Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, David Hollander, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Fluff, Boys Kissing, Slow Dancing, Miracles, Recovery, Brain Surgery, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Anxious Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Soft Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Idiots in Love, Smoking, Hospitals, Good Parent Yuna Hollander, Good Parent David Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Hold On (I Still Want You)

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-20 Words: 21,867 Chapters: 1/1

Let me take your hand (I'll make it right)

Summary

Ilya is recovering after the brain surgery but recovery rerely is a straight line. And Ilya, done with hospitals, is up to mischief. Fortunately, Shane is there to make sure Ilya stays alive.

***

This is set between "Hold On (I Still Want You)" and "Come Back (I Still Need You)" and focuses on Ilya's recovery after the brain surgery he underwent. It can be read as stand-alone but I think it's probably best to read at least first part of my series to get some context!

Notes

Hi!

Here comes another part of the series. This one is set before "Come Back (I Still Need You)" and focuses on Ilya's recovery while he is still in the hospital. As always, kudos and comments are more than welcome<3

Enjoy!

The next day the light was wrong. Too white, too still, like someone had turned the world’s contrast down and left only the glare. It slipped through the crack in the blinds and drew a pale line across Ilya’s blanket. Dust floated in it, slow and aimless.

Acing all the tests once was one thing. Actually getting back to everyday life was another. 

Ilya blinked at it for a long time before he remembered why the ceiling wasn’t the one above their bed at the lake.

A soft, warm weight circled his right hand.

He turned his head, the movement thick and slow, and found Shane in the chair by the bed - shoulders hunched, hoodie creased, eyes bruised with lack of sleep. His fingers were locked around Ilya’s like he thought someone might come take him away. The sight tugged something deep in Ilya’s chest. That, more than the IV or the monitor or the strange heaviness in his skull, made it real.

“Hey,” he rasped.

Shane’s head snapped up. Relief cracked across his features so hard it hurt to look at. “Hey,” he echoed, voice hushed. “Hi.”

Ilya licked his lips. Everything felt out of proportion - the size of his tongue in his mouth, the weight of his eyes. 

“You are… still here.”

“Of course I’m still here.” Shane’s grip tightened, like he could make it a promise. “They’d have to drag me out, Illy.”

“Would probably win,” Ilya murmured, because Shane was running on fumes and three days of hospital coffee. The joke still came out softer than he intended.

Shane actually huffed a tiny laugh, the sound wet at the edges. “I’m not leaving you.”

Ilya let his head sink a little further into the pillow, watching him. The dark crescents under Shane’s eyes. The flatness around his mouth. The way his knee bounced, just once, then stilled when he remembered.

“Did you sleep?” Ilya asked.

“Yeah,” Shane lied immediately.

Ilya’s brows twitched. He didn’t have the energy to argue, but he held Shane’s gaze long enough that Shane looked away, sheepish.

“Some,” Shane amended quietly. “I slept some.”

“Good,” Ilya murmured. He squeezed Shane’s fingers, clumsy but determined. “You need.”

A knock broke the moment. A nurse came in, then another woman with a badge and a clipboard, her hair pulled back, a calmness about her that felt practiced.

“Morning, Ilya. Morning, Shane,” she said. “I’m Mira, from physio. How are you feeling today?”

Ilya hated that there were so many answers to that question.

“My head is… heavy,” he said. “Rest is…” He gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn’t tethered to tubing. “Fog.”

Mira nodded. “That tracks. You’ve been through major brain surgery and you’ve been in bed for a few days. Today we’re going to see how your body tolerates sitting up and standing. Just a little. No marathons.”

Shane went rigid.

Ilya felt it through their joined hands. He turned his palm and threaded their fingers properly, slow, deliberate, like he was steadying Shane onto the ground.

“It’s safe,” Mira added, clocking the tension. “We’re going to go very slowly. You’ll probably feel dizzy, maybe a bit nauseous. That’s not failure. That’s your body adjusting to gravity again.”

Dizzy. Nauseous. He could live with those. He was alive to feel them.

He nodded. “Okay.”

They moved around him with practiced care. The nurse checked his lines, adjusted the bed. Mira loosened the rails, slipped a belt around his waist. “This is just so I have something solid to hold onto when you stand,” she explained. “You’re still in charge of the movement.”

Shane stood up so fast the chair scraped. His eyes were huge, fixed on Ilya like he was bracing to watch him walk into a storm.

Ilya wanted to pull him in and tuck his face into his neck. He wanted to say, It’s okay, I’ve got this, you don’t have to be scared. But his arms already felt like they’d run a mile just from being lifted off the sheets. Stupid fucking brain thing.

The bed rose first, motor humming, bringing him into more of a sitting angle. The room tilted with it. Pressure deepened behind his eyes, a hot, heavy throb.

“Breathe,” Mira said gently. “Slow in, slow out.”

Ilya obeyed, dragging air in through his nose. His chest felt too tight.

“Ready to swing your legs over?” she asked.

No, he thought.

“Yes,” he said.

Mira and the nurse each took an arm. They moved him in small increments - shoulder, hip, knees - until his feet slid off the bed and touched cold linoleum.

The jolt of contact ran all the way up his spine.

For a moment he just sat there on the edge of the bed, spine curved, jaw clenched. The world swooped. His vision pixelated at the edges.

Shane hovered by his knee, one hand out, not quite touching. “How’s your head?” he asked, voice thready.

“Like watermelon someone dropped,” Ilya muttered. The humor came automatically, a reflexive shield, but his fingers dug into the mattress.

Mira checked the monitor. “Blood pressure’s okay. Give it a minute. Your brain is figuring out this whole vertical thing again.”

A minute stretched. Ilya stared at the floor and concentrated on not vomiting on it.

Shane shifted closer. His hand brushed the back of Ilya’s neck, barely there. Warm, shaking.

Ilya turned his head enough to meet his eyes. “Hey, Hollander.”

Shane swallowed. “Hey.”

“I’m okay,” Ilya said, even though he felt anything but. He forced his hand off the mattress and fumbled for Shane’s wrist, curling his fingers around it. “You hear?”

Shane’s breath stuttered. He nodded once, quickly.

“Okay,” Mira said, watching them but not intruding. “Next step is standing. I’ll be right in front of you with the belt. Nurse behind you. Shane, you can stay by his left side. If at any point you feel like you’re tipping or you need to sit, you say the word and we sit. There’s no prize for pushing past your limit today.”

That last sentence was clearly for him.

He still felt his spine stiffen at it.

“I can stand,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. The fog in his head didn’t change his bone-deep certainty on that point. Standing was basic. Standing was human. He needed to be able to stand.

Mira just nodded, unruffled. “I believe you.”

She set the walker up in front of him, metal frame waiting, and then met his eyes. “On three, lean your weight forward like you’re going to get out of a chair at home. Push through your legs. Don’t yank on the walker; that’s just for balance. I’ve got the belt.”

He could feel Shane listening to every word, memorizing them.

“One,” she said.

Ilya filled his lungs.

“Two.”

His hands clamped on the mattress. The world narrowed to the rectangle of floor in front of him and the warmth of Shane’s wrist under his fingers.

“Three.”

He pushed.

Muscles that had always obeyed without question suddenly misfired. His thighs shook. His knees tried to buckle. For one wild second, he was sure he was going to pitch forward face-first onto the floor.

Mira’s grip on the belt held firm. The nurse steadied his shoulder. Somehow, agonizingly, he ended upright.

Upright, but shaking.

Fire lit along his hamstrings. Sweat broke out at the back of his neck. His heart hammered way too fast for the tiny bit of effort that used to be mindless, mechanical, normal.

“Good,” Mira said, low and sure. “You’re standing. That’s the hardest part. Don’t lock your knees. Soften them just a little.”

He tried. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else.

