles into Shane’s arms. It’s been a long fucking day. But not the worst one. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

Oh ,Luca.

We are nearly there! There's a lot still to wrangle with, but good things are looming.

The comments and the theories have been amazing. It's the reason the chapter count has been going up; the original plan hadn't given as much exploration to some of the things that I think this story deserves.

Plus, every time there's a chance to give the guys an easier out, there's an equal chance to make it tougher. Sorry about that.

I'm still delighted that people are finding this fic, despite only making 1 singular half-assed attempt at promoting it (I'm sure those 5 notes on tumblr are what brought everyone here).

Big love <3

Chapter 10: In Pain Or Ecstasy

Chapter Summary

“I’m not doing this out of…out of duty,” Shane says. “And fuck you if you think that? Ilya, you’re talking about yourself like you’re a problem. A chore.”

This is maybe true, because Ilya still isn’t used to the ways he feels justified in taking up so much of someone else’s care, despite the crash course he’s had.

“You can be such a fucking dumbass,” Shane continues, and no one else in the world can make that word sound so affectionate. “I had to watch everyone else do everything for you. In the hospital. And it fucking killed me that I couldn’t, because it should have been—I should have been doing it.”

Chapter Notes

Little bit of caretaking, little bit of masochism.

Less than half an hour after their guests leave, they’re both in bed. Ilya expected Shane to delay it; to tidy up the empty bottles in the living room, fuss over his phone, commit to his cleansing, toning and moisturising routines. The things he does once he’s sure Ilya is safely horizontal under their warm blue covers. Managed. Instead, Shane lies down with him. Turns his body to Ilya’s. Kisses him softly on the mouth with minty breath, and before he’s finished saying “Goodnight,” he’s asleep. Mouth open on the last syllable, one arm draped protectively across Ilya’s chest. It might be the most beautiful he’s ever looked. 

Ilya feels his own breaths rise and fall in tandem with Shane’s, until his eyes won’t stay open any more. 

- 

Ilya wakes at 2am. He knows it’s 2am, because the alarm on Shane’s phone is trilling insistently and flashing with a notification for something called Augmentin. Next to him, warm and leaden, Shane is heavy with sleep, breath rumbling with steady, reassuring snores. 

Ilya can manage this one himself. 

He mutes the phone, using the torchlight from it to peer inside the bedside table drawer for the corresponding bottle. It’s in the drawer on his side, because the one on Shane’s is full of more exciting things that they’ve still not had a chance to use. The plastic measuring cup is the drawer, too, because Shane has been structuring and planning and taking care of every tiny detail. 

Ilya shunts himself upright. Shane doesn’t stir, and, good. God knows he needs the rest. 

There’s enough moonlight filtering through the window to see without the phone. He balances the tiny cup between his thighs, because twisting any further from his middle is still in the category of nope. The brown bottle of liquid antibiotics, he plants between his knees. There should be just enough leverage to unscrew the child-safe cap with his working hand. 

Except, there isn’t. 

The bottle just drags against his skin when he tries to press down on the cap, the mattress under his legs dipping. He tries again. The same thing happens. And again. He puts his cast hand under the bottle for leverage, tries again, and hisses out a curse when the bottle skids against his knuckles. Fuck this. It’s one fucking bottle. He can do this. 

Another approach, then. He plants the bottle and cup onto the bedside table, swivelling his whole body round to face them with minimal twisting. Tries again, except his right hand can’t hold the bottle steady enough for the pressure he’s putting on the cap with his left, and the bottle skids onto the floor. 

It’s one dose. He’s nearly at the end of the course of this one, anyway. It’s not the end of the world if he skips one dose. 

It’s just that, he’s remembering Shane’s face from when he’d realised he’d forgotten the pain patch (the horrible, itching pain patch), and how Shane had looked as though the world was fucking ending because the militantly organised schedule for Ilya’s medications hadn’t gone to plan. Ilya doesn’t want to imagine what Shane’s expression will do in the morning if he thinks he’s missed something else. 

He weighs it up against the blissfully slack expression on Shane’s sleeping face now, and decides that this one is more important. 

He retrieves the bottle from the floor, tucks it back in the drawer, and goes back to sleep. 

- 

The morning finds them gently. Sunlight drifting over the curves of Shane’s arm, lighting up a glowing path across his jaw and diffusing over the rounds of his cheeks. 

“Morning,” Shane murmurs, voice thick with sleep. He looks content. Rested. Happy, even. 

“Mmm,” hums Ilya, pulling Shane over him. They kiss with closed mouths, because tooth-brushing needs to happen first. Then with open mouths, because they can’t help it; like this is a morning built only for them, and they need to honour it with the worship of their own personal sunshine. 

“You are so fucking pretty,” Ilya tells Shane, when they’ve settled into a comfortable tangle. Shane’s getting better at accepting compliments that aren’t rooted in masculinity, now, but it still takes him a moment to test them out. Making sure they’re not something he needs to defend himself against, before he takes them as the gift they’re intended to be. 

“You’re pretty too,” Shane says eventually, pinching one of Ilya’s curls between his fingers. Stretches it so it’s almost straight, then releases it. It makes Ilya feel like a giant stim toy, and he loves it. 

“You know what would make you prettier?” Ilya says, after the fourth tendril of his hair has been tousled and bounced back into place. “If you wore—”

“You’re a fucking menace,” Shane tells him, and hits him with a pillow. 

- 

Ilya’s enduring teasing has to be put on hold, because Angelo is due to visit their home at 10am, to begin the first of what will likely be fucking hundreds of rehabilitative physical therapy sessions. When he knocks on the door, precisely on the hour, Shane looks inexplicably nervous. He’s not the one who’s about to be prodded and pretzelled and whatever else Angelo has in store for him, but Shane has never met a situation he can’t infuse panic into, so Ilya lets it go. 

“Good morning,” calls the new voice from the hallway. He sounds both buoyant and calm. And, in the few seconds of him existing as just a voice, a concept of a person, he sounds…hot. When he manifests in front of Ilya’s well-worn seat cushions, he looks it, too. Somewhere in his mid-forties, maybe. Thickly curled black hair, warm brown skin with geometric tattoos peeking out of the cuffed shoulders of his shirt, and a reserved smile that looks like a bigger one has to be earnt. Shane trails him like a shadow. 

“It’s good to meet you,” Angelo tells him, hand extended to shake Ilya’s left, “Mr Rozanov.” 

“Ilya,” Ilya corrects him. If he’s going to be sharing all the intricacies of his physical failings with this man, it should at least be on a first name basis. As for Angelo, Ilya’s not sure if that’s his surname or his first name, or if he’s like Madonna. 

“I’ll, uh, take Anya out,” Shane says, excusing himself. 

Angelo waves, then sits himself opposite Ilya. He only gives one curious glance at Ilya’s newly decorated cast, and the anatomically horrifying centaur drawing taking pride of place on it. 

“I’ve read your notes,” Angelo tells him. “Seen the scans. And your medication list.” Ilya doesn’t ask if he watched the gameplay that led to his current employment. He assumes he has. “What I want to know about is how you feel about it all,” Angelo says. Easygoing, relaxed. His approach sounds more like therapy for the head and not the body, on account of them both currently being seated. But, Angelo exudes a sturdy, immovable confidence that suggests he is doing exactly what is needed. 

And so, Ilya tells him. Sort of. Habit, like a well-worn mouthguard, has him downplaying things. A small ache in the bones. Occasional cramping. Some difficulty holding himself upright, even when his knee is supported. Nothing too bad. Manageable. 

Angelo humours him for all of a minute. “You’ve told me what you’d tell your coach,” he tells him. “And you’ve told me what you’re willing to hide.” 

Ah. He’s one of those. The kind of professional who has an instinctive bullshit filter, and is lasering it right into everything Ilya is saying. Ilya’s met enough of them, and he should have expected it. 

“Now, you’re going to tell me what it actually feels like. You have what you want to do, and then you’re confronted by what your body will let you do. Tell me what you want to do.” 

Ilya tells him that he wants back on the ice. Because it’s true, and because it feels like the sort of thing he should say. It’s the main goal of this, isn’t it? 

Angelo nods. “Let’s go smaller than that, to start,” because of course. Ilya should set his sights on being able to take a piss without breaking a level-7 sweat as an interim goal, maybe. “You wake up in the morning. What’s the first thing you want to do? The very first thing.” 

Ilya thinks back to this morning. How if he’d been guided by instinct and not limitations, he’d have been the one to press his body over Shane’s. Pin him under his weight, hold him steady and pliant. Crush their bodies together and then take each other apart. With tenderness, and with force, and all the gorgeous mess between. He doesn’t think Angelo needs to hear all that, so he opens his mouth to say something else honest. 

“I want to…hold him,” he says. “Properly.” The words sound damp when they come out. 

Angelo nods again. No judgment. “And your body tells you—”

“Tells me I can’t,” Ilya bites. “Because it…it will hurt my arm to lean on it. Ribs will…” he makes a grabby, clenching motion to illustrate what the muscles trapping his midsection will do. “Shoulder gets hot,” he says, gesturing to indicate the climb of heated, fizzing nerve endings that crawl out from his rotator cuff and into his clavicle, and Angelo keeps nodding. Without giving the reason, Ilya keeps cataloguing the different ways his body is getting in the way of giving Shane a thorough seeing to, stopping short of talking about what the medications are doing to his libido. It’s not like they’ve killed it, by any stretch, but it’s still slower to surface. Angelo doesn’t need to know that. 

“You haven’t mentioned your neck, at all,” Angelo says, and Ilya is suddenly very aware of the soft collar brushing against it, prompting it to stay straight. 

Because if I think about turning too quickly, I imagine it folding in the middle like a cardboard tube, is what Ilya thinks. Because it makes me feel delicate and I hate feeling less than powerful. Because if I make a wrong move, there’ll be another vent shoved in there. Or worse. That he’ll have the desperate feeling of being surrounded by air and not being able to pull any of it into his lungs. And there’s what he’d be leaving behind, if that happened. If it didn’t get fixed in time, in this imagined next time. Who he’d be leaving behind. 

If Angelo notices Ilya’s breaths getting heavier and more intentional in their steadfast determination, he doesn’t say it. He nods at Ilya’s silence like it’s as good an answer as he expected, and smiles at him. Not a big smile, yet. 

“We’re going to work on all of it,” Angelo tells him. “Time is doing some of the work already. You’ll get there. And then you’ll get further. Parts of it are gonna suck,” he says. Great. Because it’s been a fucking cakewalk so far. “And parts of it are gonna feel amazing. I am gonna be the biggest pain in your ass for as long as this takes,” he says, looking pleased about it. Being the biggest pain in anyone’s ass is usually Ilya’s job. 

“I will be worse,” Ilya warns him with a grin that he almost means. 

“Challenge accepted,” smiles Angelo easily. “Now, I need you to extend your leg for me…” 

And so begins the most gentle physiotherapy Ilya has ever had to work through. All the movements he makes are barely twitches. It’s ten full minutes until he even has to stand; supported the whole way, with the ottoman placed under his knee to keep the weight off his ankle. He’s still enough he could be a life model. Through it all, Angelo nods, makes encouraging hmm sounds and tells Ilya how each new almost-movement corresponds to the plan he’s forming. He guides Ilya through a couple of basic core stretches to add to his current repertoire, with instructions to repeat them no more than twice a day. How to stretch his neck without straining it, keeping his movements to nothing bigger than the thickness of a finger. 

Angelo tells him he’ll back tomorrow, with a plan to start things properly. “Is there anything you need before I leave?” he asks, as much to the conspicuously quiet house as to Ilya. Ilya, now safely back in his nest of cushions, taps his phone. 

“No. Thank you. Will summon Shane if I need,” he says, not meaning to refer to his husband like a well-trained dog. Angelo looks at him like this will be the last time Ilya’s going to be polite about his presence, and takes his leave. 

- 

Shane is talking on the phone when he returns from his walk. Or at least, he’s listening; Ilya can make out the occasional yeah, and oh, and okay, and thanks, that sounds like he’s been pulled into a conversation with someone vaguely managerial. It’s not until he hears a much softer I love you too that Ilya realises it must be Yuna. Either that, or he’s grown closer to Hayden than Ilya realised, which—Ilya might examine why his brain keeps defaulting to this as an imaginary scenario, but now is maybe not the time. 

“I missed you,” Shane says, flopping onto the sofa next to Ilya. He snakes his arm through Ilya’s and locks their fingers together. 

It’s barely been an hour, but Ilya doesn’t press; they can both cope with a little separation anxiety, and something about resuming their urgent proximity still warms him all the way through to his core. “All okay?” he asks instead. 

Shane nuzzles into Ilya’s neck, wrapping himself around him like a security blanket. “Kinda. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

And this is how Ilya finds out that Crowell’s downfall is not going to plan. 

According to Yuna, and the shitshow of an interview they’d watched yesterday, it should have been a foregone conclusion. It was a PR disaster. The head of the MLH had got in front of a camera and shown the rotting underbelly of the league to anyone who’d tuned in to watch. Admitted that even if he hadn’t planned what happened, he’d laid the groundwork. Lit the fuse. Whatever other analogy equates to him admitting to making pricks like Drapeau and Comeau and Leyland think they were justified in doing…what they did. In short, Crowell had fucked up. Spectacularly. By rights, he should be buried by now. 

What Ilya hadn’t accounted for, and neither had Yuna, or Shane, or any of them, is how tenacious a cockroach can be. 

“His lawyers tried to sue PuckBeat before the broadcast had even finished,” Shane explains, tangling his legs around Ilya’s so they form a kind of human knot. “Something about misrepresentation. They’re threatening to sue me—us—too. For the recording.” 

Ilya’s heart sinks a little further. Just once, he would like to catch a break. And for that break to not be one of his bones. 

“I could go on dark web,” Ilya suggests. “Put bounty on him. Or wait, does your mother know any…for hire killers?” 

Shane’s laugh is small. “It’s not a total disaster. Not yet. Mom—Yuna,” Shane says, as though Ilya might have forgotten who he means, “says it’s down to the board of governors now. The club owners. They’re a bunch of old money assholes with old money views, but…” 

But. Even with their love of tradition and safety, they’re not immune to the tides of public opinion. Especially not when they think it’s going to cost them money. They just need to be convinced, maybe. 

“It just means everyone’s back on the media shit again,” Shane says, sounding as tired of it all as Ilya feels.  

So. No grand finale to the clown show just yet; the circus just added another ring. 

Shane talks through more of the details; who’s posting what, the traction their video is getting, the work Scotty’s Hotties are doing, again. That they’re optimistic, still. How Rose Landry is leaning on her most clout-adjacent contacts to kick up even more of a fuss. Again. 

“Hey,” Shane is saying in his soft voice, which means Ilya’s doing that thing where his face gets sadder than he meant it to. “It’s not a lost cause. It’s just…She’s still talking about succession plans, for when he goes. Just gonna take more time than we hoped.” 

“Yuna should replace him,” Ilya says, because he means it, and because of how many people it would piss off. It would be, objectively speaking, fucking brilliant. 

“I think even she wants a break from league,” Shane says, with the incredulity of someone who has never been confronted by the concept of Yuna getting fed up with hockey shenanigans. “She’s got ideas about who it’ll be. Thinks it’ll be a wildcard. Won’t say who. You hungry?”

Permanently, Ilya thinks. And because he doesn’t want to be thinking about league politics for another fucking second, he diverts his energies into persuading Shane that having ice cream for his next meal is medically necessary. And because Shane is the best husband, he relents. 

- 

Ilya’s hands dip between the sofa cushions. Shane is in the downstairs gym, which means that Ilya has time to consider how best to turn his persistent teasing into something they can both actually enjoy. Because distracting each other from their own brains is becoming something of an emergency. As he pulls out the tufts and strings and plastics of the stupid fucking nurse outfit, he frowns. It’s not an inherently sexy combination of fabrics, for sure. 

If he’d been more strategic about it, he’d have maybe ordered a cap-sleeved, PVC shirt. Something that would sit open, showing the mounds and divots of Shane’s chest. Maybe a harness. Something sweat could run off, in a lickable trail. Maybe—

The top part of the outfit is not a harness. It’s…flimsy. A few tangled strips of thick black elastic ribbon; one to wrap around the back, a few more to settle against the pecs, with that stupid plastic little red cross to sit over the nipples. And shoulder straps. Adjustable clasps. Ilya tests the give in the elastic, twangs it a few times. Snaps it against his arm. It’s workable, probably. 

And the little cap, of course. It even comes with a grip built into it, so it won’t fall out of Shane’s hair when he’s bobbing up and down. Or throwing his head back, throat bared to Ilya’s teeth. Or, whatever. 

It’s the lower half of the ensemble that’s a fucking disaster. For one, there’s this mesh-y, tufted bundle of something that looks like it’s meant to be a skirt, but only long enough to cover about two inches of hip. That part can stay in the sofa, because it’s not even fit for Anya to use as a toy. Then, there’s the thong. It’s a long, generous triangle at the front. Kind of like a jockstrap, but not really designed for much of a…protrusion. There’s no support in it, at all. He thinks about Shane’s choice of underwear; cotton, microfibre, and the occasional silk or bamboo blend. The thing in his hand is nothing like that. It’s plastic-y; designed for aesthetic and not comfort. It’s a friction burn waiting to happen. It’s a sweat trap, is what it is. 

Shane likes sweat. Just not on himself. He’s told him, before; in the ways he seeks out the hollow beneath Ilya’s shoulder, burying his face into his armpit. Finding his way to the crease of Ilya’s thighs and licking a path into the nest of hair, nuzzling, huffing the closed off spaces. 

He’s told him in words, too, even if Ilya had to drag the confession out of him during a particularly mean round of denial. One of his earliest fantasies, Shane had said. Mumbling the words as if making it quiet would make it less true. It would be a locker room, post-game. He’d have done something that let the team down, in this fantasy. And when Ilya had finished teasing him about what the something might have been, because he knows Shane wouldn’t have been able to commit to the idea without having the logistics of it nailed down, Shane had continued, red-cheeked and mortified. 

“I’d…I’d have to make it up to them,” he’d said. “Not…all of them,” he’d clarified, because Ilya hadn’t been able to contain his delight at this imagined scenario. He stashed the (compelling) visual of Shane being the recipient of an apology team bang, and listened instead to Shane’s tamer version. That to show how sorry he was, Shane would have to clean the cups that guarded their groins. With his mouth. 