“Eyes forward, not at the floor,” she reminded him. “If you look down, you can lose your balance.”

He forced his gaze up…

…and landed on Shane.

Shane was standing so close he could see the fine tremor in his fingers where they hovered by Ilya’s arm. His eyes were glassy, fixed on Ilya’s face like he was afraid to blink.

“You’re doing it,” Shane said, voice rough but steady. “You’re up.”

Something in Ilya’s chest unclenched at the pride in his tone. Heat pricked at his own eyes, sharp as needles.

“Dizzy,” he admitted, teeth gritted.

“That’s okay,” Mira said. “You’re allowed to be dizzy. You’ve been horizontal for days. Let’s just breathe here for a bit. Then if you feel up to it, we’ll take a few steps.”

A few steps.

He’d skated miles on bad ice, played through injuries, skated until his lungs burned and his legs screamed. Now the thought of “a few steps” scared him more than any overtime. He hated that. Hated that fear had its hands on him again.

Shane’s fingers brushed his wrist. 

“We can stop,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to push it.”

Ilya swallowed. The bandage tugged faintly at his temple. “I want,” he said. His voice cracked. “I want to walk.”

Shane’s face went soft in that way it only did when they were alone. “Okay. Then we’ll walk,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

“Move the walker forward just a little,” Mira instructed. “Then right foot, then left. Tiny steps. You’re not trying to prove anything, you’re just telling your body, ‘hey, we still know how to do this.’”

Not trying to prove anything. Right. 

He shifted the walker forward. It rattled faintly on the floor. His right foot followed, sliding more than stepping. His thigh trembled violently. He wanted to curse in Russian. He wanted to sit. He wanted…

Shane’s hand found his forearm, warm and solid. “That’s it,” he murmured. “You’re doing so good.”

The praise hit him like another wave of dizziness.

Left foot.

One tiny, stupid, monumental step.

His vision blurred. He realized too late that his eyes were filling; tears clung to his lashes.

He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.

“Do you want another?” Mira asked. No pressure in her tone, just offering.

He stared straight ahead. Pride warred with nausea. His legs burned. His skull throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

“Yes,” he said finally.

Walker. Right foot. Left foot.

Each repetition stole more from him. By the fifth, sweat rolled down his spine. By the eighth, he tasted bile at the back of his throat.

On the tenth, his knees buckled. His stomach lurched.

Shane gasped, a sharp sound. Mira tightened her hold instantly. The nurse stepped in closer.

“Got you,” Mira said, calm. “You’re not going down. Take a breath.”

Air stuttered in and out of Ilya’s chest, shallow and too fast.

“Hey,” Shane said softly. “Look at me.”

Ilya dragged his gaze sideways.

Shane’s eyes shone. His mouth was trembling. He looked like someone trying not to break open in the middle of a crowded room.

“You’re okay,” Shane said, every word deliberate. “You’re safe. Do you want to sit?”

Everything in Ilya screamed yes.

“Yes,” he forced out, because sometimes bravery was choosing not to push.

They turned him with excruciating slowness and guided him backwards until he felt the chair behind his knees. Lowering was somehow worse than standing had been; his thighs shook, his head roared.

When he finally landed in the chair, his whole body sagged. The room swooped again. He bent forward, elbows on his knees, breathing like he’d just finished a sprint shift.

Mira checked his vitals, murmured to the nurse, said something about “really good first session” and “we’ll try again later if he’s up for it.” Her voice blurred into the general beeping.

All Ilya could focus on was the hand that touched his leg.

Shane crouched in front of him, knees on the floor, hands spread lightly over Ilya’s thighs. Not squeezing, not restraining. Just there.

Ilya forced his head up.

Shane’s face was streaked, he realized. Tears had escaped anyway.

“Don’t,” Ilya rasped, reaching clumsily for him. His fingers caught Shane’s wrist again. “Hey. Don’t cry, Hollander.”

Shane let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. “You took eleven steps,” he said. It sounded like confession, like prayer. “Eleven, Ilya.”

Eleven. He hadn’t been counting.

The number landed harder than he expected. Not three, not five. Eleven. More than he would’ve believed when he was still lying flat, convinced his legs were nothing but dead weight.

His throat burned. He blinked fast, but a tear still slipped free, hot on his cheek.

Shane’s thumb brushed it away like it offended him.

“I was…” Ilya swallowed. “Scared.”

“I know.” Shane didn’t look away, didn’t flinch from the admission. “Me too.”

That “me too” dug under his ribs and settled there.

He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and kissed the back of Shane’s fingers. It was clumsy, not how he meant, his neck ached, his head pounded, but he needed Shane to feel it.

“Thank you,” he muttered against his skin.

“For what?” Shane whispered, voice cracking.

“For being here when I take ugly baby steps like drunk baby deer.”

A tiny, startled laugh escaped Shane despite himself. He leaned forward until his forehead rested against Ilya’s, careful of the bandage.

“I’m going to be here for every ugly baby step,” he said, breath warm on Ilya’s lips. “Every single one. Until they’re not ugly, and even then.”

Ilya closed his eyes. For a moment, the dizziness faded under the weight of that promise.

“Okie,” he breathed.

Mira returned to wheel the chair closer to the bed. The transfer back was another small battle, but easier now that his body had tasted standing again. When at last he was lying down, the pillow cool under his head, his muscles buzzed with spent effort. Exhaustion dragged at him, heavy and irresistible.

Shane fixed the blanket automatically, smoothing it around his shoulders, tucking it under his feet like he always ran cold. His hands were feather-light, reverent.

“Sleep,” Shane said quietly, brushing damp curls back from his forehead. “You did so much today.”

Ilya blinked at him - at the raw tenderness on his face, at the way his mouth still trembled, at the love he wasn’t even trying to hide.

“Tomorrow,” Ilya mumbled, the word slurring as sleep pulled at him. “More steps.”

Shane’s eyes shone again, but his smile was soft. “Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow, more steps. And I’ll be right here.”

Ilya let his eyes close, holding that sentence like a hand in the dark.

He’d almost lost everything, the ice, his body, this. The world had gone black twice and opened its hands and still, somehow, he’d come back to this bed, this light, this man saying I’ll be right here.

Eleven steps today.

Tomorrow, maybe twelve.

***

The next morning, the light looked less like an enemy.

Still too bright, still too white, but softer somehow. Or maybe that was just the way Ilya looked back at it - less like it was something happening to him and more like it was just… there. Background. Not the main event.

He was already sitting up when Shane came back from brushing his teeth in the tiny hospital bathroom, legs dangling over the edge of the bed, hands braced on either side. Someone had helped him there, but he was holding himself up, back muscles working.

“You’re supposed to wait,” Shane blurted, heart spiking. “You could… dizzy, or…”

“I am fine,” Ilya said, though sweat already shone faintly at his hairline. His eyes were clearer today, greener around the pupils. “I am waiting for you.”

Shane stopped short. “For me?”

“So you do not miss anything.” A crooked half-smile. “Today I walk more. Better. You have to see.”

Shane’s chest did something odd - tight and warm and painful all at once. 

“You don’t have to beat yesterday,” he said, automatically. “Yesterday was… you were incredible yesterday.”

Ilya shook his head, slow, stubborn. 

“No. Yesterday was first time.” He lifted a hand, let it hover, fingers opening and closing like he was already gripping an invisible walker. “Today is… first time I show you I am not breakable.”

Shane’s throat closed. He wanted to tell him that eleven steps had already shown that. That waking up had shown that. That breathing had shown that.

Instead he crossed the floor and gently took Ilya’s face in his hands, careful of the bandage. “You never have to prove that to me,” he said, quiet, steady.

Ilya looked at him for a long moment, eyes searching his. Then he nodded, accepting the words but not surrendering his plan at all.