Ilya had tried so hard not to laugh. Especially when he could see the embarrassment etched into Shane’s face as he ground out the details. Except, what it boiled down to, was Shane’s first gay awakening being about the thought of doing fucking laundry. Albeit creatively, but. Still. Christ. Somehow, it was still the hottest fucking thing Shane could have told him. Not least because Shane probably spent as much time being so scared of the thoughts that got his dick hard back then, that he’d have made sure he never even made the kind of mistake that featured in his closeted, horny brain. It was the kind of thing that made Ilya love that brain so much it made him dizzy with it. Enough to earn Shane his withheld orgasm, and to speed Ilya’s up seconds after. 

Ilya’s not exactly doing any workouts just yet, and nothing like the levels of intensity that would match Shane’s formative fantasy ideal. But he does have some physio in his imminent future. Hopefully, it’s not the worst idea he’s had in a while. 

- 

“We are very rich,” Ilya says, seemingly apropos of nothing. They’re in the garden, drinking soup in the warm sunshine, watching Anya trying to befriend a black and white cat. The cat is having none of it, at first. She circles her patch of grass protectively, hackles raised. Anya slinks back to the safety of the table. 

“We are?” Shane says, eyes focused on the cat like he’s willing her to be braver. “I mean, yeah. Why?” 

Ilya doesn’t want to suggest what he’s about to say. To him, it feels like an admission of failure, for both of them. But it also feels like a temporary solution to what is, hopefully, a temporary problem. 

“Rich people can pay other people to help, sometimes,” Ilya says. The cat inches closer. 

Shane frowns. He’s never been good at accepting outside help; years of maintaining barriers of privacy that even Ilya sometimes has to work to break down. He’d only agreed to getting a fortnightly cleaner after extended bargaining, because Ilya had reasoned that they had more fun things to do than scrub the grout between the bathroom tiles. He’d had to demonstrate some of those more fun things until Shane relented, but he’d won that one, eventually. 

“Shit,” Shane says, which isn’t the answer Ilya was hoping for. “What—what do you need?” 

Ilya watches all the sun-warmed slackness tighten across Shane’s shoulders, and, fuck. It’s happening again. Every thing Ilya says is still getting translated through Shane’s filter of perceived inadequacy. The things he thinks he should be doing, and the things he is doing that aren’t enough. Like there’s an anvil hanging over him, ready to crush him under the weight of self-imposed expectations. Ilya doesn’t want to be the source of those expectations. He wants to just be his. 

“Malysh, no,” Ilya says, wrapping his hand around Shane’s. “Is not that. You are doing all the things,” except Shane’s face says he doesn’t believe him. “I just. Maybe you should not have to?” 

Shane stops looking at the cat, who has tentatively curled up a few metres away from them. Now, he’s looking at Ilya as though he’s suggested something so offensively outlandish that he doesn’t have the words to interpret it. Then, he starts frowning, and it’s Ilya who’s feeling like he’s let Shane down. 

“I want to,” Shane says simply. 

Ilya opens his mouth to expand on the differences between wanting to and not breaking under the strain of it, but Shane cuts him off. 

“I’m not doing this out of…out of duty,” he says. “And fuck you if you think that? Ilya, you’re talking about yourself like you’re a problem. A chore.” 

This is maybe true, because Ilya still isn’t used to the ways he feels justified in taking up so much of someone else’s care, despite the crash course he’s had. 

“You can be such a fucking dumbass,” Shane continues, and no one else in the world can make that word sound so affectionate. “I had to watch everyone else do everything for you. In the hospital. And it fucking killed me that I couldn’t, because it should have been—I should have been doing it.” 

Ilya remembers it differently; every memory of comfort he has from the long and terrible days he’d spent in that fucking bed hadn’t come from drugs, or the competency of the medical staff. They’d come from Shane. His hand being held, and then the rest of him. The dry shampoo, when his hair had got brittle and lank. The damp towels on his face when his skin was burning from fever, and the kisses on his forehead. The shower, that Shane had to bargain with Marev for. All of it. What he says is, “You were.” 

“I tried,” Shane concedes. “And I know I’m still fucking up—”

“You are not fucking up,” Ilya says, pulling Shane’s knuckles to his mouth to kiss them. 

“I am. The antibiotics, earlier. And I probably will,” Shane says instead. He’s nodding in that determined way that says Ilya shouldn’t derail him with any stupid comments. “But I still want to be the one doing it. Because I love you, you fucking idiot. I want to take care of you. I think you want that too? And I need you to let me.” 

Duly chastised, Ilya sits back. “Okay,” he says. Okay. Then, hopefully, “Wait, does that mean…?” 

“Yes, it means, asshole. I’m taking a shower. We should be inside for this.” 

Ilya’s grin feels like it reaches up to his forehead, as he’s wheeled back inside, to the makeshift bedroom. 

- 

Ilya is so bad at being patient. At being a patient, he corrects, because he’s getting ready to see the results of days of teasing, and he’s getting into the spirit. 

His dick is getting into the spirit, too. Called to action by the rushing water sounds of Shane’s preparation rituals, carrying from the upstairs bathroom. Ilya palms at himself through the confines of his shorts, and the less than comfortable thong inside them. It’s been so fucking long. Even with the medications, and the dim background hums of his body being…difficult, he’s so ready for this. They’ve had enough conversations with words; he’s ready for the kind they have with their whole bodies. He clips his soft collar back on, because he doesn’t trust himself to keep any part of himself in check when—when Shane. 

An even better sound, is Shane’s footsteps padding down the stairs. The rummaging between couch cushions. The occasional muttered curse, and the fiddling of clasps. A muttered why the fuck are you like this that could be about either of them, but Ilya reckons this one is for him, this time. 

And finally, Shane’s voice in the hallway, inches away from where Ilya can see him. 

“I couldn’t find all of it,” he says. “And I’m not putting that fucking tutu on.” 

“Is okay,” Ilya says, almost vibrating with anticipation. 

“Ready to get cared for, Rozanov?” grins Shane, stepping into view. 

Ilya is so fucking proud of himself for not coming on the spot. 

- 

The most noticeable thing about Shane, is how wet he is. Like he only got halfway through towelling off after the shower, and instead chose to weaponise the way the water clings to every curve and stretch of his body. He looks…drinkable. Lickable. 

“Fuck,” Ilya says, because all his other thoughts are comprised of want, and need, and again, fuck. 

The next thing, is the assembly of the insubstantial strings of the…it’s not really a top. It’s more of an elasticated frame for the contours of his chest. Wrapping across his midriff, straps digging into his shoulders, and those tiny little black and red crosses pressed over his nipples. It’s almost a crime that those are the parts of him that are hidden, because the urge Ilya has to sink his teeth into them, right fucking now, is compounding by the second. 

Then, there’s the fucking PVC cap, catching the light in creases when Shane turns his head. The way Shane’s clipped it, lopsided, it doesn’t interrupt the wet tendrils of his hair falling over his eyes, but it frames it. Frames him. Like he’s wearing a crown. 

“Fuck,” Ilya says again, for emphasis. 

Whatever discomfort Shane might have had about dressing up for Ilya has apparently vanished, because there is no other stitch on him, and his dick is already bobbing out of the neatly trimmed hair of his groin. 

“Upstairs,” Shane says, blooming under the thirsting adoration of Ilya’s gaze. Because upstairs is where the best of their toys live. And upstairs means that Shane’s next act of care, is to carry Ilya there. 

Shane manages one full step towards the staircase before Ilya tugs at the back of his neck to demand a kiss. Because Shane is trying to be very good at taking care of Ilya, he doesn’t complain about the strain on both of their bodies as he balances 180 pounds of Ilya, carefully enough to sink their mouths together without stumbling. He shivers as Ilya’s teeth latch on to his jaw, tilting his head into it. 

“I love you so fucking much,” Ilya manages, as the stairway disappears behind them and Shane places him carefully on their bed. He’s already propped the cushions up for Ilya to sit back against. 

“It’s important you don’t strain yourself,” Shane says, tentatively stepping into role. “You need to let me take care of everything for you, sir,” he says, eyes glistening dark. “Why don’t you tell me what you need.” 

Ilya’s brain is playing an unhelpful symphony of wants and not one shred of direction or sense amongst them. His hand reaches for the outside of his shorts, because he needs to touch, and be touched. He also needs this to last, because it’s too good not to. He should not still be wearing this many clothes. 

“That, uh, isn’t recommended,” Shane says, “sir,” leaning over Ilya to pull his hand away and lay it back at his side. “Maybe I can help you in other ways?” 

“Ah, I must not do anything strenuous,” Ilya says, parroting the instructions on his discharge papers. “So what I need,” Ilya manages, “is for you to work that asshole wide open for me. Show me what you can take.” 

Shane’s smile is bordering on feral. When he shifts his body, the straps flex and pinch and dig. Like each of them is trying to contain him, and barely managing. What Ilya really needs, is for Shane to get close enough that he can start working on them with his mouth. 

“If you’re sure that will help,” Shane says, reaching into the trunk at the end of the bed. Pulling out a black vibrating dildo. The one he usually complains is too firm, not yielding enough. Painful, in the wrong circumstances. 

“Need to see my husband take himself apart like the needy slut he is,” Ilya says, approving of the choice. “Is only cure. And then I need him to massage my dick with his greedy asshole.” 

“Fuck,” agrees Shane. "That was...not in your care instructions, but if you're sure..."

He makes short work of slicking the toy, kneeling on the now closed trunk, and makes shorter work of himself. 

“Show me,” Ilya says, because Shane’s angle is all wrong; he’s got his arms reached behind him, chest arching forward. Ilya’s had enough things hidden from him, and this is not going to be one of them. 

“Better,” Ilya tells him, when Shane tilts his hips, opens his knees and shows Ilya every press of fingertips, knuckles, and then the slow, careful breach with the toy. “Da. So fucking good,” Ilya says, any roleplay long forgotten because this spectacle, sweating and gasping between his splayed legs with his feet tucked under the backs of Ilya’s knees, is all Shane. “Turn it on,” Ilya says, when the dial on the flared base of the toy is all that’s visible. 

“I’ll—it’ll be too fast,” Shane hesitates. And, fair. Ilya’s looking at the swollen wet tip of Shane’s cock, and the way it’s already beading. 

“Get over here, then,” Ilya tells him because the spaces between them are too big. The performance is stunning, but it’s got nothing on the taste of Shane’s skin in his mouth and his body close enough to knead bruises into. 

It takes some maneuvering; Shane shuffling his body, careful not to release the toy. Then under Ilya’s instruction, twisting, so he’s balanced over Ilya’s stomach, body facing away, his thighs making a cage for Ilya’s hips, dampening his clothes. Shane looks over his shoulder, his expression heady with the absolute power he exudes over Ilya. Like he finally understands how spectacular he can be. 

He’s close enough to grab, like this. Ilya does; pins one arm under his cast against Shane’s back, grabs the other wrist with his good hand. Drinks in the throaty gasp of obedient pleasure. God, he needs both of his hands to work for this, because he needs to pin Shane. Needs to hold him, twist the base of the dildo, and tease the straps flexing across his back and shoulders. Hell, he could be an octopus and it still wouldn’t be enough to touch Shane in all the places he wants to. Needs to. 

But. Shane wants to help him, so Shane can do some of the work himself. “Hold your elbows,” Ilya instructs. Watches the flex of shoulderblades as Shane folds his arms behind his back, elbows cupped. Follows the trails of water, or sweat, or both, running down the indents of his spine and into the cleft of his ass. 

“Fuck, you’re so fucking good for me,” Ilya tells him. “Do just what you’re told,” and now he’s got his hand tangled in the back of Shane’s hair, pulling it back to make Shane’s throat arch in an outward curve toward the ceiling. It’s almost more than Ilya’s dick can take, and it’s not even being touched. The noises come out of Shane’s mouth aren’t helping, at all. 

“You want?” Ilya asks, letting go of his hair to toy at the base of the dildo. Nudges it, to prompt Shane to use his words. 

“Want your dick,” Shane manages. “Unless…” 

Ilya’s mouth finds its way to Shane’s spine, to the damp space above where the strip of elastic bisects the expanse of his back. “Unless what?” he demands, before pressing his tongue against skin. Tastes sweat and eucalyptus. 

“Can you?” Shane asks. Of course he fucking can, but just for that, the suggestion that he’s somehow too broken to fuck him like he deserves, Ilya doesn’t give him what he wants. Turning the dial, and pressing his teeth into Shane’s shoulders. 

“Fucker!” 

“Better not come,” Ilya says as a challenge he knows Shane is about to lose. Drags his teeth down Shane’s back until they find the strap, bites into it and pulls it back, as far as the tension allows. 

“Fuck,” Shane says helplessly.  Ilya releases the elastic. The snap of it against Shane’s skin draws out an unholy sound that sinks deep into Ilya’s groin.

"Okay?"

Shane makes a sequence of noises, barely intelligible. Buried amongst them is something like yes, fuck, and another throaty, garbled plea for more. 

The second time, he gets more of a thready, keening gasp. And for the third. He does it again; latches his mouth around the elastic, and this time when he pulls at it, Shane’s whole body chases it. Ilya plants a hand into the small of Shane’s back to push him forward, waits until he’s still—as still as the trembling in his skin allows—and lets go. 

This time, the noise Shane makes at the snap is more like a sob. He pitches forward, unhooking his arms to catch himself just in time. The unmistakable wilt that follows a messy, urgent orgasm. It’s the most beautiful fucking thing in the world and it’s all his. All of it. He did that. Shane’s weight shifts against Ilya’s strained shorts, edging backward. It’s a nothing movement; not even intentional, because Shane is still spinning through the long seconds of blissed out vacant headspace. 

Somehow, that tiny change in pressure is almost enough. The vibrations from the toy still inside Shane, now caught against the rise in Ilya’s shorts, make up the difference. In seconds, Ilya’s spilling in jolts, bursts, and a shout in the back of his throat that’s louder than any noise he’s made in weeks. 

If Ilya’s rational brain were working, he’d say it was just because it’s been so long since he last came. Unfortunately, the only thing in his skull right now is a happy soup of post-nut bliss, and it hasn’t got the mental dexterity to fully appreciate that he’s just come in his pants—thong, he corrects—and he didn’t even use his hands. 

- 

“You came?” is the first thing Shane manages to say, crawling up the bed to lie on top of Ilya. He sounds somewhere between surprised and disappointed, and out of breath. The toy is turned off, safely out of him and lying on the bed. 

“Is not a one time deal, Hollander,” Ilya says, only a little defensive. “I’m not letting this,” he hooks a finger under the front strap of Shane’s strappy decoration, “go to waste.” 

“You came,” Shane repeats, only now he’s grinning about it. “Didn’t even touch you,” he teases, except now he’s touching Ilya, damp hands pulling his vest off and climbing across every bit of skin they find on the way. 

“Yes I fucking came. Because someone,” he snaps the strap, lighter this time, “was gasping like a whore because he is, what, painslut now?” 

“Mm not,” Shane says into Ilya’s jaw, nipping at the hinge of it. 

“No?” asks Ilya, fingers finding their way to the red crosses and the nipples underneath. He pinches one, and Shane hisses. Twists, releases. “So this does nothing?” 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, visibly nearly ready for a second round, stretching to put his chest at Ilya’s eye level. Ilya’s tongue nudges the same cross out of the way, pressed flat against the hard nub of nipple. He catches his teeth on the nub, and tugs. “Fuck,” Shane gasps. Then, “Okay.” 

Ilya lets go. “Okay what?” 

“Ineedittohurt,” Shane says, kneading his fingers through Ilya’s hair, trapping him close to his chest. Ilya, salt-sweat on his tongue, gazes up and wants to drown himself in this moment; Shane’s freckles fighting to be seen in the flush of his cheeks, his eyes so open with their want. His hair, still damp, clinging to him haphazardly, and the tiny cap still hanging on for dear life. This perfect fucking man. Ilya doesn’t want to use his tongue for talking. He wants to use it to lap at every bit of Shane he can reach until he shivers himself undone. 

He can give Shane what he’s asking for; neither of them is new to making things hurt. They’ve worn their bruises like medals. Bitten pathways into the topography of each other’s bodies and then some. Shane’s talked about how he wants to feel Ilya for days after, begged to be pinned, smacked, folded in half and taken out of his body. 

“How much?” Ilya asks, teeth poised ready to demonstrate. Because the pain has always been a part of it, but never the whole point, and he needs to work out where the limit is right now. Ilya bites into soft skin. Sucks a bruise into the space beneath Shane’s collarbone. 

“Yeah,” Shane breathes. “More. Fuck me up,” he pleads. Ilya needs to know, if this is meant to be punishment. Because Ilya can do more. Even with the way his body’s holding him back. What he can’t do is let Shane think he’s doing it because he deserves to hurt for any of it. 

“I can do that,” Ilya says instead. Reaches his hand up to tug at Shane’s chin. Holds his mouth open to push his fingers in. Withdraws, slaps his open palm across Shane’s face.  

“Oh, you can do better than that, Rozanov.” 

“Will give as reward,” is what Ilya says, using the same hand to guide Shane’s head down. The way Shane’s expression switches to purposeful eagerness is enough reassurance. That whatever Ilya does for him, to him, is in praise, not chastisement. Shane crawls down Ilya’s body, kneeling between his legs, hands grabbing at the waist of the shorts to yank them out of the way. 

“What the fuck? Ilya?” 

Because Shane’s just uncovered the wreck of the thong, cum-soaked and insubstantial against the pressure of Ilya’s dick. And it’s not how Ilya had imagined the reveal going, at all, but this is somehow better. Funnier, for sure. “Clean it for me,” is what Ilya tries to say, but he’s laughing too much at the way Shane is processing the scene like he’s got birds flying through his vision. 

“Oh, fuck you for this,” Shane says, grinning. Laughing at first, but he locks in fast. He buries his face in the hot space, lapping and sucking at the fabric, nose and mouth and chin nudging at Ilya’s balls and the trunk of his cock, so now it’s Ilya’s turn for his vision to momentarily white out. 

“Get off,” Ilya says. Begs, really. Because he’s lasting maybe seconds if Shane keeps this up, his head bobbing eagerly in the nest of his crotch with the little cap scraping against the skin of his thighs. “Shane,” he pleads, because Shane is slow to move his wide, perfect tongue away. “Sit on my dick,” is all Ilya manages, “right fucking now.” 

In the spaces between Ilya’s vision spotting out and refocusing, Shane has followed the instruction. Carefully, at first; sinking himself around Ilya’s cockhead, the thong tucked out of the way. Careful. Focused. Then steady, hands on Ilya’s chest for balance. Then all at once; burying Ilya to the hilt, with a loud gasp and a long, slack-mouthed sigh. 

“Right where you belong,” Ilya tells him, those fizzing white stars back again. 