There was a soft knock at the door. Shane dropped his hands and turned, wiping his face with the sleeve of his hoodie like he could erase the emotion.

A nurse poked her head in. “Morning,” she said with a smile. “Looks like we’ve got quite the audience today.”

Behind her, in the hallway, Shane’s parents hovered - David broad-shouldered and awkward in the doorway, Yuna smaller beside him, fingers twisted in the strap of her bag. Their eyes went straight to Ilya.

“Hi,” Shane managed.

Yuna’s face crumpled instantly. “Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered, not sure which of them she meant until she crossed the threshold and went straight to Ilya.

“Hi, Mama Hollander” Ilya said, because that was what she was to him now, all soft hands and worried eyes and warmth. His mouth wobbled, and he tried to turn it into a grin. “I make you drive here for nothing, see? I am very dramatic.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. She didn’t touch his head, too aware of the surgery, but she held his shoulder, thumb trembling. 

“You scared us,” she said, voice breaking. “You scared us so much.”

“I scared me too,” he admitted, and for once didn’t turn it into a joke.

David came to the other side of the bed, fingers curling around the rail. His eyes were suspiciously wet. 

“How’re you feeling, champ?” he asked, voice rough.

Ilya considered. “Heavy,” he said. “But… strong.” He met Shane’s gaze when he said it.

Shane swallowed hard. “He walked yesterday,” he told his parents, needing them to know. “Eleven steps. With the walker. Mira said that’s, like, ahead of schedule.”

“It was,” came a new voice from the doorway.

Dr. Lewis stepped in, white coat, dark curls tied back, that calm, unflappable expression that had become the closest thing Shane had to religion over the past weeks. Today, though, there was something different at the edges, curiosity, maybe. Or something almost like wonder.

“Mira told me about your debut,” she said to Ilya. “I thought I’d come see the encore for myself.”

Ilya straightened as much as his protesting muscles would allow. “I will give you good show,” he said seriously. “Today we go for thirty.”

Shane choked. “Thirty what?”

“Steps,” Ilya said, like it was obvious, rolling his eyes and then wincing when his head hurt. “At least.”

Shane’s brain screamed absolutely not and sit down and you were pale with eleven, all at once.

Dr. Lewis’s brows lifted. “That’s ambitious,” she said mildly. “But let’s see how your body feels. Pushing too hard this early would be… unwise.”

“I know,” Ilya said. He did know; he’d listened, even through the fog. “But I also know I am not staying in bed forever. So today I start not staying.”

Mira arrived a few minutes later, rolling the walker in front of her, smile widening when she saw the room full of people.

“Quite the party,” she said. “No pressure, right?”

Ilya flashed her a quick grin that, for a second, looked like his usual cocky pre-game smile. “Is just warmup.”

Shane’s parents stepped back to give them room. Shane stayed close, on Ilya’s left, as instructed, pulse jackhammering.

Mira and the nurse maneuvered Ilya to the edge of the bed again. He was steadier this time, body already remembering the strange new geography of sitting up. His feet hit the floor with less of a jolt.

“How’s the dizziness?” Mira asked.

He paused, took stock. “Less,” he admitted, surprised. “Like… boat, not rollercoaster.”

“Good,” she said. “That’s progress. Same drill as yesterday. We’ll stand on three. You do the work; we keep you from falling on your face. Everyone ready?”

David nodded too vigorously, then looked faintly embarrassed when Mira smiled at him. Yuna pressed her hand over her heart. Shane just nodded once, throat too tight for words.

“Okay. One.”

Ilya inhaled, deep and determined.

“Two.”

His hands tightened on the mattress.

“Three.”

He pushed.

The wobble was still there, the surge of dizziness, the tremor in his legs, but today there was more under it. Power. Memory. His muscles complained, but they remembered.

He got upright in one rough, continuous movement and stayed there.

Mira’s hand stayed firm on the belt but didn’t have to yank. The nurse hovered but didn’t catch him.

“Look at that,” Mira murmured, impressed. “Much smoother. How’s the head?”

“Loud,” he said, breathing a little harder. “But okay.”

He focused on a point on the wall for a moment, letting the sway settle. Then his eyes slid sideways, magnetized, finding Shane. Shane who looked wrecked. Tears already stood in his eyes, lower lip trembling faintly, knuckles white where he gripped the rail with one hand and clenched the other uselessly in midair.

“You are going to cry whole time?” Ilya asked, a little hoarse, trying for light.

“Probably,” Shane said, voice shaking and choked up. “Yeah.”

“Is okay.” Ilya’s mouth softened. “You look pretty when you cry. You have deer eyes.”

Beside him, Yuna made a helpless little sound and pressed her fingers to her lips again. David’s jaw worked.

“Ready to move?” Mira asked gently, after giving them a moment. “Remember, tiny steps, no yanking. We’re not chasing numbers today.”

“I am,” Ilya said under his breath. Then, louder, “Yes. Let’s walk.”

He moved the walker forward.

Right foot. Left foot.

The first step stole his breath - the way his weight shifted, the way his brain had to catch up - but he didn’t hesitate like yesterday. He didn’t pause to argue with fear. He simply did it.

“Good,” Mira said. “That’s one.”

“One,” he repeated. “Twenty-nine to go.”

Shane made a strangled noise. “We never agreed on thirty,” he muttered.

“Too late,” Ilya said, teeth gritted. “I already told brain.”

He kept going.

Two. Three. Four.

By five, his thighs burned, but less viciously than the day before.

At eight, the dizziness surged, but leveled quicker.

Mira kept a running commentary. “

Nice shifting there,” 

“Remember to breathe,” 

“Soft knees, don’t lock” her tone steady, professional. 

Shane only half heard her. His world had narrowed to the lines of Ilya’s shoulders, the flex and tremble in his muscles, the stubborn set of his jaw.

Ten.

“Hey,” David said thickly from behind him. “That’s… you’re flying, bud.”

Ilya huffed out air that might have been a laugh. “Flying is much nicer than this.”

He turned at the end of the bed - a slow, awkward pivot that felt more like steering a truck than turning his own body. Mira guided the walker, adjusting his hips with minimal pressure.

“Hallway?” Ilya asked once he’d made the turn, eyes flicking toward the open door.

Mira hesitated. “That’s… more than we planned.”

“I feel good,” Ilya insisted. “I want to see something not wall.”

Dr. Lewis, who had been watching quietly from near the foot of the bed, stepped in a little closer. “If she says no, you listen,” she told Ilya. “But if Mira thinks it’s safe, I’d like to see what you can do.”

Mira studied Ilya’s face, the color in his lips, the set of his shoulders. Then she glanced at the monitor. “We’ll go just into the hall and back,” she decided. “No further. If you sway more than twice, we sit.”

“Deal,” Ilya said instantly.

Shane’s heart stuttered. “I’ll… I’ll clear people,” he said, and then realized there were no people to clear; the corridor was relatively quiet this early. Still, he moved ahead, making sure there was space, like he could physically drag danger out of the way if it appeared.

Mira guided Ilya through the doorway.

The transition from room to hallway felt monumental. New light, different air, the faint sound of other lives in other rooms. Ilya’s skin prickled.

He took another step.

And another.

His body screamed. His skull throbbed. Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades.

But there was something else under the pain: fury, bright and clean. Fury that this thing had tried to take his life, his legs, his game, this… and failed. Fury that it had made Shane and Yuna and David and his team sob in hospital corridors. Fury that his own brain had betrayed him, and a matching, vicious determination to make it regret it.

“Eight,” Mira counted softly, as they moved down the hall. “Nine. Ten.”

They passed a window. Pale winter light spilled over them. In the reflection, Ilya saw himself: pale, thin, bandage at his temple, hospital gown gaping at the back, pushing a walker like an eighty-year-old.

For a heartbeat, shame flared.

Then he saw Shane in the glass too - walking backward in front of him now, watching his feet, his face, his posture, tears on his cheeks and his mouth soft with awe.

Not disgust. Not pity.

Awe.

The shame fizzled under it.

“Ilya,” Shane whispered, hopeless. “You’re… you’re amazing.”

“Do not cry on floor,” Ilya muttered, breathless. “It will be slippery. Someone will fall. Probably me.”

Yuna laughed and sobbed at the same time, hand pressed over her mouth. David cleared his throat aggressively and blinked hard.

“Okay,” Mira said gently. “We’re at fifteen. Let’s pause here, just standing, and then we’ll go back. How’re you doing?”

He wanted to say thirty. He wanted to say I can go to the nurses’ station and back. He wanted to say I can do anything.

What came out was a raw, honest, “Hurts.”

Mira nodded immediately. “That’s your body telling you it’s working. We’re going to turn around now and head back. Same small steps. No heroics.”

“No heroics,” he echoed, but his eyes glinted. He started back.

Sixteen. Seventeen.

His legs truly shook now. Not the pretend shake he used to do on the ice to make trainers back off; this was deep, involuntary tremor, muscles firing with everything they had. His breathing got harsher.

“Breathe with me,” Shane said, matching his pace, inhaling and exhaling exaggeratedly. “In… out… in… out…”

Ilya tried. It helped, a little. More because it gave him a rhythm to tack his steps to.

Nineteen. Twenty.

Dark spots danced at the edges of his vision.

“At twenty-two, we sit,” Mira said firmly. “Non-negotiable.”

“Twenty-five,” Ilya grunted.

“Twenty-two,” she repeated. “Or we put you back in bed and you don’t walk again today.”

He hissed through his teeth. “You fight dirty.”

“I fight for your brain,” she said calmly. “Twenty-two.”

He glared at the floor, at the walker, at his own treacherous knees.

Twenty-one.

Twenty-two.

The doorway appeared in front of him like salvation. His legs threatened to buckle.

“Okay, that’s it,” Mira said, already angling the walker toward the chair they’d placed in the room. “You did far more than I expected. We’re stopping.”

He wanted to argue. He really did. But when he tried to take another step, his body answered for him. Nothing left. He let them guide him back into the room - David and Yuna flattening themselves against the wall to make space - until the backs of his knees hit the chair.

Lowering was hell. He grunted, breath tearing in and out, arms shaking as he clung to the walker, thighs burning like someone had lit a match to them. Then he was down. The moment his weight hit the seat, his whole body sagged. Every muscle screamed. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He bent forward, elbows braced on his knees, head hanging.

Sweat dropped from his face to the floor, dark spots on pale linoleum.

There was a sharp inhale from Yuna. A muffled curse from David.

Shane was there instantly, dropping to his knees in front of him like gravity had yanked him down.

“Hey,” he said, voice wrecked. “Hey, hey, look at me.”

Ilya lifted his head slowly.

Shane’s face was a mess - eyes red-rimmed, cheeks wet, mouth wobbling between a laugh and a sob. He reached up with both hands and framed Ilya’s face, thumbs brushing sweat and silent tears alike.

“You did twenty-two steps,” he whispered. “Twenty-two, Ilya.”

It hit harder than thirty would have.

He hadn’t just beaten yesterday; he’d doubled it. More than doubled, almost.

His chest shook. “I wanted thirty,” he said, words slurring a little with exhaustion and frustration.

Shane huffed out a wet laugh. “You’re insane, Rozanov” he said, affection and fear tangled hopelessly together. “ You did— you—”

He broke off, the emotion overwhelming him. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Ilya’s, careful of the bandage, breathing him in like air. Behind them, someone sniffed loudly. Yuna had both hands pressed to her face now, shoulders shaking. David had an arm around her, his own eyes glassy.

Dr. Lewis spoke then, voice softer than Shane had ever heard it. “This is…” She cleared her throat. “Frankly, this is extraordinary.”

Ilya turned his head a fraction, enough to see him over Shane’s shoulder.

“Extraordinary good?” he asked, because his brain still clung to worst-case scenarios.

Dr. Lewis’s mouth curved. “Extraordinary unbelievable,” she said. “You shouldn’t be walking this far, this well, this soon after what your brain went through. Most patients at this stage are still struggling to stand. Some can’t find their words. Your scans look like they belong to someone far worse off.”

Yuna made a faint, choked sound.

Shane stiffened. “Is that… is that bad?” he demanded, anxiety spiking. “Like his scans are lying or… or…”

“No,” Dr. Lewis said quickly. “It’s not bad. It’s… I don’t say this lightly, but it really is remarkable. We’ll keep monitoring, of course, fatigue, swelling, all of that, but right now? Your recovery is ahead of anything I would’ve dared to predict.”

She looked at Ilya with something like awe. 

“You are very, very lucky, Mr. Rozanov. And very, very stubborn, apparently.”

Ilya let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. “Yes,” he said, exhausted but sure. “I am. Both.”

Shane’s hands slid down to his shoulders, squeezing gently. “You hear that?” he whispered. “You’re remarkable.”

Ilya leaned forward, resting his forehead on Shane’s shoulder, letting his weight tip, trusting Shane to bear it. “You too,” he murmured into the hoodie fabric. “You are here. That is miracle also.”

Shane made a sound that punched through the whole room, raw and small. His arms came up around Ilya, holding him carefully, as if he were both glass and steel.

Yuna crossed the remaining space and laid a hand on both their backs, her palm warm through thin cotton. David stood behind her, one big hand on her shoulder, the other briefly brushing Ilya’s arm.

Mira fussed with the belt, loosening it, making sure nothing was pinched. The nurse adjusted the IV. Life went on around them, clinical and precise. But in the center of it, in that cramped little hospital room, something huge shifted.

Yesterday, eleven steps had been a miracle.

Today, twenty-two steps proved it wasn’t a fluke.

Tomorrow, there would be more - more distance, more pain, more stubbornness, more hope.

For now, Ilya let himself shake and sweat and cry into Shane’s shoulder, surrounded by the hands that refused to let him fall, feeling the impossible, astonishing, undeserved truth of it:

He was still here.

And he was moving forward.

***

Days slid into each other in that strange hospital way - measured not by clocks but by rounds and vitals and how many laps Ilya could make without his legs giving up.

He graduated from the edge of the bed to the door. From the door to halfway down the hallway. From halfway down the hallway to the window at the end, where a miserable little strip of sky showed above the parking lot.

He hated the walker, hated the squeak of it, the feel of the hard handgrips under his palms. But he used it. Every day. Twice if they let him.

“You don’t have to push this hard,” Shane kept saying.

“Yes, I do,” Ilya kept answering, stubborn to the bone. “I have game to get back to. Future husband to annoy for many years. I need legs for this.”

Some days were better - steps smoother, dizziness less brutal, pain a dull throb instead of a spike. Some days were ugly, his body suddenly heavier and slower, his brain foggier. On those days, he cursed in Russian under his breath and Mira told him, patient, that healing wasn’t a straight line.

He still walked.

Sometimes Yuna walked beside him. Sometimes David did, big hand close to his back but never pushing. Sometimes it was just Shane, matching his pace, counting steps in his head even when he said he wasn’t.

At night, the room went soft and quiet. Machines hummed. Footsteps faded. Shane learned how to sleep in the hospital chair: twisted at a dozen uncomfortable angles, hoodie tugged over his head, one hand always somehow touching Ilya, fingers curled around his wrist, palm on his forearm, pinky hooked in the edge of his blanket.

He’d jerk awake every time a nurse came in, every time the monitor beeped differently, every time Ilya shifted. His heart still hadn’t learned the difference between ordinary sounds and the ones from that first night.