Shane rolls into the praise, shifting his hips. They create a rhythm that’s almost sustainable, in the way that only their bodies know how to interlock. There’s a thrumming ache in Ilya’s bones that threatens to pull him out of things, except every time it does, there’s Shane, arching and preening and impaling himself and Ilya’s right back into the parts of his body that matter. Shane looks almost content, like this is meditative for him. It’s not meditative for Ilya; he’s fighting for his fucking life because fuck, Shane is made for this. And he is made to feel him. 

Ilya promised him a reward, and Shane has earnt it in spades. He’s got his hands—even the cast one is useful for something—and his mouth, and the sweating, undulating expanse of Shane’s chest to work them out on. So he does. Pinches. Bites. Claws on any bit of Shane he can catch in his grasp. Takes every bit of him apart that he can reach until the skin under his teeth starts trembling. “Is what you want?” he asks, when Shane keens out a noise that sounds like a wail, and clenches. 

“Fucking, yes, come on,” Shane demands, head thrown back in delight when Ilya calls him a beautiful needy bitch. 

“Want to scream, dorogoy?” asks Ilya, because he is hanging on by a fucking thread. 

“Make me.”

One sharp slap across Shane’s face, another with the back of his hand, except all Shane does is gasp happily at the sting. The snapping of the straps isn’t cutting it, either, even with the patterns of red-pink indentations left in their wake from every movement. If Ilya had use of his full body, he’d be flipping them right now, fucking into Shane so hard he’d be expecting to meet the floor with the force of it. What he has now, is sheer determination and a collarbone he can latch his teeth around. Claws his fingers into Shane’s back to hold him and bites down like it’s a chew toy. 

Shane slows the grind of his hips. Leans forward like he’s dragging Ilya into his own body, opens his mouth and lets loose a roar of something primal, feral. Ilya pushes his open mouth against it, trapping the breath and force of it into his own lungs. His whole body spasms, shudders, shakes as he comes undone inside Shane. Holds onto Shane as he pushes his own orgasm out with a wrenching tug. Shane’s shouted scream softening at the warm edges of his throat.

It takes a long moment for Shane to climb off Ilya and collapse, boneless. They’re still breathing each other’s air. 

“We can wash up in a minute,” Shane mumbles contentedly into the side of Ilya’s neck, where he’s made himself a new home. 

Something small pangs in Ilya’s chest, because he should be the one to fetch the washcloths. To change the sheets and fetch them both water. Except. Except, he reminds himself. That’s the whole point, of this. To let Shane care for him, in every single way he can. Even when those ways feel too big for one person to bear. And if Shane has decided that part of that care includes letting Ilya pull him apart in all the ways his body can manage then. Well. Isn’t Ilya just the luckiest man in the world, because fuck. 

Everything can wait. Because Shane has gone floppy against him, eyes closed, and his pink mouth curled into a perfect, satiated smile. A few minutes later, he’s snoring softly, arm draped over Ilya’s damp chest. Ilya’s feeling pretty damn cared for. 

- 

“You look worse than I did,” Ilya tells Shane, grinning at the post-shower inspection Shane’s trying to conduct in the bedroom mirror. It’s an exaggeration, but he’s still impressed by the damage. Shane’s back is a criss-cross of nail drags, and his chest, still flushed from heat, is a well-bitten canvas of soon-to-bloom bruises from the crush of Ilya’s fingers and teeth. His collarbone—the one Ilya had wrapped his mouth over and tried to crush between his jaws—is already blossoming in red and purple. Shane prods it, bends to pull his shorts up, and prods it again. And again. 

“That’s not funny,” Shane says, gentling the words. 

“Is a bit funny,” Ilya defends, pulling a clean shirt over himself and flopping back over the dryest stretch of bed. “Want me to kiss it better?” 

Shane pulls a tank top on, one with a low enough neck line to keep the injury well in view. “Your kisses did this,” he says, pressing the pads of his fingers back into it. “I like having you on my skin.” 

Ilya sits back up, arms outstretched to pull Shane down to him. “I can make more,” he says, grabbing Shane’s forearm and pulling it to his mouth. 

“It’s not a chicken bone, dude,” Shane protests, as Ilya nibbles along the length of it. “Quit it.” 

“Am hungry,” Ilya says, letting it go. Then, letting himself tip forward, resting his head against Shane’s new favourite bruise. 

“Me too,” Shane says, wistfully. Ilya doesn’t use it as a launching pad to needle him about eating, hoping Shane will find his own way to that understanding. Which is good, because Shane’s just found another pain point that Ilya hadn’t braced for. 

“I didn’t have any marks from you, at all,” Shane says, in the distant voice he uses when his brain has checked out of whatever’s current and has fallen into the misery pit of his memories. “I was so scared you’d…the impression of you would fade from me. And I wouldn’t get to have you—” 

“You would miss my dick,” Ilya tells him sagely. 

“It’s a really good dick,” Shane agrees. He goes quiet again, ready to sink into his thoughts like they’re made of quicksand. 

“We could get you a tattoo,” Ilya suggests, because this is an easier suggestion to make than therapy. “My face. Maybe get it here,” he pokes at Shane’s hips. “Then I am always on you.” 

Ilya expects deflection. A joke about the worst possible tattoo choice he could make. Hayden’s face, maybe. The lyrics to O, Canada. Gritty. Instead, Shane kisses him on the head and says, “I don’t hate that idea.” Then his brows knot, as he processes what he’s just said. “Not your face, I mean.” 

“My dick, then?” Ilya suggests, and accepts the pillow Shane thumps at him with grace. By flinging it back at him, until the gentlest pillow fight in the world leaves them giggling and breathy, their thoughts lanced around nothing more complicated than the ease of getting to be their perfect, stupid selves, together. 

Chapter End Notes

This update took forever; it was going to be an all-in-one finale, except guess what: MORE WORDS HAPPENED. And there are still more that need to happen. The bones of it are written. But, I'm giving up trying to predict when the next chapter will be, because I've been awake for 38 hours and no longer have a meaningful relationship with the passage of time.

Thank you for reading! <3

Chapter 11: There's Lightning In Your Teeth

Chapter Summary

In the short drive back to their home, Ilya’s phone starts flashing with notifications. He’s been re-added to the team chat, after realising, albeit grudgingly, that he’d been missing the collective stupidity of it all.

Multiple messages in rapid succession either means Luca’s accidentally made another near-fatal innuendo and is having to endure the ensuing pile-on, or it means something Important has happened.

The first message is Bood, with an excitable Holy shit, you guys are watching this???

Ah. Something important, then.

Chapter Notes

Ilya’s phone lights up with a message from Harris. He’s pretty sure he hadn’t shared his new number with him yet—delaying asking Shane to add him to the various group chats—but it’s not an unwelcome sight. 

How’s our favourite Russian menace doing? 

Ilya’s probably doing okay, all things considered. He’d woken up in the arms of a well-rested, slightly bruised Shane, and spent the long, warm minutes of silence in reverent gratitude for every set of circumstances that brought the two of them together. He’d got to enjoy his breakfast smoothie—one made with yoghurt and honey, this time—in the sun-warmed space on their patio, watching Anya curl up with the visiting cat. Listening to Shane laughing about some stupid shit on his phone, like he’d never had a single worry in his life. He’s survived his second session with Angelo, and only sworn at him twice. He’s tired, sure, but he’s optimistic. What he sends back to Harris, is: Good, better. You? 

Great!! comes through immediately, followed by Back from the countryside now, can me and Troy swing by? Fine to say no!!

Saying no to Harris is similar to trying to take a treat out of Anya’s mouth. Ilya isn’t very good at it, so he types back: Anytime :) 

- 

Anytime turns out to be an entire fifteen minutes after Ilya sent the open invitation. He guesses Harris is less good at being patient than he is. Shane’s upstairs, so Ilya gets to prove how good he is at using the wheelchair and the grab rails to get himself to the front door. 

Troy immediately looks to the space above Ilya’s head before he registers his temporarily reduced height. Harris is quicker to catch on. 

“Thanks for letting us visit,” Harris starts. He continues with the energy of a rollercoaster. “I know it’s short notice. I don’t know what you’re allowed to eat yet, but Shane said something about ice cream, so we brought this—” 

Troy, the quieter half of the double act, pulls a condensation-coated carton of something chocolate-coloured out of his rucksack and hands it to Ilya. Harris clocks the physical impossibility of Ilya being able to hold the carton, turn the wheelchair, and navigate the three of them inside, so intervenes. “Can I—can we push you?” he asks. 

Ilya is in a good mood, so he doesn’t make any sort of swipe about preferring this doorway stalemate, and directs them to the kitchen. 

- 

“You’re looking so much better, dude,” Troy says, as they sit around the kitchen table, three small bowls of chocolate ice cream doled out between them. “You, uh, you smell better, too,” he adds. 

“What the fuck, Barrett,” Ilya protests. “Your socks have been playing better offense than the rest of you did all season. Is only reason people stay out of your way. You are like nerve—”

“You’re sounding better, too,” Harris mediates. “I’m sure we’re all gonna regret it soon enough, but your voice is…it’s good to hear you sounding more like yourself again.” 

“Why would you regret?” Ilya says. “I have voice of angel.” 

“Yeah, and the words of a—” Troy starts, and then stops when Shane appears behind Ilya’s shoulder. “Devil,” he says, more quietly. 

“Stop being mean to my husband,” Shane says, dropping a kiss into Ilya’s hair before sitting himself next to him. “Didn’t know you were coming, what’s up?” 

Troy and Harris scrabble with overlapping words to say that they just wanted to come by and see how they were doing, with enough poorly-rehearsed phrases to give away that this was possibly less of a visit, more of an ambush. 

Shane declines the offer of any ice cream. “Let me guess. You need ‘content’?” He doesn’t sound annoyed about it, which is unusual in most circumstances, let alone ones which take place in his home, without prior warning. 

“Yeah,” Harris says. “Afraid so.” 

Shane nods, suspiciously acquiescent. Maybe he’s actually missing all his sponsorship shoots, and is secretly yearning to be in front of a camera? Stranger things have happened, but not many. “What do we need to do?” 

“It’s dead simple,” Troy starts, then, “what the fuck happened there, dude?” 

Because once again, Shane’s choice of clothing is giving his vivid collarbone bruise its own spotlight. Ilya grins with pride, and Shane beams with the satisfaction of someone enjoying making Troy and Harris gape in…awe? Jealousy? Probably the latter. 

“What do you think happened there, dude?” Shane asks, more than a little smug. 

“Fuck me,” Troy mutters. 

“Ah, no,” Ilya says. “Unless we are making sex tape? Stick it to the commissioner by showing him—”

“Nope, nope, nope,” Harris says. “We’re…we just want a few words. About—not about fucking. Please.” 

They claw the conversation back from the brinks that Ilya keeps trying to drag it to, for long enough to establish that they’re getting more confrontational in their social media war against Crowell. They have a plan. The playoffs are nearing their conclusion, and the fear is that if the commissioner outlasts the storm until the final game, it’ll blow over during the off-season. 

“Strike while lamp is hot?” Ilya suggests. He does know the phrase, but it’s worth misusing the idiom for the way Shane gives in to the compulsive need to correct him, and for Ilya to pretend to be grateful. 

“Yep,” Harris confirms. “In an ideal world, we’d have traction from…” he lowers his voice, as though he’s about to invoke a curse by saying the names, and Ilya appreciates that, because, fair: “Leyland and Comeau’s outcomes, but realistically, that could take months. And class actions can drag on for years.”

“Long enough to bankrupt Montreal?” Shane asks, hopefully. 

“We can dream,” Harris says, “but in the meantime, assume they’re still gonna be around like a bad smell for a while longer—”

“So like Troy’s socks,” Ilya interjects. 

“Fuck off,” Troy mumbles. “They’re not even that bad.” 

“They are,” Shane says, before channeling Yuna and dragging them back into purpose. “So what do we need to do?” 

“I know!” Ilya exclaims. “We show supercut of all goals and assists this season,” he starts, as a very reasonable suggestion that Harris and Troy are nodding along to. Shane remains (correctly) skeptical. “And then we do tally of how many of them were scored by players who like sucking dick.” 

“This is why you’re not allowed on the team social media, Roz,” Harris tells him, weariness already starting to infuse his words. Ilya has this effect on a lot of people. “We’ve tried to keep everything lighthearted, positive. Focus on the future, that kind of thing. And it’s helped. A lot, I think.” 

“Yeah,” Troy chimes in. “There’s like a ton of people saying cool stuff and shit.” 

“Your eloquence never fails to astound,” Ilya says, blowing Troy a kiss when he inevitably glares across the table. 

“You want us to be honest,” Shane says. “Show the other side of it,” he corrects. 

“Yeah,” Harris says, tone shifting to serious. Sympathetic. “And if you don’t want to do that, either of you, I totally get that. You don’t have to. We’ve already got stuff from a lot of players. Not just our team. Across the whole league. That rookie from Montreal—Jacques—his bit was…intense. Good intense, but, yeah. So you don’t have to. It’s not gonna be a long video, we probably have enough—”

“I’ll do it,” Shane says. Nudges Ilya’s foot, a small reassurance that he’s got this. Ilya doesn’t have to. Ilya still doesn’t know how honest he’s prepared to be, about this. To himself, let alone anyone else. 

“I can say something,” Ilya offers anyway. “But it may not be. Broad—airable.” 

“Thanks,” Harris tells them, sincere. And maybe relieved. “We’ll try and make it painless.” 

- 

They shoot the videos separately. Harris with Shane in the garden, Troy in the kitchen with Ilya. Ilya keeps stealing glances out of the window, to where Shane is sitting in a chair in front of the planter wall, the same one he’d fallen apart against a few days ago. Hopefully, today’s revisiting of the horrors will be kinder. Anya is there for moral support, and so far Harris has spent more time fussing her than paying attention to Shane. Also, he notes, Shane has not changed his shirt. Meaning that Ilya’s tooth marks will be immortalised in film. It’s a nice thought. 

“Just, like, talk about what you were thinking,” Troy tells him, pointing his phone at Ilya. “At the time, I guess?” 

Troy is absolutely terrible at this. It’s a good thing he’s proficient at hockey, because Christ. 

“I was thinking it would suck if I died because Montreal’s worst player forgot how a hockey stick works,” Ilya tries on the first attempt. Troy grimaces uncomfortably at the screen of his phone, then at Ilya. 

“You sure that’s how you wanna…?” 

Ilya glowers hard enough that Troy lets his voice fade out. He allows himself a few moments to think about things in a way he really doesn’t want to. Feelings are things he shares with a select few people, not an audience of however many Harris is hoping to reach with this. Except, if it helps clear out a little more of the trash…

When he’s ready, he nods to Troy to start again. 

“I do not get scared,” Ilya starts. It’s almost true. “I did not think I was scared, then,” he says, which is a little more true, right up until he hits the glitch in his memory when it isn’t. “I think I was more scared after,” he says. He’s mangling this, but if he doesn’t say it now, he might not say it at all. “Because I thought. I worried. Fuck. Sorry.” 

“We can edit it,” Troy says. “Keep going. If you wanna?” 

Ilya doesn’t wanna, but he does keep going. Treats it like a practice run for when he can’t keep the press at bay. “What was worst,” Ilya says, because he doesn’t want the word ‘scared’ to be the one that sticks to him. “Was not what happened. That was bad.” He laughs, a short, unconfident noise that he hopes Harris will edit out. “Worst thing was knowing that other people would see that. Would see someone get hurt because of who they are. Who they love. And would think they had to expect that. Is not true. Those men are minority. Miserable, angry men, who try to ruin it. For everyone.” 

He is absolutely butchering this. If Harris manages to pull a single soundbite out of this, he’ll deserve a fucking medal. Lord knows someone on the Centaurs’ roster deserves one. He carries on, avoiding Troy’s gaze which has turned mournful and puppyish. 

“There are people who have power,” he continues, feeling his skin getting hotter as he tries to drive towards a point. This would be—not easy, but easier—in Russian. “And they are trying to use that, that power. To make it like what happened was…was okay. That it was just a mistake. It was not mistake. Is what happens when you say that one way is wrong. People think they are allowed to punish you, for being wrong. We are not wrong,” he says, and now the words are feeling harder to push out. They’re not making sense, but he’s still trying. “Men like that should not have power if that is how they use it,” he says, throat feeling knotted from the exertion of too many words and so many of them hurting. “I—”

He stops, because the tight, stretched feeling in his oesophagus is turning into moisture at the back of his tonsils and a warning heat that he’s getting too familiar with. He waves at Troy to put the phone down, gesturing towards the sink. 

Troy’s reactions are slower off the ice, but he gets the idea; pushes Ilya’s chair towards the kitchen sink, just in time for Ilya to lose his last meal. 

“Shit, dude.” 

“Is what happens,” Ilya says, after he’s scooped water into his mouth a few times, “when Russian men talk about their feelings.” 

“Shit. I’m so sorry, dude. I didn’t know it would—I should have guessed, I mean, fuck.” 

Ilya wonders what would happen if Troy ever tried to write a book of poetry. “Eh, it happens,” Ilya says dismissively, pretending this is a very normal interaction to be having. A year ago, he’d have been mortified at something like this being witnessed; proof of his fallibility, all the raw and fleshy parts of it laid out and vulnerable. Now, being seen as he is, by people he trusts, doesn’t feel like the scariest thing in the world. He pushes aside the detail that it’s probably because he’s got a new benchmark of fear, now. 

The thing is, he doesn’t feel upset, as such. He’s not sad about it. Not really, not anymore. He’s survived it, and he’s in his beautiful home that he shares with his beautiful husband, with his—maybe not beautiful, but still pretty great—friends, and he’s recovering. And sure, he doesn’t like talking about it, because who would? It’s just that his body seems to be making the decisions about how he feels louder than his brain can, and it sucks. All he tells Troy, is, “Not your fault,” following it with a smile that feels mostly sincere. 

The kitchen door opens to an apologetic looking Harris, trailed by a glossy-eyed Shane. Looks like everyone’s really enjoyed their time doing this, then. Shane clocks Ilya’s new position—still too close to the sink, with Troy hovering protectively behind him. He steps between Troy and the back of the chair, moving Ilya back to the table, rubbing small circles into the back of his neck. 

“So, we all ready to do a second take then?” Shane asks the very quiet, very tense kitchen. 

Troy and Harris look absolutely terrified at the suggestion, in a way that’s almost comical. Ilya can’t turn his neck to see Shane’s satisfied little smile at the wind up, but he can feel it. “You are mean,” he says, a little proud. 