Then, one morning, his heart detonated.

He woke with a violent, disorienting jolt, neck screaming from the angle he’d slumped in. The room was washed in that early grey light that made everything look flat. His mouth tasted like sleep and hospital air.

He reached out automatically, still half in a dream, fingers searching for the warm weight of Ilya’s arm.

They met a cold sheet.

Shane’s eyes snapped all the way open.

The bed was empty. The pillow was dented, blankets rumpled, but there was no Ilya. No walker beside the bed either.

For half a second, his brain blanked. Then his body flooded with sheer, animal panic.

He was up so fast the chair skidded back, metal legs screeching. 

“Ilya?” The word ripped out of him, too loud in the quiet room.

No answer. The bathroom door, the little adjacent one with the frosted glass panel, was half-closed, a line of light showing under it.

Shane’s heart slammed against his ribs. His mind supplied every horrific possibility at once: seizure in the bathroom, Ilya collapsed on the tile, Ilya unconscious, Ilya…

He crossed the room in three strides and slapped his palm against the door. “Ilya?” he called, voice breaking. “Rozanov, answer me…”

“Shane.”

It came through the door calm and annoyed, with that particular long-suffering cadence Ilya reserved for when Shane was spiraling. Shane froze. The room spun in a different way now, adrenaline crashing into relief so hard his knees went weak.

“Where… what are you…” He pushed the door open.

He expected… he wasn’t sure what he expected. Chaos. Blood, maybe. Nurses. Ilya on the floor.

What he got was steam.

Warm, humid air hit his face, curling his hair at the temples. Someone had run the shower hot; droplets still clung to the tiles, slowly sliding down, catching in the fluorescent light.

And in the middle of the small bathroom, in front of the sink, stood Ilya.

On his own.

No walker. No belt. No hand on the wall.

He was barefoot, hospital gown swapped for soft grey sweatpants and one of Shane’s old t-shirts, the faded one from his first rookie camp. His curls were damp and darker from the shower, hanging in uneven, dripping clumps around the white strip of tape and healing incision at his temple.

He had a disposable razor in one hand, the other braced lightly on the edge of the sink. White foam striped his jaw and neck. He was squinting into the mirror, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, carefully shaving around his lips.

He looked up when the door opened wider, eyes meeting Shane’s in the mirror.

Shane grabbed the doorframe because his hand actually shook. “What the fuck,” he breathed. 

“Good morning,” Ilya said mildly, like this was a completely normal scene. His voice was rough from sleep and steam. “You are so loud. I try to shave, you try to break door.”

Shane stared. Words seemed to have deserted him.

“Don’t move,” he managed finally. “Don’t move, don’t… sit down, lie down, I… fuck, did you fall, did you… how did you even get in here?”

“I walked,” Ilya said, as if it were obvious. He tilted his head slightly, scraping the razor along his cheek with slow, meticulous care. “You know. On legs. Sometimes people do this.”

Shane’s laugh came out half hysterical. “You walked,” he repeated. “You walked without telling anyone, without me, without the walker…”

He made a helpless gesture at Ilya’s bare feet on the tile, at the wet footprints leading from the shower stall to the sink, at the towel slung haphazardly over the rail.

“Did you at least… were you sitting in the shower?” he demanded. “Did you use the rail? Did you…”

“Yes, mother,” Ilya said, eyes crinkling in the mirror. “I sat on little chair like good patient. I did not do jumping jacks. Relax.”

Shane dragged a hand over his face. “Wow. Relax,” he repeated faintly. “You vanished from your bed and I’m supposed to relax…”

“I was gone for five minutes,” Ilya said. “You slept hard. You snored.”

“I do not snore,” Shane shot back automatically, which was how he knew he was spiraling.

Ilya’s mouth curved. He carefully rinsed the razor under the tap. “You do. I have witness.”

“You could have died in a fucking bathroom,” Shane snapped, voice pitching up. “You collapsed in a hotel bathroom, remember? The coach called me…” His throat closed around the memory: tile, blood, limp limbs, sirens. “You can’t just… just wander off into bathrooms now like it’s nothing.”

That took some of the amusement out of Ilya’s eyes.

He set the razor down carefully on the edge of the sink and turned, resting his hip against it. One hand stayed on the counter, but he didn’t grab it like he needed it. He stood. Tall, if a little thinner. Straight, if a little careful.

“I did not nearly die in this bathroom,” he said quietly. “This one is boring and ugly. No drama.” He spread his free hand, indicating himself. “See? I am fine.”

Shane’s gaze dragged over him, frantic and disbelieving. The damp ring at the collar of his shirt. The steam still curling, the faint red line of the scar disappearing into his bandage. The way his chest rose and fell - not too fast, not shallow. His bare toes curled slightly on the tile.

He was standing.

On his own.

“I needed to do it,” Ilya added, softer now. “By myself. Just once. To know I can.”

That punched right through the panic.

Shane leaned his shoulder into the doorframe harder, trying to keep his voice in his throat and not let it explode out of him. “You could have woken me up,” he said, but it came out small, almost hurt. “You could’ve told me you were going to try.”

“I know.” Ilya’s eyes flicked over him, catching on the tremble in his hands, the too-fast rise of his chest, the way his pupils were still blown with fear. “I wanted to see if I could do it alone before I show you. So you don’t have to hold your breath every time I move.”

“Too late for that,” Shane muttered, but his voice was already thickening.

Ilya’s expression softened, pride and apology and stubbornness all tangled together. “Come here,” he said.

Shane made a helpless noise. “No, you come here. Slowly. With supervision.”

Ilya rolled his eyes, but he stayed where he was and lifted both arms slightly away from the sink. “Look,” he said.

Very, very carefully, he took his hand off the counter.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then his legs trembled, a fine shake along his thighs, but he didn’t sway. Didn’t pitch forward or back. He just stood there - barefoot on wet tile, damp curls plastered to his forehead, bandage bright against his skin - on his own two feet.

Shane’s heart stuttered so hard it hurt.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. His eyes burned instantly. “Oh my God.”

Ilya held it for another beat, just to prove the point, then casually put his palm back on the sink. “See?” he said, a little breathless now. “Not perfect. But I can.”

“How long have you been doing that?” Shane demanded, voice cracking. “How much have you been hiding from Mira?”

“I am not hiding.” Ilya scratched carefully at the edge of the tape on his temple. “I am… editing. She thinks I can stand for one minute. I can stand for five. She will be happy when she finds out.”

Shane let out a wet, incredulous laugh. “You’re going to give that poor woman a heart attack.”

He pushed himself off the doorframe and stepped into the bathroom properly, the tile cool under his socks. His gut still churned with leftover fear, but something else was building under it now, something bright and huge that made his chest feel too small.

“You took a shower,” he said, as if saying it would make it more real. “By yourself.”

“I smelled like hospital,” Ilya said simply. “I hate hospital smell. I wanted to smell like me again.” He lifted his arm and sniffed theatrically. “See? Less antiseptic. More handsome athlete.”

Shane choked on another wet laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love ridiculous,” Ilya said. “Is part of the package.”

Shane’s vision blurred. He blinked furiously. “I do,” he said. “I really, really do.”

He stepped up behind Ilya, close enough that their reflections blurred together in the mirror. Carefully, so carefully, he slid his hands around Ilya’s waist, fingertips resting on the damp cotton of his t-shirt, just above the waistband of the sweatpants.

“Is this okay?” he asked, voice low.

Ilya’s shoulders loosened under his touch. “Yes,” he murmured, tipping back into him just a fraction. “Very okay.”

Shane lowered his head to the unbandaged side of Ilya’s temple, breathing in the smell of cheap hospital soap and Ilya under it. His eyes stung again.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he whispered into damp curls.

“I know,” Ilya said gently. “I’m sorry.”