“We, uh,” Harris starts, now he’s sure Shane was joking, “should probably go. Thank you. I really think it’ll help. I’m just. Really sorry, guys.” 

“Is fine. But if the video doesn’t work,” Ilya says, “you should do the dick-sucking stats one.” 

“Roz, please no.” 

Shane stands and pulls Harris into a hug, rounding it off with a firm shoulder pat. He does the same with Troy. It’s the most demonstrative act he’s ever seen Shane perform with either of them, and Ilya wonders how much they’d bonded while he was in hospital. It’s both uncharacteristic, but also incredibly natural, the way he does it. Shane Hollander gives bro hugs now, apparently. 

“Bring more ice cream next time,” Ilya tells them, not wanting to invite his own hugs. “I wasted this one.” 

Troy and Shane share a wince, and farewells are bid. 

That afternoon, Ilya makes a phone appointment with Galina. Shane starts googling for a therapist of his own. 

- 

Angelo upholds his promise of being the biggest pain in Ilya’s ass. And his spine. And in every bit of Ilya’s body that falls under his professional touch. They’re only three sessions in, and Ilya has already learnt not to be lulled into the sense of security that his warm demeanour offers. 

“So, you are meant to be like angel?” Ilya asks from his spot on the floor, because he’s got no further in deciphering whether Angelo has any more names besides the one he’s given, and he refuses to ask a direct question. He is also starting to believe that his personal physiotherapist may in fact be the devil and so he is seeking proof, one way or the other. 

Angelo, currently negotiating Ilya’s hips into a position that probably looks very gentle but feels like hell incarnate, doesn’t break his focus. “Sure,” Angelo says eventually, as Ilya heavy-breathes his way through the next five rotations of bones that emphatically do not want to be rotated. “Be not afraid, my dude.” 

“I hate you.”

Angelo gives him a ten second breather, and guides him into the next stretch. This one seems to reach directly into Ilya’s pelvis and yank at muscles he didn’t even know existed there. “Hold,” Angelo instructs. Ilya holds. For all he hates this, the thought of not regaining the strength he’s lost is worse. 

“You’re still holding your right side too tight,” Angelo says, putting a cushion beneath Ilya’s knees. “Try again, letting go here—”

Ilya mutters peevishly in Russian. Angelo answers in Spanish, and offers Ilya an unflappable expression of victory. 

“It’ll go better if we understand each other,” Angelo says, with the kind of patience that tells Ilya this is not a battle he’s ever going to win. 

“Ya tebya nenavizhu,” Ilya says. Then, “Fine.” 

“Merci,” Angelo says. 

At Ilya’s continued, albeit resentful compliance, Angelo’s smile grows a little bigger. Still not at full beam, but Ilya finds himself wanting to persist for long enough to get there. Maybe not today. But eventually. 

- 

Shane comes back from his first in-person therapist appointment with his shoulders higher than Ilya has seen them in the last few days. Which is saying something. 

“What do you need?” Ilya asks, instead of how was it? 

Shane gives a heavy exhale as he shucks off his shoes. “To never be asked ‘how does that make you feel?’ again, ever?” he says. “I don’t know how I feel. Isn’t that the fucking point?” 

For once, Ilya manages to rein in his impulse to immediately jump on the nerves Shane is wearing too close to the surface, and suggests they find him someone less irritating to talk to instead. 

Anya jumps onto Shane’s lap before he’s even finished sitting down. She proceeds to spend the next few minutes dragging her little nose and her tongue over all the bits of Shane she can reach, before settling into a cosy bundled slump. 

“Anya can be my therapist,” Shane decides. He uses the hand that isn’t resting on her head to twine his fingers through Ilya’s curls. “Does Galina do that with you? The whole…” He changes his voice into a weird low register as he delivers his impression. “‘Tell me, Ilya, how does that make you feel’ thing?” 

“No, moy lyubov,” Ilya assures him. “She makes it like conversation. But conversation with someone who does not put up with bullshit. Yours sounds like…bad.” 

Shane goes quiet, and Ilya sinks a little further into the soft calm contentedness of having his scalp massaged by strong, purposeful fingers. 

“Maybe you could just fuck the thoughts out of my head,” Shane says eventually. 

“Mmm. You have too many thoughts. Would take too much fucking. I have only one dick.” 

“I have more,” Shane says, eyes getting brighter as the idea of raiding the toy trunk percolates. “We could—”

“Ah, you will kill me,” Ilya protests, but Shane might be on to something. “Maybe. But we are finding you a new therapist first.” 

Shane groans, and lets go of Ilya’s hair to pull up his phone. 

- 

The ENT specialist at Civic is the person tasked with telling Ilya what he is and isn’t allowed to eat. She’s working in league with the dietician, but the focus of these sessions is about the mechanics of eating. The visits to her department are scheduled weekly, so she can check his progress. Ilya hasn’t yet worked out if Shane’s presence in these appointments—because someone needs to propel his chair in and out of every new space he inhabits, and it’s nice to have him close—is what prompts him to try and be on his best behaviour. Because he wants to ask, in every appointment, when she’ll clear him for sucking dick. Instead, he listens very carefully to all the things he still isn’t cleared to put in his mouth. 

What the ENT specialist tells him, on this visit, is that he can start experimenting with viscosity. Shane translates for him. “Thickness,” he explains, and then immediately follows it with a whispered “Shut up,” because Ilya’s grinning. 

“Mashed potatoes,” she tells them, “except they can’t be dry. They need to be runny.” The face that Shane makes at that is a horrified one. “Anything that goes into you needs to be wet,” she continues, and then, to make it worse, “Think of anything you eat as needing to be lubricated.” 

Ilya tries very hard not to snort at that. And fails. Shane tries not look mortified, and also fails. The two of them sit in her office trying not to giggle, while she pretends she’s still talking to adult men and not a pair of brats. She places a spoon and a small paper cup of something that might at one point have been mashed potato in front of Ilya. It’s so runny that it looks…it looks…

There’s no getting away from it. The tiny pot looks like it’s been loaded up with congealing cum. Ilya looks at his ENT specialist pleadingly. Shane peers into the pot and starts snickering again. 

She waits for the pair of them to get over their reactions, places the spoon in Ilya’s hand, and patiently explains that he needs to test his tolerance to new foods here, where it’s safe. Meaning, if he chokes, there are enough people around to deal with that. It’s sobering enough that Ilya does what he’s told. Swallows the mashed potato, chases it with water, and confirms that it didn’t hurt. 

It’s a success. Along with jelly, thin porridge and cottage cheese. Next week, they’ll try him with stewed beef. 

- 

They spot someone, on their way out of the clinic. Or rather, they’re spotted by someone. It’s a guy, leaning semi-conspicuously against one of the walls leading to outpatients. Phone in hand, angled towards to the glass doors. 

The steps Ilya and Shane have taken to avoid being recognised are pretty half-assed; sunglasses and face masks, and the general belief that there wouldn’t be anyone expecting to see them there. Yet somehow, in the thirty-odd paces between these doors and their car, this random guy has spotted them and is currently angling his phone to track their movements. He’s doing it like he thinks he’s being subtle. He isn’t. 

“Wait here,” Shane says, tucking Ilya’s chair out of the path of people going in and out. The stranger’s phone stays trained on Ilya, not Shane, which means that the man holding it isn’t paying attention to two hundred pounds of barely repressed rage manifesting at his side a few seconds later. Which makes the next couple of seconds all the more delightful: Shane grabs the phone with an arm-pinning twist, checks the screen, and smashes the device into the solid concrete corner of the building. It isn’t showy, the way he does it. It’s efficient. Ruthless. He smacks it a second time, leaving no room for ambiguity, and dumps it into the trash. 

“What the fuck, man?” the guy is saying, because in the couple of seconds it’s taken Shane to demolish his phone, he hasn’t managed to do anything more than open his mouth in surprise. “I wasn’t even—”

“Yeah,” Shane tells him, voice level. “And no one will ever believe you.” 

God, he loves this man. So fucking much. 

- 

In celebration of Ilya being cleared to upgrade his diet to include gloopy mashed potato, Shane eats his first solid meal. It’s nothing exciting; a bunch of tenderstem broccoli, a pool of runny, buttery mash that matches the one in Ilya’s own bowl, and a piece of grilled chicken breast. The other piece has been blended into a fine soup, completing Ilya’s beige dinner. 

“Stop watching me,” Shane bristles, spearing the first (dainty) slice of chicken on his fork. 

Ilya can’t help it. It’s almost as good as watching Shane take himself apart for him, except this looks a lot more like trying to put himself back together. He doesn’t say thank you, to Shane, because this isn’t for him. 

Ilya tries very hard to focus on his own meal, stealing glances to watch the progression of food—real, solid food—steadily disappearing off Shane’s plate. 

“It’s not like before,” Shane says, when the last of the broccoli disappears. “It’s—if you couldn’t eat, I wanted to, I…needed to know what it was like. For you,” he says. 

“You wanted to beat me, even at eating soup,” Ilya says. “Shane Hollander, number one soup eater.” 

“Fuck off, you know what I mean.” 

Ilya probably doesn’t. But he thinks that it was less about solidarity and more about guilt. He also knows he is way, way out of his depth with this one. “We will get you trophy,” Ilya says instead, “for winning at smoothies.” 

“Shut up. I just mean, if I was hungry, it means you’d be hungry. So I’d know when you were… if it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t have been fair, otherwise.” 

Ilya doesn’t point out the contradictions in Shane’s logic; that Ilya’s only eating for recovery, and Shane has been working out, taking Anya for runs, using Ilya as a glorified weight-training regimen, and plenty more besides. He just takes his last spoonful of mashed potato, looks at Shane’s empty plate and says, “Is good.” 

Later, when Shane is trying not to complain that his stomach is cramping, Ilya climbs over him and places a kiss on his tummy. Blows a raspberry on it. Murmurs “I’m so fucking proud of you,” so quietly that Shane doesn’t hear the words. 

He hopes he feels them, instead. That they’ll burrow inside the skin and warm him from the inside, and remind him to stop hurting himself with restriction disguised as discipline. 

- 

Shane tells him about his dreams, sometimes. The ones that have him reaching for the pulse point on Ilya’s wrist, or the one in his neck. The worst ones, Shane tells him, are the ones where he wakes and they’re not touching. How in those long, awful seconds when his body has nothing to ground it, Shane is absolutely convinced that he’s alone. That he has been, for a while. And will be, for even longer than that. 

“That is what grief feels like,” Ilya tells him. 

“You’re not dead,” Shane points out. 

Ilya doesn’t know how to explain, that this isn’t how grief works. That it’s not a rational thing, or a linear thing. It just is. It lives in the anticipation as much as the aftermath. 

Shane resumes his search for a better therapist. 

- 

Ilya’s feeling good. His face is free of stitches, at last. The gap in his jaw where teeth once were, is smooth and healed; the upside to not being able to handle solid food is that his mouth has more or less taken care of itself. The old bandages on his ankle have been shed, along with a snowfall of dead skin. They’ve been replaced by a smaller, sturdier wrap with a supporting brace. He’s at the ‘able to step’ but not ‘able to stand’ stage of recovery, for that. Angelo had been pleased with the development; encouraging Ilya to practice a pose he describes as flamingoesque, and adding yet more ankle-focused torments to the daily routine. Ilya’s arm is still trapped in the itchy prison of the cast, but the decorations on it—mostly Luca’s—have at least been providing the specialists with entertainment. He’s also getting really, really good at Mario Kart. 

Which is what he’s playing when Shane fusses his way into the living room, dressed in his best ‘I want to impress my new therapist’ outfit. It’s very similar to his ‘I want to continue to earn my parents’ approval’ outfit. Which is to say, a completely unnecessary costume. But it seems to make Shane feel better, so. Plus, Ilya doesn’t want to discourage him from dressing up, when he’s had first-hand experience of what happens when it’s with something more adventurous than linen blends. 

“You sure you’ll be okay?” Shane asks, not for the first time this afternoon. Because this new therapist is further out of town, which means more driving, and more time for Shane to catastrophise about whatever mishaps might befall Ilya in his absence. 

Ilya’s already run through the practical reassurances: he has a wheelchair-friendly route from couch to bathroom, his phone is fully charged and in his pocket, meds are all dispensed and…that’s honestly all he needs to be thinking about. It’s just him, Anya, Mario, and his bowl of ice cream. For the next few hours. 

“If you’re so worried, you could call your boyfriend to come help babysit me,” Ilya suggests, because Shane is still hovering.  

“My what?” Shane asks, his face doing the scrunched up thing that makes Ilya want to lick it smooth again. “Do you mean—Ilya. Do you want to fuck Hayden?” 

“Absolutely fucking not,” Ilya snorts, because that’s a horrifying thought. He’d probably want to get Ilya pregnant and—no, fuck his brain very much for that notion and all the accompanying visuals. 

“You don’t have to fuck everyone you think of as a rival,” Shane pushes, starting to enjoy himself. 

“Is not my fucking rival, Shane,” Ilya huffs. “Is…annoying man, who only made captain because rest of team is in jail.” 

“One. One player,” Shane corrects. Because Leyland’s guilty plea had finally resulted in a sentence that went beyond months, into years. The announcement wasn’t a cause for celebration, as much as relief; that another piece of the last couple of months could finally get filed away somewhere distant. Somewhere safely out of reach. The others are still scrabbling around in the mire of subjects that they’re both avoiding, for now. 

“Okay,” Ilya concedes. “But he still sucks. Go, do your talking.” 

“You sure you’ll—”

“Shane!” Ilya doesn’t want his exasperation to be the last thing that follows Shane out of the door, so he asks for something better. “Kiss, please.” 

- 

A few days later, left to his own Anya-deprived devices, Ilya spends some time pondering a suitable gift for the hospital staff. His time spent there is now the sort of memory he can view with detachment, instead of abject horror. And while, yes, there were a couple of staff who got his hackles raised—the guy who never spoke to him, for example—he’s just one guy. And also part of a team who managed to keep him together. He nudges at the thought: there would have been so many more, that he doesn’t remember. Paramedics. Cleaners. Security. The surgeons who’d worked on his jaw. 

It’s a fucking lot of people. 

He considers waiting to ask Shane about his hospital journal. See if there any names in it that he wants to single out for gratitude. Then, he thinks of Shane’s face when he’d mentioned its existence, and decides that some wounds can be left to scab over. Shane’s doing better, now. He’s even given his new therapist the esteemed praise of “not a total dick,” which is better than most people ever get from him. 

So. Ilya can figure this one out on his own. Flowers? Except there’d been none in his room; some sort of sanitising issue. Maybe a giant bag of weed? God knows he’d want that if he’d had to put up with himself for that long. Voice or not, he’s not easy company. 

A voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Shane’s tells him that’s a dumbass thing to be thinking. It’s chorused with one that sounds like Galina, asking him to interrogate why he thinks that. Right. Because caring for him isn’t, despite what his brain sometimes tells him, the most terrible job in the world. 

He settles on a company who specialise in extravagantly-priced relaxation gifts; aromatherapy, spa vouchers and more CBD products than is probably appropriate. He loads up the online basket, and directs the whole lot to Doctor Marev. 

- 

Some time into Ilya’s gruelling rehabilitation schedule, he’s given the all-clear to do away with the soft collar. The frequent sequences of stretches—raising his chin to the ceiling, wide grimaces, ear-to-shoulder tucks—have reinforced the framework of his neck enough to keep all of him in more or less the right place, without assistance. As long as he stays away from fairground rides or car crashes, he’ll be golden.  

Once Angelo departs, Ilya celebrates this good news by summoning Shane to his side. He’s got the padded foam support in his hand, prodding indents into it that spring back when he releases it. 

“Good session?” Shane asks. Shane likes hearing about the details of Ilya’s physio. From the griping to the grinning, and everything between. Almost everything; Ilya’s had to limit teasing Shane about Angelo being hot, because the knitted looks of frustration he gives have got a little too sincere. 

Today, Ilya’s got a different tactic for antagonistic needling. 

“Good,” Ilya agrees. “I do not need this,” he spins the collar on his fingers, “anymore.” 

Shane beams, always happy to celebrate Ilya’s wins. 

“Would be a shame to just throw out, I think,” Ilya continues. It wouldn’t be—it’s an ugly, soft blue thing that has no sentimental value. Even so, he wouldn’t rush to get rid of it; he doesn’t need the symbolic removal of the things that are helping him through his recovery. It’s not a delineation between being broken and fixed. It’s just a case of what is needed, and when. 

Shane’s happy face is shifting into a wary confusion. The kind he wears when Ilya is planning something and he’s not yet been clued in to what. 

“Sit,” Ilya gestures, opening his legs to beckon Shane into his lap. 

Shane follows the instruction, because he always does. Leans back into Ilya’s chest and twists to angle his questioning expression more forcefully. Ilya doesn’t let him settle before he’s trying to wrangle the foam belt across Shane’s neck, instead. It’s not easy; his right hand still lacks dexterity, and the clasps at the back of it are fiddly. But he wants to try this. 

“What the fuck,” Shane says, making absolutely no move to stop anything. “You’ve been sweating into this thing for weeks.” 

Because of course Shane’s only objection would be the one about hygiene. “But you like sweat,” he reminds him. Ilya tugs at one of the clasps, enough to settle the collar flush to Shane’s skin. Enough that his breaths move the shape of it. “It suits you, I think,” he says, tugging the second fixture enough that the front of the collar pushes up under Shane’s jaw, tighter than he’s ever worn it himself. Shane’s eyes widen, dark, and he swallows. “You think so too?” Ilya pushes, because Shane has gone quiet in his lovely, pliant way. 

Shane answers by shuffling back into Ilya, enough that the new tension in Ilya’s shorts is an invitation. “Get me something prettier than this and I’ll think about it,” he says, twisting to bite on Ilya’s lower lip. 

-

When Ilya gets sick, it’s a blip. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not the complete undoing of weeks of recovery, or a stark reminder that his body is no longer working in collaboration with him. It is definitely not the proof that the good graces of his youth have finally abandoned him to a future of consequences. It is just a small thing, and it will pass. 

This is what Ilya is telling himself, as he curls into the too-warm bedsheets, trying to find some position that will somehow quell the nausea, soothe the aches that have sunk deep into his bones, and diffuse the cramping headache that’s creeping into his neck. He’s yet to find the exact configuration that will help, but he keeps trying. The overall effect is a limp sort of thrashing, punctuated by occasional grunts of frustration. It’s just a blip. It’ll pass. 

It’s what he’d told Shane, too. It’s just a cold. It’s not a catastrophe. It’s just a rotten morning, nestled in the middle of a lot of much better ones. Shane hadn’t bought it, because Shane is still straddling two worlds; one in which Ilya is okay, and the other, which keeps threatening to end. Ilya’d hoped he’d been moving away from the second one, but apparently all it takes is one high temperature reading to knock him off-balance. 

Shane is on the phone. He sounds calmer than he looks, because the person on the other end of that call can’t hear the way Shane is chewing on his bottom lip between words. They also can’t hear the dig of Shane’s short nails into the skin of his thighs, or the way they drag up and down them as he mmms and okays his way through the interaction. 

“We can be there for twelve,” Shane tells the person on this call. “Thanks.” 

And so, two hours later, Ilya has traded his morning PT appointment for another wheel through the corridors of Ottawa Civic. More scans. More blood tests. More chest sounds, lung capacity measurements, heart rates, blood pressures. The workings of his body once again being catalogued. 

Each person they speak to lists the things they’re checking for, that they’re concerned about and what they want to rule out. The words they use sit in the air in abstracts; empyema, secondary meningococcal infection, lung abscess, and more things that exist in a Schrödinger-style thought trap. They’re either what’s making Ilya’s skin feel like it’s trying to crawl off his body, or they aren’t. All they can do is wait, until one of the tests pings back something they can work with. Something they can treat. 

There’s a lot of pacing, while they wait. Which means Ilya, as an extension of Shane, is wheeled up and down and around the same ten-foot private waiting room, with its sage-green chairs, water dispenser and occasional bursts of Shane trying to rationalise his worries about what’s wrong with Ilya this time. 

“I mean they said your pulse was good, so. That’s good. It’s probably not sepsis,” Shane says. “Because that one—that one I think is weak pulse, fast heart rate. And yours wasn’t that. Have you been feeling clammy?” 

Ilya watches the same rectangle of window whiz past as Shane propels them into another loop of the room. 

“Ah, you are doctor, now?” Ilya asks. The constant movement is making him feel queasy, but being still is somehow worse. 

“And you’ve not got a rash, so it’s not—it’s probably not meningitis,” Shane continues. So, he’s been googling. Except he’s not had time for it this morning, since he woke up surrounded by the damp heat of Ilya’s sweat and launched himself into caretaker mode with more ferocity than usual. Which means he’s been doing this, habitually, because his head is still jammed full of all the things that might go wrong for Ilya and leave his side of the bed cold and dry and empty. 

“Shane,” Ilya tries. “Is just a cold. We are just being safe.” 

Shane pauses, which means Ilya pauses. “When you last threw up,” he asks instead, and Ilya groans quietly. “What if it’s—”

The door with the rectangular window opens, and Shane and Ilya are ushered into the doctor’s office. 

- 

It is just a cold. More or less. Bit more. Sped along by a minor tracheobronchial tear—likely a pre-existing effect of the injury. 

“It looks like a viral infection got in,” the doctor explains. “It’s just hitting you harder because you’re in recovery.” 

Shane lets out a whoosh of breath. 

The doctor goes on to explain the planned stages of healing; how the tear will self-repair, if given the chance to. To give it that chance, Ilya needs to be extra cautious about not doing anything in the vicinity of it. It makes Ilya think of his body as a geographical space, where the paths and tubes of it can be walked through and avoided. Like a really shit fairground, maybe. He’s pulled back from this detour of thoughts by the doctor explaining that his care needs to extend to not puking. Because the contractions will aggravate everything nearby. 

Which is unfortunate, because throwing up is still Ilya’s default reaction to being upset. Much less frequent now, but apparently, enough. He’s tried to rationalise his body out of this pattern, but apparently it’s not that simple. He’s been working instead on just…not getting upset. No social media. No live news. And a hard no to any of the literal hundreds of requests he’s still getting, to engage with the press. Galina’s helping, too; her words steadily weaving patterns of sense into Ilya’s brain where they keep trying to spiral into chaos. 

The infection is minor. It requires rest, and good temperature regulation. Ilya is given a prescription for stronger anti-emetics. A throat-numbing spray, that he absolutely will not misuse in any Shane-related way, and a promise that yes, ice-cream is not as nutritionally dense as he needs, but as long as he continues with the dietitian-approved supplements, it can continue to be a regular part of Ilya’s healing journey. 

Ilya promises inwardly that he’ll try very hard to keep his trauma responses in check, and outwardly, bemoans the fact that being sick again is slowing down the rest of his recovery. 

Shane keeps his fingers knotted in Ilya’s, and gives them an extra squeeze. 

- 

In the short drive back to their home, Ilya’s phone starts flashing with notifications. He’s been re-added to the team chat, after realising, albeit grudgingly, that he’d been missing the collective stupidity of it all. 

Multiple messages in rapid succession either means Luca’s accidentally made another near-fatal innuendo and is having to endure the ensuing pile-on, or it means something Important has happened. 

The first message is Bood, with an excitable Holy shit, you guys are watching this???

Ah. Something important, then. 

It’s followed by multiple reactions: Dykstra, Chouinard, Holmberg, Luca, all sharing a combination of laugh reacts and exploding head emojis. 

“What’s up?” Shane asks, briefly taking his eyes off the road to check on Ilya. Presumably worrying that if Ilya’s got his phone in hand, the chances of him having another stress reaction have increased to a degree that the upholstery of the car isn’t equipped for. 

“I have no idea,” because Ilya’s still squinting through prickly eyes at the chat as it updates, and so far there is nothing more revealing than how many variations of crying and laughing can be conveyed by little yellow faces. 

Troy, always one to defy expectations, gives the first nugget of helpful information, tagging Shane and Ilya jointly: Guys you gotta watch the Guardians’ game U’ll shit 

“Apparently we must watch Toronto game,” Ilya translates, as Shane scrunches his face up in distaste at the idea. 

“Why?” 

Ilya’s already typing out a question to the chat, and is being met by a wall of yet more emojis, and a promise that he needs to see it, to hear it, to appreciate it. None of this is helping his headache. 

“Our team are all morons,” Ilya moans to Shane. “I guess we have to watch to find out.” 

- 

It’s the first game they’ve watched since that one. Shane has been conspicuously inattentive to the progression of the playoffs, choosing only to check up on scores from his phone. He doesn’t seem particularly excited about this one, either, despite the entire team chat still sharing their inarticulate glee about it. 

In the few minutes between the car journey ending, and Ilya getting settled on the sofa with a smoothie, a blanket, an Anya and a Shane, Harris has also sent him a message. 

Thanks for the video footage!! Looks like it had the right effect!!! 

The video, now apparently in heavy rotation across socials. It was a heavy-duty watch, despite its brevity; each segment no more than a few seconds in length; just long enough for each interviewee to give a snappy or emotive soundbite: something about blame, something about safety, something, something, something dire. Ilya’s section was edited to just the basics:

“Worst thing was knowing that other people would see someone get hurt because of who they are. And would think they had to expect that. Is not true. Those men are minority. Miserable, angry men.” 

Shane’s section, calmly spoken, hit a little harder: 

“A league player tried to kill my husband, in front of me, in front of thousands of people. The league that let that happen is still answering to Crowell. That isn’t right. He should be answering to us. To all of us.” 

Ilya’s fairly sure that saying all that, publicly, went against some sort of MLH rule. But, as the threatened lawsuit from Crowell’s people has yet to materialise, he’s not worried. Not too worried. He’s also not heard it spelled out quite that explicitly before. It’s always been dressed up in words that skim the edges of the violences inflicted; assault, if they’re speaking in legal terms, or fucked up if they’re speaking like everyone else. There’s something stark in Shane’s words that make it very hard to look away from. For anyone, probably. 

Another message comes through from Harris, as Shane fiddles with the TV remote, nuzzling into Ilya’s shoulder. 

Troy said you’ve not seen it yet! Spoilers, sorry! Enjoy, speak soon :) 

- 

This game is Toronto against the Admirals, except that’s not the important part. 

It takes about three minutes of the broadcast to work out what has everyone so riled. The camera is showing all the stuff that happens before the players take to the ice. While the commentators talk through hopes for the outcome of the afternoon game, who’s out with injuries, and all the rest, the camera swoops around the arena. Shows every seat in the place full of excitable fans. Zooms in on the important people. And then, it zooms onto Crowell. 

Crowell, stood behind the player’s benches, disappointingly not looking like a man who’s about to be hunted for sport by all 20,000 attendees at the game. 

Until his face lights up on the jumbotron, and most, if not all, of those 20,000 people roar their disapproval. 

Ilya’s heard booing before. He’s lit up under the force of it, felt it rattle his teeth and speed his play and put lightning at the back of his skates. He’s familiar with the kind of noise a crowd will make when they’re fueled up on the energy that manifests in these spaces; an electric, living entity that’s more than a sound. What he’s watching, hearing, on the TV is more than that. Even through the filter of the soundbar, it’s something apocalyptic. 

Then, the first drink gets thrown. Roger Crowell physically jumps to avoid the splash, knocking into the pasty-faced man next to him. Then a second drink, a third, until it’s a barrage. A cascade. Crowell, and the cluster of suited men around him, are cowering in the middle of it, a seething, damp mass of foamy beer spill, flung hot dogs, popcorn and humiliation. The boos swell into a chant. Out. Out. Out. 

Whoever made the editorial choice to keep the camera focused on Crowell’s contorted face is doing great work. It keeps tracking him, as he and his team try and weave their way to safety, pelted by projectiles the entire way. By the time Crowell and his team exit the screen, they’re a sodden, claggy mess of shame. 

“I guess the board of governors is gonna need to have that vote after all,” Shane says happily, as the screen pans back out to show security wrangling the drink-flinging crowd under control, now the target’s out of sight. 

At least now he understands why the team chat had nothing more eloquent to say than a bunch of crying laughing faces. Because, that was fucking hilarious. 

“How’re you feeling?” Shane asks, as the euphoria of the public psuedo-stoning gives way to the much less interesting start of the game. 

Bad,” Ilya says, because his body is still a whirlwind of symptoms and sweat and feelings of weakness he thought he’d left behind. “But also good, yes? Was like when they put town idiot in stocks.” 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “Maybe they should have thrown eggs.” 

Maybe next time. 

- 

Ilya recovers from the infection, the same way he’s recovering from everything else. Which is steadily, with determination. And a lot of help from Shane, in the form of damp cloths wiped across his forehead, blankets to burrow under or fling off, depending on his temperature and temperament. And the other thing Shane does, which is to just hold Ilya in a way that makes him feel like he’s very young again; one hand cupping his face, the other fisted in his curls, pulling him into his chest and rocking smoothly, steadily, until nothing else in the world exists except each other. 

- 

Chapter End Notes

So, it wasn't the fault of the missed antibiotics. Which is good, because Shane's mostly out of the guilt-pits at last, and he needs to stay that way.

Also, Ilya is wrong in his assumption that recovery doesn't require as many calories as everything else: bodies need so much sustenance when they're fighting that kind of thing.

Anyway. This story once again has a fixed chapter count, and the final one is tentatively drafted. It will still take me an age to get it posted.

Thank you for reading! <3

[I'm on Threads as muffichka but so far have only stared, bewildered, at everything happening on there. Also, thank you for the comments: I have finally had some fucking sleep]

Chapter 12: Like Light, Like Answering

Chapter Summary

“We should do something. Maybe like a ‘Fuck Crowell’ party?”

Ilya’s not sure he wants a party so much as he wants a break from any more big revelations. A moment of peace, and all the lazy, lovely things that come with it.

“Is terrible theme,” he tells Shane. “Will make it sound like orgy. Like, people in face masks. ‘Oh, fuck me, Roger’. Like that.”

Shane’s expression is one of unmodified horror. “I was also gonna suggest a celebratory blowjob,” he tells Ilya, his face still contorted with the after-effects of processing the visual, “but I think I just felt my nuts retreat into my body at that. Why the fuck? Ilya?”

Chapter Notes

The finale, in which the last few things that have been haunting the narrative finally get their time to shine, a 00s indie track is used as a form of psychological warfare, and an incredibly badly-timed panic attack happens (no puking)—for that last one, because the context is...a lot, if you want to avoid the pain: skip over the section after “Shane’s getting louder,” until the next section break.

It’s a long one. Take a deep breath…

Crowell is out. 

Decisively, finally, completely. 

Yuna confirms it, with an early morning video call. There’s a tiredness in her eyes, but it’s eclipsed by the glow in her cheeks and the breadth of her smile as she greets her ‘boys’. 

“It took waaaay too long for the governors to get it together for the vote,” she says. “Spineless, the lot of them. But.” 

David appears on the screen behind her, massaging the back of her neck. “Morning,” he says, through an equally tired and vibrant smile. Like the weight of the last few months has slid from his shoulders and he’s gently reminding Yuna that it can be shucked from hers, too. 

“But they did it,” Yuna continues. “Fucking…finally. It’ll be on the news soon, but I wanted you two to—too—I wanted to—you two to know first,” she beams, as David leans over to place a kiss on her forehead. 

Shane narrows his eyes at the screen. “Mom, are you drunk?” 

“Mm hmm,” she smiles happily, raising a fluted glass into view. 

“We had the bottle saved for the announcement,” David explains, raising his own matching one. “Bottles. We’ve got another one for when you’re cleared for alcohol, Ilya. I hope you don’t mind we started without you,” he says, tipping his head back to sink the last of the bubbles in his glass. There’s a sloshing sound of it being refilled, outside of frame. 

“They’re not gonna announce a sucks—successor just yet,” Yuna says, rolling her eyes. “There’s some…deputy, interim, skeleton…” she waves her hand in the air, dismissive. “Tiding them over ‘til playoffs are done.” She makes a little pfffft sound, and the screen gets wobbly. 

“That’s fucking great,” Shane says, grinning, and only a bit nonplussed by seeing his parents looking more than a couple of glasses deep into inebriation before 8am. 

“Yes,” agrees Ilya, at the same time as David suggests he drinks one of those gross weak beers to celebrate. 

“You, uh, know who’s replacing him yet?” Shane asks, hopeful for a nugget of information. Because if Yuna knows about the vote before the press does, she has to know more. 

“Mmm mmm mmm,” says Yuna, which is not very helpful. “I mean, sure, I have an idea, but no.” 

“Could you maybe share the idea?” Ilya asks, as politely as he can manage. 

“We’re not gonna jinx it,” David calls out from somewhere the screen can’t find him. 

“Anyway,” Yuna says, the business edge to her voice losing authority on account of the long stretching of vowels. “We just wanted you to—two to to know. We’re very proud of you. Two.” 

“Proud of you too, mom,” Shane says, but the phone screen cuts off with a short giggle—David’s—and a thunk. 

Well. Fuck. About fucking time. 

- 

“I feel like we should celebrate,” Shane says, after a long series of exhales interspersed with wow and phew and fucking hell. A few more whooshes of breath, and rubbing his face, like he’s cleaning off the grime of having existed in a world in which Crowell was in charge, and is now getting to breathe clear air for the first time. 

“Mm. I will have celebration shot now, I think,” Ilya says, dragging out a medicine bottle from the ottoman and handing it to Shane to unscrew. 

“For real, though. We should do something. Mark the occasion. Maybe like a ‘Fuck Crowell’ party?” 

Ilya downs the syrupy liquid, stealing a swig of Shane’s drink to wash the taste away. He’s not sure he wants a party so much as he wants a break from big revelations. A moment of peace, and all the lazy, lovely things that come with it. 

“Is terrible theme,” he tells Shane. “Will make it sound like orgy. Like, people in face masks. ‘Oh, fuck me, Roger’. Like that.” 

Shane’s expression is one of unmodified horror. “I was also gonna suggest a celebratory blowjob,” he tells Ilya, his face still contorted with the after-effects of processing the visual, “but I think I just felt my nuts retreat into my body at that. Why the fuck? Ilya?” 

“Eh, you do not need nuts to suck me,” he says, hopeful. Plants his hand on the inside of Shane’s thighs, right below the enticingly short inseam. Moves his hand higher. “I think your dick is working fine, still.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Mm yes. Fuck me with your mouth,” Ilya says, and before he’s got the words out, Shane has already slid down the sofa and has made himself at home on his knees, between Ilya’s legs. “Fuck me,” he breathes, when Shane yanks at Ilya’s shorts and settles in. 

- 

The downfall is announced at lunchtime, and by all accounts, it is spectacular. The only accounts Ilya cares about are the ones that come through the team chat, stray messages from his very small pool of contacts, and anything Shane relays to him. 

Ilya avoids the rest of it. It’s a good outcome. A great outcome, even. Better than he’d hoped for. 

And Ilya is happy to hear the reactions to it through the filter of people he knows and trusts. People who will only share the most important updates: a photo of the man with sodden clumps of hot dog rolls clinging to his face as he scowls at flashing cameras. An avalanche of subsequent memes. Another photo of Crowell getting a milkshake to the back of the head, on his way into his car. Wyatt Hayes making a joke about cutting off the head of a Hydra, and then long walls of text in the group chat while he tries to explain Marvel comic continuity to those in the chat who wish they’d never asked. 

It’s a collective exhalation of breath. Relief, before tension creeps back in as everyone waits for the announcement of his successor. 

- 

Ilya receives a hand-written thank-you note, from Marev. 

Thank you for your generous donation, it reads. Myself and the team would also like to express their gratitude for the ‘Zen Calm’ relaxation bundles, and the portable whiteboards. Very thoughtful. As for the offer of a season pass, I will respectfully decline; I would prefer to not deal with anything related to hockey unless it’s been triaged to me. I will instead wish you well from afar, and again, respectfully, hope to never see you again. In a medical setting, at least. I’m sincerely glad you’re doing well. 
 
All the best, 

Marev. 

-  

The punctuation of the days changes, as the medicinal regimes end and give way to more intentional methods of healing. Mainly, sex. Specifically, the hard won strength to sustain in, earnt in increments through Angelo’s gruelling rehabilitative guidance. 

There are other activities, that signify Ilya’s improving health; being able to walk up the stairs, albeit slowly. Scooping Anya up into his arms, without the loud protestations of worn out nerve endings. Being able to open a screw-top bottle. Being able to take a bath, after the last pain patch got peeled off. 

But as with all things, the ones that mean the most to Ilya are the ones that orbit Shane. 

As Ilya’s increasing mobility opens up more of the house to him—the upstairs, at last, when he’s patient about the stairs, and the basement gym—he ensures that each new space is re-christened with some new and deliberate act of intimacy. Because it’s not just their home he’s reclaiming. It’s his own body, and, as its natural extension, Shane’s. His throat isn’t there yet. And the rest of him isn’t at full strength, so the walls remain mostly un-pressed against, waiting for Ilya’s core to build enough support every beautiful pound of Shane without either of them dropping. Until that day, there’s the gym bench. The bathtub. There’s balancing Shane like a wheelbarrow over his exercise ball and fucking into him until the both of them are too slippery from sweat to hold their balance and they get to wreck another one of Shane’s yoga mats, instead. 