Shane’s grip tightened for a second. “Don’t be sorry for walking,” he said. “Just… next time, tell me.”

“Next time I will invite you to watch the show from beginning,” Ilya said. “VIP ticket.”

Shane huffed, a tear escaping onto Ilya’s skin. “Good,” he said, a little hoarse. “Because this…” He swallowed. “This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

In the mirror, their eyes met, Shane’s red-rimmed and wet, Ilya’s darker from the steam, bright with a fierce, quiet pride.

“I walked in here,” Ilya said, like he needed to hear it out loud. “From the bed. No walker. No belt.”

“How many steps?” Shane asked automatically.

Ilya’s mouth curved. “Seventeen,” he said. “I counted.”

Seventeen.

From the bed to the bathroom.

Unassisted.

Shane made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob and wasn’t quite a laugh. “You’re unbelievable,” he said.

“Dr. Lewis agrees with you,” Ilya said lightly. “She says my brain recovery is ‘remarkable.’”

“Yeah, well,” Shane murmured, squeezing him carefully, “your whole recovery is remarkable.”

He watched their reflection for a moment, the scar, the damp hair, the razor still on the sink. The fact that Ilya’s chest rose steady and strong, his legs holding him up, his hands not shaking too badly as he reached for the razor again.

“Can I…?” Shane let one hand leave Ilya’s waist and hover near the razor. “Can I help? Or is this another ‘I need to prove I can’ thing?”

“I already proved,” Ilya said softly. He tipped his face slightly, exposing more of his jaw. “Now I just don’t want to cut off my own ear. So yes, please. Help, Hollander.”

Something inside Shane melted.

He picked up the razor with careful fingers and turned Ilya gently toward him, backing him so his hips rested against the sink again. The angle put them close, almost chest to chest.

“Don’t move,” Shane murmured, bringing the razor to the line of foam along Ilya’s jaw. “And if you feel dizzy, you sit down immediately, I swear to God, Ilya.”

“Yes, yes,” Ilya said, smiling with his eyes. “No heroic fainting in your arms. I promise.”

Shane’s mouth trembled, but his hands were steady as he drew the blade slowly along the familiar curve of Ilya’s jaw, exposing clean skin. He’d always liked shaving him like this, on lazy mornings at the cottage, after morning sex in the shower, Ilya half-asleep with his head tipped back, trust heavy in his bones.

This was different. Sharper. Holier, somehow.

“You know,” Shane said quietly, rinsing the razor under the tap and going back in, “I woke up and thought you were gone.”

“I was in bathroom, peeing probably,” Ilya said, chastened.

“I know,” Shane said. “But my brain didn’t.” He swallowed. “All it knew was bed empty. And… it remembered.” His hand faltered for a second, the razor hovering. 

Ilya’s gaze went soft and serious.

“I hate that for you,” he said.

“I hate it for you more,” Shane said.

He finished the stroke, wiped away the foam with his thumb. The skin under his fingers was warm and alive.

“But this…” Shane whispered, meeting his eyes again, “this helps.”

Ilya’s lips parted. “Yes?” he asked, like he didn’t want to assume.

“Yeah.” Shane nodded, blinked away more tears. “You being the guy who sneaks off to take a shower and shave by himself? That’s… that’s the version I want in my head.”

“Good,” Ilya said, voice thick. “Because that is version I am trying very hard to be.”

Shane leaned in and pressed a careful kiss to the edge of the bandage, just below the tape, where skin met scar.

“I see him,” he murmured there. “Right here.”

Ilya’s breath hitched. His hand came up and covered Shane’s at his waist, fingers squeezing, grounding.

Seventeen steps to the bathroom.

Unassisted.

A shower. Standing at the sink. Foam on his jaw. A razor in his hand.

They were small things, maybe, in the grand scheme - no highlight reel, no roaring arena.

But in that tiny, steamed-up bathroom, with Shane’s hands on him and his own legs holding steady, it felt like the loudest victory Ilya had ever won.

***

It kept building up quietly.

After the Bathroom Incident , Mira did, in fact, nearly combust.

“You what?” she’d said when Shane, still pale, told her. “You walked seventeen steps alone? In a wet bathroom?”

Ilya had winced at the tone and muttered, “In my defense, I am stupid,” which made her snort despite herself.

After that, they made it official. Practice.

Mira added short stretches of “no-hands” standing to his physio. First with both hands hovering over the walker instead of holding it. Then one hand resting lightly. Then just fingertips, nothing more. Always with her right there, belt in hand, ready to grab.

Shane watched every second, heart in his throat, but he learned to tell the difference between wobble and danger. Between “this is hard” and “this is bad.”

“You’re allowed to be tired,” Mira told Ilya over and over. “You’re not allowed to be reckless.”

“I am professional hockey player,” he kept answering. “Reckless is part of my job.”

She stared at him. “Well, consider yourself temporarily unemployed.”

Still, she couldn’t hide the way her mouth twitched when he held a full five minutes without touching anything at all.

Dr. Lewis came by after each new milestone, hands in her pockets, gaze sharp behind her calm expression. “We are officially in ‘defying expectations’ territory now,” she said at one point, tapping Ilya’s chart. “Don’t take that as a challenge.”

“I already did,” Ilya replied, deadpan.

“Of course you did,” Dr. Lewis sighed.

Through it all, Shane’s parents came and went, bringing food Shane forgot to eat, clean shirts, gossip from the outside world. They fussed and worried and tried not to hover too much.

The first time they saw Ilya walk with the walker, Yuna cried. The second time, she cried less but took approximately fifty photos. David pretended he had something in his eye.

They hadn’t, however, seen him without it.

That part, Ilya wanted to choose carefully.

“Not in hallway,” he told Shane one night, when they were alone, lights low, the beeping of the monitor soft. “Too… hospital. Too many people.”

“Okay,” Shane said, fingers drawing idle patterns over the back of his hand. “Where then?”

“In here,” Ilya said. “When they walk in. I want their first look to be me on my feet. I have nice feet. You know, walking feet, Shane.”

Shane’s chest went tight. “You don’t have to put on a show for them,” he said, gently, ignoring the feet comment. “They already think you’re a miracle.”

“This is not show.” Ilya’s fingers tightened. “This is… reminder. For them. For me. For you. That I am not only ‘almost died.’ I am also ‘look, I stand and hug you.’”

Shane had to take a breath before he trusted himself to answer. 

“Okay,” he’d whispered. “Then we’ll do that.”

***

The day, once again, came quiet and grey. Snow swirled half-heartedly outside the small window; the world looked blurred and soft.

Ilya had convinced Mira to let him do one extra practice set that morning.

“Just to the door and back,” he promised. “With you right here. Very boring. No drama.”

Mira eyed him like she didn’t believe a word of it and then relented.

He stood from the bed using the walker, took slow, measured steps to the door, paused, turned, and came back. At the halfway point she said, “Okay, stop. Let go for ten seconds.”

He did. He let his hands hover, arms held slightly out for balance, like a tightrope walker. His thighs burned. His knees threatened to wobble. But he stayed up.

When the ten seconds were over, he grabbed the walker again, grinning, chest heaving.

“Show off,” she muttered, but she was smiling too.

Afterward, he sat on the chair instead of lying back down, restless energy buzzing in him. Shane could feel it from across the room, like static.

“You sure?” Shane asked, for the twentieth time, perched on the edge of the windowsill. “We can wait a week. Or do it with the walker. They’ll still be proud. You don’t have to…”

“I am sure,” Ilya said. His eyes were fixed on the door. “I feel good today. Clear. Strong.” He wiggled his toes in his socks. “Legs are cooperating. Head is not spinning. Good day for hugs.”

Shane swallowed around the sudden thickness in his throat. “Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”

He texted Yuna: He’s ready if you want to come by. No pressure.

She sent back: We’re on our way up ❤️.

Ilya shifted forward in the chair, palms flat on his thighs, like a runner in the blocks waiting for the gun.

“Don’t rush it,” Shane murmured. “We’ve got time. Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” Ilya said, a little too fast. “Very much. Maybe too much.”

Shane’s lips twitched despite everything. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I am nervous,” Ilya shot back. “I never met my in-laws while learning to walk before.”

Footsteps in the corridor. Voices. The soft rattle of a snack cart somewhere further down the hall.

Shane stood automatically, heart speeding up. He moved out of the way of the door, back toward the window, alert and utterly useless.

The handle turned. The door opened. Yuna came in first, carrying a paper cup. David followed, a step behind, with a plastic container tucked under his arm.

“Good morning, sweet…” Yuna began, eyes already going straight to the bed.

Her voice cut off.

The bed was empty. For a heartbeat, the universe seemed to hang.

Then, before either of them could speak, Ilya pushed himself up from the chair.

He did it without grabbing anything, no walker, no armrest death-grip, no hand to haul on. Just a controlled lean forward, a push through his legs, the way he’d stood up a thousand times in a thousand locker rooms.

He wobbled. His knees argued. His core muscles snapped on in a clenching band around his middle. He stayed up.

Yuna made a small, strangled sound, her hand flying to her mouth. David just froze, eyes going wide, container slipping slightly in his grip.

“Hi,” Ilya said. His voice was a little breathless, but the grin that cracked across his face was pure, unfiltered Ilya. “Sorry, bed is busy. Someone is sitting in it.” He opened his arms. “Can come here instead.”

For a second, nobody moved.

Then Yuna did.

The cup hit the floor, coffee sloshing harmlessly onto the tiles, forgotten, as she crossed the room in three rapid, uneven steps. Tears spilled over before she even reached him.

“Ilya,” she choked. “Oh my God…”

He met her halfway.

His legs didn’t so much walk as lurch gracefully, but they got him there. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her in, and there it was: the full circle. Not a perched-on-the-edge-of-the-bed hug, not a careful-leaning-from-a-chair, but a proper, full-bodied, standing hug.

Her weight pressed into him. His body compensated, feet adjusting, muscles holding.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, ironically, into her hair.

She made a sound that wasn’t a laugh and wasn’t a sob, somewhere in between, and squeezed him like she thought he might float away.

“You’re standing,” she whispered into his chest. “You’re standing.”

“Yes,” he said, voice shaking now too. “It’s very useful. Highly recommend.”

Behind them, David set the container blindly on the windowsill, missing the edge so it nearly toppled. Shane scrambled to save it, hands shaking, and then just… stopped.

He pressed his back against the wall and watched.

His parents’ faces. Ilya’s shoulders trembling with the effort of holding, not from weakness but from emotion. The way their bodies fit, like they’d been doing this for years. His eyes burned so hard he had to blink to see.

David cleared his throat roughly. 

“What, no hug for me?” he tried, voice sandpaper.

Ilya peeled himself gently away from Yuna, hands lingering on her arms until he was sure she’d steady herself. Then he turned.

For a moment, he and David just looked at each other.

Shane saw the memory wash over both their faces: the first time they met, stiff handshake, careful politeness. The first time David watched him play. The first time Ilya called him “Dad” by accident and then pretended he hadn’t, flushed so hard he looked like a ripe tomato.

Then Ilya took two small, deliberate steps and wrapped his arms around him.

David made a noise Shane had never heard from him before, half broken laugh, half sob. His arms came up around Ilya’s back, one broad hand cradling the back of his head with ridiculous gentleness, careful of the incision.

“You’re really doing it,” David said, voice muffled in Ilya’s shoulder. “Look at you. Look at you.”

“I am trying,” Ilya said. His own voice was thick now. “I have good motivation.”

“What, the NHL?” David teased weakly.

Ilya huffed a damp laugh. “My family,” he said simply.

That was it for Shane.

His vision blurred completely. He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, uselessly, tears spilling anyway.

Dr. Lewis, who must have followed them in somewhere during all the chaos, stood by the monitor with her hands in her pockets, eyebrows up to her hairline. “Well,” she said slowly, “I was going to ask how the legs were doing, but I think that answers it.”

Yuna pulled back from Ilya just enough to swipe at her cheeks, looking half stunned, half radiant. “When… how long have you been able to…?”

“A few days,” Ilya admitted. He glanced over at Shane, their eyes catching. “I wanted to show you.”

Shane swallowed hard. “Mission accomplished,” he said, voice wobbling.

“You didn’t even stagger,” Yuna said, touching his arm, his shoulder, like she couldn’t stop confirming he was real. “You just, just got up and walked over here like, like…”

“Like baby giraffe,” Ilya offered. “Very brave baby giraffe.”

“Like my son,” she corrected fiercely. “Like my second son who is the most stubborn person in the world.”

He laughed, then winced, legs wobbling for real this time. 

“Okay,” he admitted. “Baby giraffe is getting tired now.”

“Sit,” Dr. Lewis said immediately, the clinician reasserting itself through her surprise. “That’s more than enough heroics for one morning.”

Yuna and David both made little flailing motions, each grabbing an elbow like they were trying to be the one to help.

Ilya allowed it, letting them guide him back the few steps to the chair. He lowered himself carefully, every movement measured. Once he was down, he blew out a breath, shoulders slumping.

Shane’s heart only started beating somewhere near normal again once his ass hit the seat.

“Any dizziness?” Dr. Lewis asked, moving closer.

“Little,” Ilya admitted. “Mostly… adrenaline. And emotions, as you can see.” He gestured at his own damp face.

“Vitals look good,” Dr. Lewis said after a quick glance at the monitor. She shook her head, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “You really are set on rewriting my textbooks, aren’t you?”

Ilya shrugged, still breathing a little hard. “Someone has to be special case,” he said. “Might as well be me.”

Yuna pressed a kiss to the top of his head, right next to the bandage. “You’re special, all right,” she murmured.

David cleared his throat and ruffled his curls gently, like he would a kid who’d just scored a hat trick. “Hell of a show, champ,” he said. His eyes were suspiciously glassy again. “Hell of a show.”

Shane finally pushed off the wall and crossed the room.

He knelt down in front of Ilya, ignoring the way his own knees complained after days in the chair. Up close, he could see the fine tremor in Ilya’s legs, the sheen of sweat at his hairline, the wild brightness in his eyes.

“You did it,” Shane said, because his brain still didn’t quite understand what his eyes had seen.

“I did it,” Ilya echoed.

“Unassisted,” Shane added, like a stat.

“Unassisted,” Ilya echoed again, a little smile tugging at his mouth.

Shane reached up and cupped the back of his neck, thumb brushing along a damp hairline. 

“I am so ridiculously proud of you,” he said, voice breaking.

Ilya’s smile faltered into something softer, wetter. “I know,” he whispered. “I can feel it from over there.” His gaze flicked toward where the bed had been, then back. “I wanted you to see I can come to you now. Not only you coming to me. And for me.”

That undid Shane completely. His vision blurred again; a sound punched out of him, raw and quiet. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Ilya’s, uncaring of the audience.

“I see it,” he murmured. “I see you. Standing. Walking. Hugging my parents. Being an absolute show-off.”

Ilya huffed a soft laugh that turned into a shivery exhale. “Good,” he said. “Remember this. Not the other bathroom. Not the sirens. This.”

Shane closed his eyes. The smell of hospital and coffee and the faint trace of his own laundry detergent from the t-shirt wrapped around him.

“I will,” he said. And for the first time since that night, he believed himself.

Behind them, Yuna sniffled loudly. “I’m fine,” she said when David squeezed her shoulder. “Just, you know. Everything is leaking.”