He’s getting there. 

- 

“Do you have children?” Ilya asks Angelo. 

Angelo is currently folding Ilya into a stretch that is yanking at every single muscle in every single part of his body, from his toes to his ears. Fixing them all into a fiery hellish burn. 

“Can it, Rozanov,” Angelo says, except his voice is calm. “Focus.”

Ilya’s voice is not calm. He can feel the heat in it, because his entire body feels volcanic. Ready to erupt, possibly, and not in a sex way. All this for an extra ounce of core strength. He’s ready to quit it all now, resign himself to a future of being as firm and toned as a marshmallow, if the alternative means having to endure this fucking torture for one more moment. “Because,” Ilya grits out, “I need to tell them their dad is a cruel—” 

Ilya would be embarrassed by the fact his own gasp of pain shuts him up, but they’re beyond that now. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. He’s just pissed. He tries again, because if he’s talking, he’s not thinking about how angry he is at his own body. “A sadistic ba—”

“And release,” Angelo tells him, unphased. 

The sensation is a little like every tendon inside his body unhooking itself from his bones. Then, it isn’t. Like the strings inside him are resolving into something a little sturdier than it was before. Whatever Angelo is doing, it’s working, and Ilya is furious about it. 

Angelo sighs, a satisfied, patient sound, like he’s about to explain something very basic that Ilya should already understand. “Your injuries are literally the most heavily documented in the sport,” he says. He’s met with a noise that is a little more like a growl than Ilya intended. Because yes they are; they’re still the subject of court cases, dismissals, reels and debates. It’s not something Ilya wants to think about, because he wants his body to just be his, again, instead of a walking lawsuit or a liability. “And you play against a lot of assholes.” 

Ilya swallows his growl, this time. Quietly shifts his body into readiness for the next movement. The implication sits heavy; hockey is not a sport for the honourable. Even if he’s not expecting anything like the scale of…that, it’s still too specific a target to wear onto the ice. People will still go for his wrist, or his ankle, if they think it’ll get them ahead; it’s just that now, they’re less likely to be yelling an assortment of slurs while they do it. Probably. 

“We need you better than healed,” Angelo says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world and they don’t have months of this still to go. 

“Okay,” Ilya concedes. “Turn me into hulk and then I maybe I tell your children their father is not so bad.” 

“That’s my guy,” Angelo says, proud. 

- 

Ilya still has the dreams. He hopes that time will make them less vivid, and soften some of the carved edges off them, but he knows these things aren’t linear. What helps, is when he wakes. There are those few terrifying seconds when his lungs are heaving and his mouth feels too dry and his legs feel like they’ve left the bed, suspended in the air—those ones are rough. 

It’s the ones after that, that matter. When he folds his body over Shane’s, or under it, and drinks in the sleepy mumbles of someone who will make his body and his heart into a shield. Who’ll let Ilya do the same for him. In those moments, Ilya knows he’s safe. Nurtured, and loved. Kept warmer than his own heart ever knew to hope for. And it’s those moments that carry him back to sleep, and into the gentle bright mornings that follow. 

- 

The cast on Ilya’s arm finally comes off. The staff offer to preserve Luca’s art, for posterity or possibly nightmare fuel. They look relieved when Ilya declines, and saw into the haunches of the centaur, cracking the plaster off like a shell. 

The arm itself is a pallid, sweaty thing, too white against the lines of tan from Ilya’s time spent absorbing sunshine in the back yard. The first thing Ilya does, is scratch every single inch of newly exposed skin, at least three times over; his reward, for having resisted the many, many urges to ram forks and chopsticks under the now-discarded casing. 

“You’ve still got to treat it with care,” they tell him. Warn him that it’s likely to ache more in the cold. Winter feels very far away right now, so that’s okay. 

- 

On the morning of Comeau’s sentencing, Ilya receives a voice note, sent to him via WhatsApp. It’s been forwarded on by Centaur’s management, with a clear message that Ilya is under no obligation to listen to it. Yuna and David, clued into its existence in a way that suggests they’ve already heard it, had reiterated the same sentiment. 

“You don’t owe it to anyone,” David had said. “Least of all him.” 

“And,” Yuna had added, “If you choose to answer it by telling him to fuck himself, I’m sure we can find a way to get that message to him. Whether you listen or not.” 

Shane had looked more hopeful about Yuna’s suggestion, squeezing Ilya’s hand. 

Ilya waited until Shane’s parent’s had left. Waited a little longer for Shane to take himself down to the gym, because he’d had the option to listen along, and had met it with a decisive “absolutely the fuck not.” Then, Ilya had settled himself onto the bathroom floor with his phone. 

It’s not that he’s anticipating having a poor reaction to this; he’s gone a few weeks without any reactive clench in his guts. He’s still taking the anti-nausea meds, in case. It’s just that, it can’t hurt to be prepared. And at the very least, he gets the feeling that anything Comeau has to say to him will make him want a shower after. 

It’s a short recording. Which, good. Gil Comeau has already taken up too much space in his brain, and on his skin. He doesn’t want him polluting the air for too long either. 

“Rozanov. I’m probably the last person you want to hear from,” the recording starts, and he’s almost right. There are at least a couple more people ahead of him on that list. His voice sounds gruff, slow, like it’s muted by medications. Or misery. It occurs to Ilya that this is the first time he’s heard his speaking voice, not his shouting-homophobic-bullshit-across-the-ice voice. He’s not sure it’s any nicer. 

“I know you saw the bullshit apology,” the recording continues, “and I’m sorry about that too.” 

It was a bullshit apology, and Ilya’s response to it, a simple “LOL” should really have been the end of any interactions between them. Except. “I had to…it was about limiting culpability, or something.” 

There’s a heavy sigh, and then Comeau’s leaden voice barrels on. “I’m sorry about a lot.” A heavy pause. Ilya is starting to feel like he’s at a confessional. “I—you’ve been a pain in my ass for a long time. And man, when you teamed up with Hollzy. I’m not saying I wasn’t pissed. I think a lot of us were, you know?” 

Ilya wonders if Comeau understands how apologies are supposed to work. 

“But,” the voice carries on, sounding like it’s costing him something to grind the words out. “I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy. What you leave behind, you know?” 

Ilya’s glad this is a recording and not a conversation, because he would have been too busy tearing verbal shreds off this man to hear anything that might follow. Because to Ilya, the sum total of Comeau’s legacy is a pink strip of scarring that no amount of silicone gel will make disappear. 

“I wanted to be the kind of man my kids would be proud of,” Comeau goes on. Ilya wonders if he was drunk when he recorded it. That might make sense. Or it might be that this is just how Comeau is. How the hell Shane put up with up him for so many years is…on-brand, for Shane, actually. But he shouldn’t have had to. 

“I fucked up so bad. I…I got so caught up in what was going on. I thought I was just fucking around, yeah? Like. All of us were frustrated as shit. And then coach said that thing. I know he expected us to be smart about it or whatever. Like, take the penalty, you guys’d be out a game or two, out of contention. But I just… I got mad.” 

Yep, there’s that familiar gut roil. Not as severe, not as urgent, but it still comes on like a cramp and a bad taste at the back of the tonsils. Doling out injuries to other players isn’t exactly new. Dirty plays and dirty players are everywhere, and they only get worse when playoff chances are at stake. But this wasn’t that.

 Ilya lets the message play on. 

“I need you to know,” Comeau pleads from the phone, “I didn’t—I don’t even care about you being gay or whatever,” and oh, the fucking generosity. “Not really,” he adds as a qualifier. “Just, we lost Holls to you, man. I was raw about that. I hated that we were losing. And then you guys were fucking twirling around and…yeah. I. I got mad. I thought it’s what I was meant to do, you know?” 

Ilya really doesn’t know. He’s spitting out a handful of sequential curses under his breath, but still lets the message play on. 

“I thought I was doing right by my team,” the recording says, and fucking. Hell. “And Marcus, he’s—he was my buddy. He’d joke around about this shit. I didn’t know he was actually trying to—what he was doing. I thought we were just making a point.” 

What a fucking point to make. The voice coming out of the phone is sounding frantic, like it’s never had to navigate this sort of thing before. Which is probably why he’s making such a shit job of it. The delete button sits there, temptingly, but by now it’s a point of morbid fascination. 

 “I know that doesn’t make it right. And I swear to god I didn’t mean to cut you when you went down. I just. I guess I just felt big, then. And you looked small. For the first time since I’ve known you.” 

Ilya bristles at that. He’s never been known by Gilbert fucking Comeau. 

“It’s so fucking stupid. And I’m so fucking sorry. For all of it. I’m sorry I took it out on you. I’m not just saying it because they’re about to announce—I mean I’m sorry. I don’t wanna be the kind of man who does that. To anyone. Even you.” 

Even you. Ilya’s received (and given) his share of backhanded barbs, but fucking wow. Also, bit fucking late. 

“I mean it when I said I regretted it,” the voice continues. “I just. I wanted you to hear a real apology. Not that horseshit thing we posted. And I’m sorry to your—I’m sorry to Holls, too. For all of it. I hope you guys are okay. And if you listened to all this, thanks. I know you didn’t have to. Sorry, man.” 

Ilya sits with the silence for a few moments, before his own voice fills it. With laughter, mostly; an incredulous bewilderment. That Comeau even felt the need to share this, minutes before he gets, what, sent down. That his priority hadn’t been to speak to his disappointed kids or now ex-wife or his ex-team mates. Comeau had chosen to share an absolutely deranged apology with Ilya Fucking Rozanov. And didn’t even have the right phone number to send it to. 

It’s both something and nothing. He gathers his breathing, and deletes the message. 

And, better than that, he doesn’t even throw up.

- 

It takes a few weeks of updated scans, swallow tests, and increasingly unappetizing taster pots—everything from smooth peanut butter to shredded meats and everything in between—until the ENT specialist gives Ilya the result he’s been waiting for. He’s finally cleared to eat meals that need a knife and fork, not a spoon. There are still a few danger foods, she tells him; he should avoid anything with seeds, bread that’s too crusty, anchovies or anything else with small bones. Ilya assures her he will be very cautious of bird food, and pretends to ignore the side-eye Shane gives him. 

-

“Shane,” Ilya says excitably, as they walk, slowly, out of the clinic. Solid ground still feels a little off under Ilya’s feet, but he’s got Shane’s arm looped through his for balance. Or comfort. Or just to show that they can; this easy display of casual intimacy that they don’t have to think about hiding. “You heard her. I can put everything in my mouth now.” 

Shane nods as he beeps the car doors open. “Yep. Yes you can. So, what are we having for dinner?” 

Ilya has a very long list of things he is dying to get his teeth into. The stews of recent days have been fine, as have the soft potatoes and slippery, purposefully overcooked pasta dishes. But he wants something he can pull apart between his jaws. A steak, maybe. Fries, cooked well enough that the outsides ridges are crispy; things that will press and crunch against the roof of his mouth. Things he can chew on. 

But, Shane has apparently missed the innuendo that Ilya thought was very blatant. He waits until they’re both safely inside the car, the doors closed—because this isn’t something for outside ears—before he gives his succinct answer. 

“Your dick.” 

Shane closes his eyes, rests his head back against the headrest, and tries to look worn down by Ilya’s very predictable request. He fails, because the edges of his mouth curl up and his eyes, when they open again, are soft and dark and the kind of warmth that Ilya wants to hurl himself into the depths of. 

“Yeah. I’ll let you eat it,” Shane says, clipping in his seatbelt. “If you give me a real answer about dinner.” 

- 

If Ilya’s being honest, he has not been keeping his mouth away from Shane’s dick as carefully as the ENT nurse would have advised. Not that he’s discussed this with her; he’s managed to glean enough information from their prior appointments about the likely safety of engaging in enthusiastic oral sex, with a surprising amount of tact. By his standards, at least. But Ilya is impatient, and Shane has a lovely cock. So he’s already had his mouth on it a few times this summer, until Shane’s ingrained and abundant caution had steered him away, and directed Ilya’s efforts to his softer parts. 

Today, though. The all-clear from the ENT is the proof he’s been waiting for—for Shane’s benefit, as much as his—that he’s finally fit to give Shane all the things he’s been missing. Everything he’s been waiting for, with patience and diligent workarounds. The things he deserves. 

Which is why he’d only given Shane a handful of minutes to put away their groceries before asking—demanding—that he peel off his clothes, lie himself down on their upstairs bed, and let Ilya show him everything he’s been missing. 

Shane is hard before the command is out of Ilya’s mouth. The way he yields to instruction is a drinkable pleasure, compounded by the way he’s now sitting back on his elbows, licking his lips, and saying, “Sure you’re not too out of practice, Rozanov?” 

Ilya will make him pay for that, but not just yet. “Sure you can last more than fifteen seconds, Hollander?” 

Ilya doesn’t waste time. Doesn’t even take his own clothes off. He crawls between Shane’s legs, shutting out the voice in his brain that sounds like Angelo’s, warning him to balance the overcompensating tilt of his body as he rests his weight on the left side. He sinks his head between the warm cushions of Shane’s thighs. Laps his tongue, starting at the curve of his tight balls, breathing in the sweat-warmed skin as he drags his tongue, so, so slowly, up the length of Shane’s shaft. 

Shane lets out a wheedling breath, and a soft “Fuck.” 

Ilya sinks deeper into the dark space around Shane’s dick with the press of heavy fingers against his shoulders. Wets his mouth and wraps it around the tip. It’s a tease; it’s no more than a kiss, but it’s one that holds the head steady as he pulls his tongue forward against the beading slit. 

“Fuck, Ilya.” 

He pulls off, excruciatingly slow. “Ten more seconds,” he tells Shane, and by the time he’s been given an answering “Fuck you,” Ilya is pressing soft kisses up and down the length of him. 

Each time Shane starts lifting his hips off the bed to meet him, to urge the contact, Ilya lightens the touch of his lips and presses a hand against Shane’s stomach. Pulls away again. “Be patient,” he warns. 

“Most people don’t talk so much when they do this,” Shane answers, the last syllable stifled by a whimper as Ilya folds his mouth around it like it’s a popsicle. Licks a little more, pulls back. 

“I am not most people,” Ilya says into the warm space, watching the dark hairs around Shane’s pelvis move under the force of his breath. “Wait, which other people have you been—”

“Stop. Fucking. Talking,” Shane manages, and this time, Ilya does as he’s told. Opens his mouth wider, opens his throat, and sinks himself down onto Shane’s dick. Slow, at first. Revels in the way it fits his mouth like it belongs there, the way all the parts of them tessellate so perfectly into the curves and caverns of each other’s bodies. 

This is all about proving just how good his mouth can be, so he keeps his hands out of the equation; keeps the strongest splayed against Shane’s stomach, the other gripping onto a thigh for balance, for pressure, and for a way to make Shane feel held. Pinned, and at the complete mercy of the wet hollow of Ilya’s mouth. 

The sounds Shane makes are enough to reassure that it’s working. Little gasps, fucks, and Ilya’s name, breathed out with reverence and frustration and greed. The taste of Shane leaking on his tongue grows. So does Ilya’s need to pull him apart with more than teasing, because he’s getting as worked up as Shane and he’s got a lot less friction to work with. Ilya shifts his angles. Stretches his neck, takes a breath, and presses his mouth, his throat, around as much of Shane as he can take. Breathes in through his nose, and pushes himself further down. Reminding his body how to do this; how to become something open and hungry, until his mouth is too full for his tongue to move and all the work is from the back of his throat. 

Shane’s hands move from Ilya’s shoulders to his hair and back again. Holding, not pressing. Not pushing. 

Ilya pulls a breath in through his nose; thinner, now, harder to reach the air, because everything is Shane. Everything is Shane and the dedication he has to proving how well he can do this. He knows it’s working, because the skin he’s holding onto is trembling, and Shane’s getting louder. 

“Fuck, I’m so fucking close, I’m—”

Which is Ilya’s cue to go all in. Levers himself against Shane’s body and swallows until there’s no space for breathing. Grips harder into Shane’s flesh and coaxes his throat to behave, because suddenly it isn’t; he’s gagging. Choking, like he’s never done this before. Choking like he’s forgotten how to breathe. Choking because he can’t. Because there’s no air, or because he’s got no lungs, and everything is black, heavy pressure and his body is somewhere he isn’t, squeezing itself inside out—

Too hot. Too cold. He might be back in his body, because his fingertips are fizzing, burning, and his chest is imploding. There is a very, very quiet voice from somewhere very, very far away, telling him to breathe. Except there’s a shuttered door between his mouth and his lungs, and it won’t open. 

The very quiet voice gets louder. Faster. Ilya’s definitely back inside his body, because there’s a different type of pressure against his chest now; one that’s warm, steady, with a heartbeat he can feel because it’s heavier than the feather-fast hum of his own. There’s breath in his mouth that isn’t his, too. Warm and desperate and wet, and the voice is clearer when it comes again: “Breathe, Ilya.”

It’s a calm, strong voice. The only one Ilya thinks he understands, sometimes. For him, Ilya thinks he can. 

He inhales. Catching the gasp of it like it’s a bird that’s trying to fly away from him. Tries again, and this one is more like a breath. Another, and he swallows it down, trapping it inside himself. Holds it, then releases. Repeats, until the spaces around him resolve into things he can see, things he can hear, things he can hold. 

“You’re back,” Shane tells him, and Shane is the anchor he’s tethered to. Ilya’s damp chin hooked over his shoulder, legs folded under him on the bed and his body heavy and sagging against Shane’s. Shane’s wide hands rubbing his back under his shirt, massaging the back of his head. 

“I am back,” Ilya says, when his mouth works enough for words to come out of it. His arms are wrapped so tight around Shane’s ribcage he thinks he might not be able to let go, ever. 

“I’m so sorry—” Shane starts, but Ilya’s already creating an echo. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Why the fuck are you sorry, Ilya?” and, well. Isn’t that the question. Ilya’s sorry because he thought he could do this. Because he wanted to do this. Because he fucking loves doing this. He’s sorry because there’s still something living in his brain that hasn’t yet learned the difference between what happened then, and what’s happening now. He’s sorry he’s still not fixed it, yet. He’s sorry because there are tears leaking out of him, even if it doesn’t feel like he’s crying, but it’s a steady stream and it’s another part of the problem that is Ilya that’s still operating without his control. And he’s sorry because Shane deserves more than someone who can’t give head without having a fucking meltdown over it. 

“I wanted to…I wanted to do that. For you. I should be—”

Shane shh-es him, shifts his body just enough that they can face each other, and sets about kissing tear tracks from Ilya’s face. Soft, kittenish presses of his mouth, and the hard, grounding grip of his hands at his back. “It doesn’t matter,” Shane tells him. “It’s…there’s more important things, Ilya.” 

“Like anal?” Ilya says before his brain can tell him not to. 

“Like you not feeling like you have to prove something,” Shane says, not rising to the bait, which means Ilya’s not getting away with his deflections. “To me. Or to you, I don’t know. I—sometimes I think you look for reasons to…reasons why you think you don’t deserve things? Like you still have to earn being loved?” 

Ilya swallows. “Ah. So therapy is working for you, yes?” Because yes, maybe Ilya’s still ready to dismiss his sense of self-worth. He’ll do it, the moment he’s confronted by anything that can be moulded into tangible evidence that he doesn’t deserve it. He just didn’t expect Shane to articulate it quite like that. 

“Fuck off. I just. I don’t want you to do something just because you think I want it? If it’s gonna feel like hell for you—”

“I suck your dick because I want to,” Ilya says, leaning his head back over Shane’s shoulder because his body still feels too heavy. Kisses the skin of Shane’s neck. “Was not hell,” because he doesn’t want Shane to think that what they were doing had any part to play in his trauma. “Was good, just…panic. Did not expect.” 

“I know,” Shane says, keeping the steady motion of his hands stroking Ilya’s skin. “You know I love you. So fucking much. In every way. And I love you even if we can’t—”

“We are not having worm conversation again,” Ilya says, a little too forcefully. 

“The what?” 

“You know. If I was a worm…” 

Shane sighs heavily into Ilya’s neck. “Oh. God. Yeah, no.”

The silence stretches around them until it’s a blanket; something that holds them both. 

“I would like to do it again,” Ilya says eventually. “Not now. Maybe not soon, even. But I like sucking you. Like the noises you make. Like,” and Ilya makes a sequence of exaggerated whimpering sounds, interspersed with little pleases and grunts, until Shane cuts him off. 

“Fuck off, I don’t sound like that.” 

“Mm no. You do.” 

“You’re no better,” Shane tells him. “You’re all ‘ahhhh fuck moy lyubimyy—’” 

“Is slander! I would never.” 

“You do,” Shane asserts, and Ilya doesn’t have the energy to disagree. What he does have the energy for, is the hot shower they take together, and the steak dinner that Shane cooks for him, that is probably the best meal he’s ever had in his entire fucking life. And after, after the dishes are cleared and washed, the energy to pull Shane’s body tight to his, and just hold him. Because he can, and because he needs to, and because he never wants to let go. 

- 

“Scott Hunter?” 

Ilya’s yelling. His voice is loud enough to yell now, and even if it it costs him, it’s worth it for this. Because he doesn’t know how else he’s supposed to express the incredulity, bewilderment, and outrageous delight he’s feeling. “Scott Fucking Hunter?”

“I know, dude,” Shane says, next to him on the couch. Much quieter, but no less dazed. 

“Scott Fucking Hunter,” Ilya repeats. Because he’d imagined a few outcomes, the few times he’d let his brain wander into league politics territory, but none had come close to the absolute mindfuckering outcome of Scott Fucking Hunter being the league’s new commissioner. 

“I mean, it kinda makes sense—” Shane starts, but Ilya is still calling his brain back from stratospheric heights of disbelief. 

“He is too young to be commissioner!” Ilya exclaims, and that’s the thing that makes Shane burst into laughter. Not the fact that they’re all about to collectively answer to Scott Fucking Hunter. Christ. 

“I’m telling him you said that.” 

“You fucking will not,” Ilya asserts. “But Shane! Last commissioner was…you say, like coconut. Dessicated. Scott is baby compared to him.” 

“He’s also not a total bastard,” Shane says. “And Hunter was basically raised by the league.” Shane is being rational about the revelation. Already processing the news and filing it into the new reality they’re about to step into. 

Ilya is still lagging behind acceptance, stuck firmly in denial. “And your mother thought this was small enough news to send by text?” Because Ilya is not used to receiving jump scares in six-word text format, and maybe news this big warranted some sort of pre-amble. A warm up. Something more than New commissioner’s being announced: Scott Hunter, followed by a sequence of drink emojis and a smiley face. 

“Yeah?” Shane says, as though this was something expected. “We literally asked them to message before they video call. Or turn up. So she messaged.”

Ah. That. Yes they did, and Yuna’s been trying stick to it. David’s only slipped up the once. Judging by the expression of guilty panic he’d worn, being confronted by the sight of his son in law wiping inexplicable quantities of wasabi paste and pickled ginger off his bare chest, it’s not a mistake he’s likely to repeat. 

“Scott Fucking Hunter,” Ilya repeats. If he says it enough times, it might feel real. 

- 

It’s a warm, heady evening in mid-summer. Ilya’s in the garden, basking in the specific satisfaction that comes from having eaten two absolutely perfect burgers. It’s been a few weeks of real, solid food, and the novelty hasn’t waned. Every craving that built up through the long weeks of deprivation, has now been catered for. Either by delivery services, or the Hollanders. Burgers, though, are Shane’s specialty, which might be why they’re Ilya’s favourite. The beer he’s finally allowed to drink with them is pretty great, too. Now he’s not got a system full of slow-release opiates, he’s allowed some faster-release fuzz instead. It’s a good trade-off. 

In the handful of minutes it takes Shane to clear their plates—because no matter how capable Ilya tells him he is now, he’s still in service mode—Shane’s phone starts flashing. 

“Shane!” Ilya calls, because his voice is stronger now and he is determined to make it Shane’s problem. Ilya answers the phone, then calls out again: “Shane, the nursing home is calling, he’s got out—” 

“Hi, Scott,” Shane says before he’s even looked at the screen. He settles into his chair next to Ilya’s and angles the phone so they can all see each other. 

Scott Hunter sighs loudly through the phone. “Great to hear you at full volume at last, Roz,” he says by way of greeting. Ilya beams. “You doing okay, yeah?” 

“So you are like the league’s daddy now?” Ilya says instead of answering the question. 

Shane’s face is stricken, and Scott’s is worse. “You are never using that combination of words again, Rozanov,” Scott says. Ilya can almost see the calculations of potential misconduct accusations as they weave across Scott’s furrowed brows. At least being a headache for the commissioner, whoever it is, will be a continuing tradition. Ilya can see it already. If Scotty’s Hotties managed to endure, he reckons this one has some mileage in it. 

“We are doing very well, thank you Scott,” Ilya says into the semi-stunned aftershock of his words, and to mask the sound of Shane giggling next to him. “How is your bone tower?” 

“My what?” 

“You are big boss now,” Ilya says. “Separate from us little people. You are in bone tower.” 

“Ivory tower,” Shane corrects, not getting any better at hiding his laughter. 

“Jesus Christ,” mutters Scott, and this must be a new record for how quickly they’ve managed to wear him down. “It’s, a lot. In a good way,” Scott answers diplomatically. He pauses for the next insult, and when it doesn’t come, continues. “It’s also…I’m afraid we’ve poached a couple of people from your summer camp roster,” he says, genuinely apologetic. “I mean, I know it’s Yuna’s team running things this year, and it’s all cleared with her. But I wanted to tell you directly.” 

“Okay?” Shane asks, because Ilya’s brain is still stuck on ways to get everyone he knows to start referring to Scott as the league daddy. Except, getting half-murdered by two MLH commissioners might be more than he can withstand, so… 

“Yeah,” Scott continues. “Max Riley, he’s been appointed dep—”

“Holy shit,” Shane interrupts, delighted. It’s a sentiment Ilya shares; Max is fucking great. As a player, sure, except he’s been without a team for a while. But as a person, he’s the kind of pragmatic, easygoing realist that hasn’t graced league management in…maybe ever. 

“So,” Ilya starts, and now his smile is one of genuine optimism, instead of the usual menacing glee that fuels it in Scott’s company. “Head office will finally have someone who is—”

“A trans man,” Scott nods, except his words are drowned by Ilya and Shane, in unholy unison: 

“A goalie.”

“Oh my god,” Scott says, rubbing his hands over his face. “Yes. A goalie. I’m sure that’s what everyone will focus on. And because we’ve got Max, then you know we’ve got Leah, too.” 

“Fine,” Ilya says. “We let you steal our coaches. Is good cause,” he concedes. 

“Thanks, Roz. Your generosity is noted.” 

“Does this mean we’ve earned a favour from the commissioner now?” Shane asks, ignoring Scott’s pleading expression that seems to say not you, too. 

“For disappointing the children,” Ilya adds. Because, why make it easy.  

“You’re skipping them too,” Scott points out, and, well. He is, unfortunately, correct, which isn’t something Ilya is thrilled about. The Scott being right part, or the missing out on coaching part. 

“Yes,” Ilya admits, “but my horrible injuries are reason so many people donated to foundation. So really I have helped them more by—”

“That took a lot of coordination from the Diversity—” Scott starts, exasperated, before Shane inevitably cuts in with the collective's correct name. 

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Scott says, accepting his defeat. Ilya still isn’t used to being thanked for any part he played in what happened, so he ignores it. As far as he’s concerned, all he did was lie very still for a few weeks and try his hardest not to fucking die. But. 

“Is a shame we will not play against each other again,” Ilya says instead. Scott waits for a punchline which doesn’t come. “I enjoyed winning against you.” 

Scott frowns at the sincerity. “Not as much as I enjoyed beating you, kid,” he says instead, and now it’s Shane’s turn to exact psychological warfare: 

“Pretty sure that’s what got the last commissioner fired.” 

Ilya grins, because Scott’s expression now looks genuinely tormented, and also because it’s good to hear Shane finally joking about it, without his face clouding up with horror. 

“I’m…I’m gonna go now,” Scott tells them, utterly browbeaten. “It was fun. Let’s not do this again.” 

“Love you, Scotty,” Ilya says as the call disconnects. 

- 

It takes some persuasion—mostly to Yuna, who has already structured everything around the assumption that neither Shane nor Ilya will be available—but they manage to agree one single day to attend the Ottawa summer camp. Ilya’s feet remain in his sneakers for the entire time, his butt on the bench for most of it, while Shane gets to lace up and join the kids on the ice. 

They flock around Shane like ducklings. Ilya’s busy letting his heart feel soft and gooey about the way Shane crouches in front of one girl, adjusting her stick angle. The way he doesn’t look overwhelmed, anymore. Confused, maybe. And a little out of his depth. But his smile stays wide the whole time. Ilya’s so enchanted by Shane—because really, when is he not—that he doesn’t notice one of the children breaking free from the clump and skating smoothly over to his bench. It’s only when he hears a very small sounding “Mr Rozanov?” that he pulls his focus to the absolutely tiny child in front of him. 

“I think so, yes,” Ilya says, then immediately regrets being playful with his answer, because this knee-high boy is looking absolutely petrified. “Hello,” Ilya tries instead. “That is me. What is your name?” 

The boy looks for a moment like he’s forgotten how words work. 

“Hinata,” says the boy in a very small voice, and then he extends his hand out for Ilya to shake. Even in his gloves, it’s such a small hand that Ilya’s dwarfs it when he leans over the short barrier to shake it. 

“Nice to meet you, Hinata,” Ilya says, not sure how this conversation is supposed to work. He’s usually better at this sort of thing, but the kid’s wide, unblinking stare has him feeling unsteady. 

“I watched the game with my mom,” Hinata says, because at this point there is only apparently one game that has ever happened in the entire history of hockey and it is that one. The thought of someone as young as Hinata having watched it yanks at something terrible inside Ilya’s ribs. 

“I liked what you said,” Hinata tells him, earnestly. 

Ilya blanches, because he said a lot of things, and he’s pretty sure none of them were motivational material for children whose ages are still in single digits. He also swore. A lot. “Oh,” he says. “Thank you?” 

Hinata shakes his head, huffs quietly, letting Ilya know that his attempt at feigning it has been thoroughly clocked. “About your husband,” Hinata explains, now looking at Ilya like he’s very stupid for not getting it immediately. Apparently, the silence has stretched on for too long, because Hinata is determined for his point to land. “When you said ‘he’s not a—’” and then drops his voice to whisper, “‘effing rug,’” he says. Nodding encouragingly at Ilya. 

Ilya nods back sagely, reassuring Hinata that he’s still got most of his braincells. “Oh,” Ilya says again, more confidently. “I did not like him being mean about Hollander?” 

Hinata nods at him seriously. “I liked that you stood up for your…Hollander. Even when it was scary.” 

“Is what you do,” Ilya says, relieved that the boy’s takeaway from everything was this, and not…everything else. “He stood up for me too,” Ilya says, because he’s not sure how to translate the enormity of gratitude he feels for Shane going feral on his former team, into child-friendly language. “He is very brave.”

“Yes,” Hinata says, “but I’ve already told him that. Now it’s your turn.” 

“Ah,” says Ilya, still processing. “Is good to be fair. Thank you.”

“I hope that when I have a husband,” Hinata continues, and his voice is getting bigger, “he’ll be brave too.” 

Ilya’s head is spinning with a lot of very complicated feelings. Most of them are burrowing into his heartstrings because this kid is making him think about Shane at that age, all earnest edges and the expectation that there are things they’ll need protecting from, and not enough people willing to do it. 

“I think,” Ilya says eventually, “that you are brave. You came over here to talk to me, yes?” And at the uncertain expression in Hinata’s face, adds; “I hope you don’t need to be.” Meaning, that maybe the world can be kinder. That the spaces carved out in it are made for everyone, not just a few. He doesn’t even interrogate the kid’s assertion that he’s going to have a husband, because that’s a whole other question mark. Maybe he thinks being married to a teammate is just a natural part of being a good hockey player? 

Hinata is giving Ilya that same patient expression that says he still thinks Ilya might be a bit stupid or maybe just naive, but he still shakes his hand again, says, “Me too,” then, “Thank you,” and then, his piece said, skates back to the cluster of other tiny humans. 

- 

At some point, late in the summer, Ilya reaches the conclusion that Angelo has tricked him. He’s in the downstairs gym, laid out on one of Shane’s mats. His current pose is a few grades up from a plank; there’s a lot of arching of his spine, and a lot of breath control needed to maintain it. 

At first, Ilya’s proud of how well his body is responding to these new commands. Even if it insists on sweating out a gallon with each incremental shift of muscle. Then, something about the position triggers a memory from years past; an over-watched documentary with Shane’s cottage as the setting. 

“Angelo,” he says, proud that he can both speak and do this at the same time. “Is this fucking yoga?” 

Angelo unfurls himself, nodding as he stands up and invites Ilya to do the same. 

“All fucking summer, you’ve just been teaching me yoga?” Ilya repeats, incensed. 

“Among other things, yeah,” Angelo says, still fully impervious to Ilya’s grizzling. He manoeuvres into the next position, guiding Ilya to copy in the reflection of the gym mirrors. “Wanna know what else?” he asks. 

Ilya huffs, balancing on his elbows and looking at their reflected forms, side by side. “No.” 

“You’re really good at it,” Angelo grins, smile almost luminous. Ilya catches himself preening a little with pride, before he remembers he’s supposed to be annoyed. 

- 

Angelo’s approval is all well and good. Not least because of how much effort it’s taking to earn it. The physicality is familiar, though. Comforting, even. Sometimes. Endurance is like breathing; sometimes difficult, but even when it feels impossible, it’s inevitable. A rhythm to the passage of time. A way for his body to feel like something he’s connected to, instead of something he just inhabits. 

But, even Angelo’s most radiant smile pales against the blissed out, fucked out, freckle-smattered adoration Shane gives him. It’s the longest stretch of time they’ve had together; like the world has finally given them a free pass to make a nest of each other, without endless obligations pulling them apart. 

Their outside responsibilities have been scattered, sparse things. Handfuls of appointments and check ins. One solitary sponsorship shoot, with Adidas. Once they’d promised to lay off the survivor narrative bullshit and gone back to treating him like an athlete, not a cause. And sure, the day itself had been exhausting. Too-bright lights, heating his skin until it threatened to soak sweat into the whites of the clothing they stuffed him into, and a lot of stressed staff who handled conversations with him like delicately explosively material. No one daring to mention the things about Ilya that have been so thoroughly and publicly discussed, dissected and debated. And then the day had ended, with Shane driving him in his cosy, safe car, to their cosy, safe home. 

The rest of the world is kept at bay. The requests for press still flood in, held back by a dam put in place by Farah Jalali, reinforced by everyone else. Another way the people in Ilya’s life are reminding him he’s protected. He doesn’t have to fit himself into the grind of post-season interviews. He’s got a different timeline, and different priorities. 

Which means he’s been able to focus on what matters most to him. Which is, predictably, Shane. And the ways they get to unravel each other, and then re-thread themselves into an inextricable tangle. And proving—despite Shane’s determined assertions that he doesn’t need to—that his oral freak-out was a one-time event. Today’s contribution to that proof has gone well, Ilya thinks. There might still be time to gather a little more evidence in his favour before the day is out. 

“We should have sex party,” Ilya says. Ilya expects the woebegone expression from Shane, and kisses it from his face until it turns adoring, then hungry. 

“With Kip and Scott,” Ilya says when they pull their mouths apart. 

This time, Shane scowls like he’s going to spit at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” is what he says instead. It’s hard for him to look too indignant, his shorts pooled around his ankles and his chest painted with cum. But he’s making a decent go of it. 

“We got fucked by commissioner last season. Maybe we fuck the commissioner this season, no?” Ilya scrapes his teeth across Shane’s jaw, sucking a kiss into the hinge of it. 

“I miss when you couldn’t speak.” 

“No, you don’t.” 

- 

Pre-season sneaks up on them with all the stealth of a much-anticipated deadline. Which is to say, it goes from being a small note in a digital calendar to a Damocles sword of expectation. 

Just because Ilya’s the one trying to hang the sword, doesn’t make it feel any less daunting. 

The trainers and coaches who’ve watched him sweating through every no-contact drill for the last two weeks, don’t seem concerned that he’s not back at his old baseline yet. He’s still performing better than a lot of people’s peaks, and the deadline is one that they’re all being very casual about. 

Angelo, who has had an entire summer to grapple with Ilya’s willful (stubborn) insistence that he’s fine, probably, has been treating the date like an abstract concept. Reminding Ilya that his body doesn’t adhere to Google Calendar restrictions, and that it will take “as long as it takes,” and other nebulously vague sentiments. Even Galina’s been in on the reassurances; that one set of metrics, balanced against one single date in September, is not the sole marker of how his future will pan out. Or how big an impact the past is making on it, still. 

Shane has been more understanding about it. Which basically means, daily threats that Ilya’s coveted Captaincy is heading Shane’s way. Offering to get a bedazzling kit to customize a WAG jacket for Ilya. Ordering the aforementioned kit, thereby proving that Ilya isn’t the only one who can utilise Amazon deliveries for low-key psychological warfare. Until Ilya had threatened to bedazzle a jockstrap, and Shane had taken far too long to shut that idea down. 

The upshot being, that when pre-season starts in full, Ilya is still watching from the bench. 

- 

It’s October when Ilya’s finally given the all-clear for full contact. The coordinated approval comes from Angelo and the team’s staff, confirmed by Ilya himself. He’s ready. The team are also ready; Ilya has been weaponising his time on the bench with incessant chirping, and they seem collectively relieved that he’ll shut up, instead of making his time off-ice into everybody else’s problem. 

The regular season is already underway, their schedules stacking with travel. Ilya’s ready for all of it. 

Almost all of it, he corrects. Because he’s managed to dodge most of the press until now. Today, though, there’s no chance he’s getting out of it. 

He’s not sure if it was the team trainers, his body, or Angelo, who conspired for his state of official game-readiness to coincide with Ottawa’s first game against Montreal. He’d wager it has more to do with fate and synchronicity. Whoever, or whatever, the cause, it’s a collective wet dream for every media outlet who’s been vying for their chance at any kind of statement from the hockey husbands. The optics. The drama. 

- 

There’s a short reel, doing the rounds. It’s of Drapeau, who has so far escaped most consequences for his part in events; a hearing, a fine, a five-game suspension and the ire of a lot of fans. For Montreal alone, that’s a lot of ire. The reel has persisted, months after the rest of it died down. Harris may have something to do with its proliferation through every channel. It’s inescapable, even outside sports circles. 

The song playing over it is Mr Brightside. A song Ilya knows well, because it echoed out of the speakers of every fucking bar and club over the entire 00s and 10s and will probably still be playing through those same speakers a hundred years from now. It’s a song that Shane said, “Oh, I think I’ve heard this before?” about, and Ilya had stared at him for nearly a full minute, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. The answer was not. 

The point is, this reel. It syncs up the lyrics— “Coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just—” with the footage of Drapeau stepping out in front of the goal, stick raised ready for attack. Where the lyrics should progress to the word “fine,” it cuts to audio of someone shouting “FUUUCK”, and the visual switches to a fast paced supercut of Shane slamming him into the ice in multiple, beautiful angles. It is, objectively, pretty funny. To everyone except for Drapeau. Even Shane lets himself have a small congratulatory smile whenever it pops up on his radar. 

The reason why this matters, is that for a lot of people, especially those who follow the sport, the opening plinkle sounds of Mr Fucking Brightside have become synonymous with the visual of the smackdown. 

And every Ottawa player has chosen it as their goal song. 

- 

The locker room is a buzz. There’s a decisiveness to everyone’s good spirits, like they’ve already chosen the outcome of the game. Like the other team are just the props that’ll get them to their win, instead of an actual opposition. Everyone’s been loud in their delight that Ilya’s finally playing with them for more than a practice, and now they’re settling into their pre-game routines. Unfortunately, this means Troy has hijacked the speakers, and is inflicting his favourite pop punk classics on everyone, but even Ilya’s feeling too buoyant to call him out on it. This time.  

The only tension is coming from Luca, who’s rummaging and fussing with his bag. His last encounter with Montreal wasn’t exactly fun, and the guy who’d kept him on crutches for half the summer will be meeting them again on the ice later. 

Ilya crosses over to Luca’s cubby. Ilya is fairly sure the movement is very gentle, very non-confrontational,  but Luca flips his armful of socks, sketchbook and tape onto the floor with the terror of someone who’s about to get jumped in an alley. 

“I do not bite, Haas, you know this,” Ilya says. It takes him a couple of seconds to realise that this is not the correct word choice, at all. Because most of the team has seen evidence that Ilya emphatically does. Frequently. Even if it’s only Shane, he supposes he can’t blame the rest of them for being a little nervous about the damage his teeth can do. Luca has the good grace not to call him out on it. 

“Yes, cap,” he says, automatically. 

“You are nervous,” Ilya tells him, quiet enough that no one else can overhear him. The sound of Troy’s full-throated singing—something about asphalt and sweat, god only knows—is doing an excellent job of drowning everything else out. “You do not need to be. If Gagnon breathes too hard near you, we will flatten him.” 

Luca just nods. Starts scrabbling around on the floor to gather his things, and Ilya bends into a kneeling crouch to help him. Which means this is the position he’s in when he’s confronted by the opened pages of Luca’s sketchbook, the details of which are almost enough to upend his balance. 

The two of them blink at each other, the sketchbook, then each other again, before Ilya speaks. “You’ve captured his hair very well, I think,” Ilya says eventually. Luca’s face is a lot of shades of pink, and Ilya would be studying those, except on the paper in front of him is a drawing of a very handsome, very built, very…Shane-shaped man, wearing a little shiny cap with a cross on it. And not a lot else. 

“It’s not—it’s not anyone specific, really,” Luca lies, snapping the sketchbook shut. 

Ilya keeps his voice very, very low. “I can see that,” Ilya says, sitting himself down on the bench before anyone else in the room notices anything amiss. Luca packs the sketchbook away like it’s something cursed, and sits next to Ilya, fussing with his tape. “But if I were to ask for a copy of it, for not anyone specific…” Ilya starts. 

Luca pauses, like he’s thinking about it as a serious suggestion. Eventually, he says, very quietly, “Hit Gagnon and I will think about it. But if Hollander beats you to it, I give him the one of you instead.” 

The little shit. Ilya’s so fucking proud of him. “Deal,” he says, patting him on the shoulder and praying he’ll get his chance. 

- 

The Tire Centre is almost rapturous in its volume. The crowd is already loud during the warmups, but the full crescendo hits when the teams take to the ice for real. If anyone on Montreal’s side boos Ilya’s name, it’s swallowed ten-fold by the roars of home support. He’s used to being spurred on by bile and gleeful rage, but this, this full-throated, seat slamming celebration, this is better. 

There are a lot of banners. Enough that Ilya could use up the whole game time just trying to read them. The good ones, at least. His favourite, the one caught in a glimpse on the jumbotron, shows a drawing of Shane’s face adorned with Terminator bio-mechanical dressings and the iconic laser red eye. Fucking brilliant. He wants to grab a picture of it, get it framed, and hang it in their home for Shane to see whenever he’s in danger of doubting himself. And even better than the banners, there’s Yuna and David, watching from side, pride radiating off them. 

 But. No more distractions. They’ve got a fucking game to win. 

- 

The starting face off is captain to captain; Ilya versus Hayden. Any offense Ilya may have taken that Hayden Fucking Pike has now apparently been elevated to the status of equal is pushed behind his urge to be an absolute dick about it. 

“You still coming to dinner tomorrow?” Ilya asks, amiably, leaning over the face-off dot. Because Shane had asked, and Ilya is still trying to be a friend to Pike. 

“Yeah?”

“Good. We have baby food in,” Ilya tells him, poised ready to take the puck.” 

“The kids aren’t—” Hayden starts, and by the time he’s registered the dig, the drop has already happened and Ilya’s halfway down the ice. Too far to fully hear Hayden shouting “Asshole,” after him. 

- 

Ilya’s missed this. So fucking much. He might not have Shane’s obsessive devotion to hockey, but he’s still thrilled by the glide of ice disappearing behind his skates. The way his body moves with so much speed, precision, and a force that feels fluid. He’s tasted some of it, in practices and exercises, but he’s gone half a year without the feeling of this: doing it all with a team who know how to meet him, and an audience that’s trained its collective eyes onto every move he’s making. More than that, it’s the way his body—the thing that’s been hurt and bandaged and sewn and rehabilitated—feels like it’s his again, entirely. He’s a weapon and an artist, and he is, if he’s being modest, really fucking good at this. 

Also, Montreal are playing like absolute dogshit. Their roster has changed a lot since last time, and there are only a handful of unwelcomely familiar faces left. But, they’re all trying to play the cleanest game in the entire history of the sport. Not a single check comes late. No one is saying a fucking word that will get them dragged across every format of social and antisocial media. It’s almost boring, until Ilya sends the first puck into Drapeau’s net. 

It’s predictable, the way the goalie fails to read the direction of it; Ilya wouldn’t have minded having to work harder for this one. But it’s the first of the game, and it’s what follows that makes it feel like a real win. 

Mr Fucking Brightside, blaring out across the speakers. Thousands of voices, some of Montreal’s fans too, screaming out “FUCK” at just the right moment. Patrice Drapeau’s face almost glowing red through the face cage. 

Shane grins from the bench, ready to tag in for the next shift. 

- 

One of Montreal’s newest transfers meets Shane for the next puck drop. A guy called Blanchard, a seasoned player traded from Edmonton, who has never given them much drama on the ice. 

“I came out,” blurts Blanchard, and this is a weird tactic. Except Blanchard looks like he’s at a meet & greet, not a fucking face off. “After it all happened,” and oh, right. Ilya must have missed this one. “My boyfriend—”

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, stick poised. 

Blanchard shoots him a quizzical look, like he was expecting something more supportive from the ambassador of the hockey gays. The difference is, Blanchard seems to have forgotten they’re in the middle of a game. Shane has not. 

“I’m sorry that we’re gonna embarrass you in front of your boyfriend,” Shane says, grins, and immediately wins the face off. 

- 

After the fourth goal of the game—Luca, this time—invokes the same arena-rousing jaunty jangle, Drapeau looks ready to self-immolate. Or at least summon the backup goalie. 

Ilya’s shifts are kept short. He doesn’t mind it; it’s about the whole team winning, and they’re doing a beautiful job. Montreal are starting to find their groove, too late into the game to make any meaningful impact. They shove a little more, chirp a little more. But whatever’s been going on with their renewed lineup of players and coaches, there’s still no real bite. They play like a team that’s apologising for being there. The Centaurs are playing like they’re ready to eat up victory from every game from this one, right through to the playoffs. 

None of this imbalance is stopping Shane from playing like a fucking terror. To Shane, Montreal is apparently the Theseus Ship of hockey: no matter how many parts get replaced, it’s still Fucking Montreal. He’s louder in this game than Ilya’s ever heard him. He’s flung barbs across the ice about donating hand-me-downs to them in light of the team’s public money troubles. Caught Stedlund against the boards, asked “Missed me?” through gritted teeth before taking off with the puck, leaving the bewildered winger reeling, and at one point, Ilya sees Gagnon do a full-body flinch at the sight of Shane speeding towards him. Given the size differential, it’s a comical visual. It also means Ilya’s just lost Luca’s bet, but that’s the only defeat he’s had to endure all night. He’ll take it. 

When the clock on the game finally runs out, Shane calls out: “Pike! You shouldn’t let your kids stay up past their bedtime, they’ve been napping out here.” 

“You’re worse than him,” Pike grumbles, following his team’s slumped shoulders as they retreat through the tunnels. 

The Centaur’s exit from the ice is more indulgent, more congratulatory; Ilya emphasising every fist bump, helmet rub, every “Good fucking game,” because this is his fucking team. His people. His domain. And at the end of the line of worn out, happy players, there’s his fucking husband. Grinning his stupid fucking smile, all sweat and victory and the confidence of a man who won’t be cowed by anything. And Ilya’s next to him now, grinning his own stupid fucking smile. Planting a kiss on the top of Shane’s helmet. He takes Shane’s gloved hand in his, raises their arms together in victory, and disappears into the tunnel to a backdrop of a proud hometown crowd. 

Good fucking game. 

- 

 Ilya is being escorted to the press room with Shane at his side. It’s more formal than the usual scrum; they’re granted table and chairs, and the attentions of what feels like every sports journalist this side of the Atlantic. 
 
“A lot of your career has been about rivalry,” one reporter asks. It’s the closest Shane has ever come to rolling his eyes at one of these events, and he only just walks his expression back from the brink because Ilya’s kicked his feet under the table. “Has Montreal stepped into the role of adversary for you, now that the two of you are no longer being pitted against each other?” 

Ilya takes a breath. “Is competition still, with Hollander,” he starts diplomatically, all his media training sitting somewhere just in front of his urges to make the reporters squirm. “Which I am still winning,” he winks. 

“You wish, dude,” Shane answers. He says it in a low voice, but it catches the mic perfectly. It’s punctuated with polite laughter from the reporters, who wait for the second half of Ilya’s answer. 

“Montreal have not earned rivalry from us. We will play them again, and we will beat them  again,” Ilya says. “Because we are good team. We are great team. I do not lie awake worrying about Montreal.” 

Shane pauses a beat, then adds, “Ask us again if they get good. They were great when I was their captain, and they’ve sucked since. They’ve got their work cut out for them.” 

Ilya hopes Hayden and JJ don’t mind the bus that Shane has just flung them under, but damn, it felt good to hear him say that out loud. 

The questions loop back round to season aspirations. New team additions. Regular hockey stuff, which Shane gives regular hockey answers to, with Ilya chipping in to help or hinder. At some point, their hands find each other, and rest, interlocked, on top of the table. A tiny, natural gesture, and one they don’t have to think about hiding. 

The next question skims the surface of what everyone there is dying to hear about. 

“Do you think the league will be safer for players like yourselves?” 

“Do you mean sexy bisexual Russian men?” Ilya asks, deliberately not looking sideways to where Wiebe will no doubt be pulling his most exasperated expression. 

The journalist laughs politely. “I mean— ” she starts, and tempting though it would be to watch her pick the specific terminology to highlight all the ways in which Shane and Ilya represent a deviation from homogeneity, Ilya is feeling charitable. Slightly. His face is settled into something that feels kind when he answers. 

“I do not think we have fixed every problem,” he says. Because they haven’t exactly cleaned house; they’d have no fucking league left if they’d tried. They’ve just booted the figureheads of the worst of it into the media shame pits. Like plucking maggots from the league’s carcass. And they’re still only talking about one thing. The spotlight’s on sexuality for now, because that’s where the focus has been driven. The other stuff; the racism that loomed heavy across the ice, has been shuffled back into the shadows. The pushback against misogyny is falling back onto the shoulders of the women who have to bear it. There’s a lot of fucking work still to do. The thing that counts, is that the work is happening, and the balance has been shifted. 

“But is clearer message now.” Shane nods in agreement. “Is safer for my team,” Ilya adds. “Because I will just unleash my husband on anyone who gives trouble.” 

Shane kicks him under the table for that. Probably for invoking the concept of leashes when they have a room of cameras documenting their every expression. Ilya might pay for that one later. 

“Question for Ilya,” says the next reporter. Someone Ilya recognises from previous scrums, and has yet to generate any warm feelings toward. “There’s been a lot of speculation about what happened last season, about what led to everything unfolding.” Well. Fucking obviously. It’s been a trending topic in multiple formats all summer, so this question, or a version of it, was basically inevitable. “We’ve heard a lot from the other side, about why everything went as far as it did. The commissioner—”

“Former commissioner,” Shane interjects. 

“Right. Crowell, was accused of providing motivation for some of what happened in that game. A stance that seems to be corroborated by Thierault’s resignation statement, and some of what we’ve heard from other players. I’d really like to hear your opinion of it. Was it coordinated?” 

Ilya scans through the words, picking out the ones that make sense, and the ones he wants to answer. He’s had time to brace for this one. He’s also had time to believe the brightly worded messages of solidarity that had flooded in, after. More than he can read in one lifetime. He’s had time to focus on the sunlight, not the things lurking in the shadows scowling with envy. 

He exhales, squares his shoulders, looks the reporter in the eyes. Not with anger as much as immovability. 

“I do not care.” 

There’s a ripple of disconsolate murmuring. Definitely not the answer they were hoping for. Ilya lets it sit in the air, bolstered by Shane’s supportive silence next to him. 

He means it. He’s interpreted his own version of things, and sat with the weight of them pressing against his bones, his lungs, and his heart. Crowell hated them, simple as. And all the others like him. The ones who were too distracting, too outspoken. Too themselves. 

They represent a freedom that people like Crowell are terrified of, because it contradicts the pinhole view of the world they’re still trying to live in. Crowell had acted, by harnessing that same fearful animosity in every tool within the league. One of those tools was Thierault; a man so steeped in tradition that he’d blinkered himself to every whisper of progress that tried to shine a light on him. Another tool being the players looking for permission to act on their worst impulses. Who’d heard “Fuck them up,” and assumed it meant they had the right to try. That they’d get away with it, because consequences aren’t structured around men like them. 

Men, Galina had suggested, who were not unlike Ilya’s father. And as these one’s aren’t dead, all that remains is to put distance between himself and them. So no. Ilya does not care. Not any more, not when he gets to spend every day with his own personal sunshine. A sunshine who has been spending years warming every cold corner of Ilya’s life. 

“Shane,” presses the reporter. “Anything to add to that?” 

Shane knots his fingers tighter around Ilya’s, smiles in a way that’s broad and warm and nothing like his talking to the press face. He’s glowing, under the camera flashes and overhead lights. They both are. Radiant and unapologetic. Happy, in a way that no one can take away from them. 

“Nope.” 

- 

Chapter End Notes

For everyone who has been following along, commenting, or just finding it now, thank you. So much. I wish you sunshine.

I know HR is the happy universe where homophobia doesn’t manifest as horrific physical violence. But unfortunately I have a compulsive need to put these men in Situations. And maybe process a little trauma, as a treat. Also, real world interlude:

A couple of weeks ago, at a queer bar in town, in the rainbow quarter (such as it is): They had to have a lock-in, because there was a guy outside who’d got hold of a scaffolding pole and was trying to hurt the people inside with it. Police were called, the guy was arrested, and no one got hurt. When my friend told this story, it wasn’t even the most interesting thing that had happened that night. It was just Friday. (Admittedly Friday in Blackpool, for anyone who knows the town, but).

So! I’m glad the source material is what it is, and I wouldn’t change that about it. We need more queer stories where tragedy and pain aren’t the end point.

But also I am here to play in the angst pits. So. Thank you for joining me here <3

Completely unrelated, but it is my completely no-stakes belief that Troy Barrett loves 00s emo, and was absolutely gutted about striking Brand New from his playlists when he started interrogating what it meant to be an ally.

[I’m sporadically on socials as muffichka if anyone wants to yell but it is an untagged dumpster fire, especially on tumblr <3]