Dr. Lewis straightened, brushing invisible dust off her coat. “Well,” he said dryly, “from a medical standpoint, I’d say we can probably start talking about discharge planning in the not-too-distant future, if this keeps up.”

Three heads snapped toward him.

“Discharge?” Shane repeated, like he’d never heard the word before.

“Not tomorrow, not next week, probably not even next two weeks,” Dr. Lewis cautioned. “But… yes. If his scans stay clean, if his walking continues to improve, if fatigue remains manageable… we’re getting closer to the point where the best rehab you can get is at home, not here.”

At home.

The word hung in the air like a bell.

Ilya’s hand found Shane’s and squeezed hard.

“See?” he said, voice low.

Shane squeezed back.

He saw.

He saw his boyfriend on his feet, in their kitchen, walking down to the dock, standing at the glass watching the lake. He saw skates laced, cautious first push on the ice months from now. He saw everything that had ripped away start to creep back in on smaller, gentler feet.

He saw the miracle, and he saw the work underneath it.

“I’m not ready to have you out of my sight,” he said, half to Ilya, half to Dr. Lewis.

Ilya leaned into Shane’s hand at his neck, eyes closing for a moment, a tiny, tired smile curving his mouth.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m not done showing off yet.”

***

Days passed relatively calmly. Ilya walked more, Shane watched while fighting tears, David and Yuna cheered whenever they could. It was good. It was better than anything he even expected. Maybe that was why the next miracle, a few days later, detonated Shane’s heart almost completely. 

He was already half-running by the time the automatic doors came into view.

He’d done the drive to the cottage on muscle memory - down the highway, off at the exit, through the cluster of fast-food signs and gas stations. The bag with clean clothes thumped against his hip, heavier than it should’ve been. Ilya’s book, the book, the one he’d been nagging about for days, was wedged under his arm, new bookmark peeking out like a flag.

He’d been gone for two hours. Maybe three. Long enough for his brain to come up with seventeen new ways for things to go catastrophically wrong in his absence. So he moved faster.

He cut across the parking lot at a diagonal, breath puffing in the cold air, keys biting his palm. The glass doors sighed open in front of him with that soft hydraulic hush that had become the soundtrack to his life.

He didn’t see the person standing just to the right of the entrance.

Not at first.

He registered: grey hoodie, faded runners, someone leaning casual-sloppy against the exterior wall, one knee ducked. A cigarette between fingers, glowing ember, smoke curling.

Shane’s brain, overloaded and single-minded, tagged it all as: random visitor, smoker, obstacle, move.

He blew past. He was three strides inside, halfway to the elevators, when something in the back of his skull yanked the emergency brake.

The hoodie.

The curly hair.

The impossible familiarity of the slouch.

He stopped dead so abruptly the bag swung forward and smacked his thigh.

His heart did a strange double-beat.

He turned.

The smoker outside was watching him through the glass.

No, not watching. Grinning.

The kind of grin that hooked slightly higher on one side, all teeth and trouble and pride. The kind of grin Shane had seen across locker rooms, across bars, across the bed when Ilya was about to say something outrageous.

Shane’s vision tunneled. For a second the world went quiet, a cartoon silence where the only sound was the roar in his own ears. Then everything slammed back in at once - the whoosh of the automatic doors, the distant beep of a truck backing up, someone’s ringtone chirping nearby.

The bag dropped from his hand without him really deciding to let go. The book slid to the floor, skidding a little. He walked back through the doors like he was in a dream.

“Ilya,” he said, but it came out like an accusation. Like how dare you.

“Hi,” Ilya said, like they’d just run into each other on a street corner. “You are back.”

He was… standing.

Outside. On concrete. Nothing near him but the wall at his back. No walker, no railing, no Dr. Lewis, no Mira, no belt threaded through careful hands.

Just Ilya. Vertical. Slight sway, maybe, if you looked close. But upright.

One cigarette was tucked behind his ear, filter pale against damp curls. Another was half-burned between his fingers. Blue-grey smoke curled around his head and disappeared into the cold.

Shane stared at the glowing tip like it had personally offended him. Then his gaze snapped up.

“How,” he croaked. “How did you… why are you… what the fuck, Ilya?”

Ilya’s grin softened around the edges. “I walk,” he said, as if that answered everything.

“You walked,” Shane repeated, voice jumping an octave. “From where?!”

“From bed.” Ilya took an easy drag, like this was a normal conversation. “Fourth floor. Down corridor, elevator, outside. Very complicated route. Many twists.”

“Fourth…?” Shane’s brain short-circuited. “You walked from the fourth floor down here? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Alone,” Shane echoed weakly. “As in… no nurse, no Mira, no belt?”

“Yes.”

Shane made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so close to a sob. “You’re… you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking. Tell me this is, like, a hallucination, or…”

“You think you hallucinate cigarettes?” Ilya flicked ash neatly into the nearby tray. “That would be very specific brain damage. Nicotine hunger, maybe.”

“You think this is funny?” Shane spluttered, gesturing wildly at him, at the hospital above, at the whole world. “You almost died from a brain bleed and now you’re playing escape from rehab to have a smoke?”

Ilya’s grin flickered. For the first time, a shadow of uncertainty moved across his face. “Shane…”

“I go home for two hours,” Shane barrelled on, hands flying, “to grab you clothes and your stupid book and you’re like, ‘oh, let me just do a secret Everest expedition down four flights of stairs…’”

“Elevator,” Ilya interjected, because of course he would, lazily taking another drag of the cigarette.

“...unassisted, and then top it off with an actual health hazard for spice?”

He was loud. He knew he was loud. People were staring, two visitors by the entrance, a guy pushing a wheelchair, the security guard by the door, and he did not care. His heart was up in his throat. His palms were sweating. His knees felt weak and not in the emotionally poetic way.

Ilya watched him ride the wave.

He took another drag and then, quietly, “Are you done?”

“No, I’m not done,” Shane snapped, because if he stopped talking he might start crying, “you walked four floors and you didn’t tell anyone!”

“I didn’t take stairs,” Ilya said. “I am not a complete idiot.”

“I don’t believe you at all,” Shane said. “I think you’re the king of idiots. I think…”

He broke off, because suddenly Ilya was swaying towards him, closer, smoke and winter air and shampoo ghosting over.

“Shane,” Ilya said.

Not loud. Not snarky.

Just his name, low and steady. Shane’s tirade hit an invisible wall. He swallowed, hard.

“You can yell more later,” Ilya said. “In Russian also, if you want, I can teach. But first maybe you breathe. You look like you will fall down.”

Shane’s laugh came out broken. 

“I will fall down. Me.” he repeated. “Sure. Let’s focus on that. Not the fact that you just did a full solo walkabout after brain surgery.”

“Yes,” Ilya said simply. “That is what I did.”

The pride in his eyes hit Shane harder than any of his own panic.

He refocused, really looked.

Ilya was definitely not as casual as he wanted to appear. Up close, there was a fine sheen of sweat at his hairline despite the cold. His t-shirt, Shane’s old team shirt, stuck a little between his shoulder blades. His hand, the one holding the cigarette, trembled faintly.

His chest rose a touch faster than usual. His pupils were a little bigger, not just from the light.

He’d worked for this. He’d worked hard.

Shane’s anger tangled with something else then - fury and awe and so much raw love it made his ribs ache.

“You walked,” he said again, but softer now. “All the way down here.”

Ilya’s mouth curved. “Yes.”

“On your own.”

“Yes.”

“No one knows you’re down here,” Shane said, because his anxiety wasn’t going to shut up entirely.

“No,” Ilya agreed. “Because no one would say yes if I ask. They would say, ‘too early,’ ‘too far,’ ‘someone must be with you.’” He shrugged, the motion small. “Sometimes I need to know what I can do before they tell me what I cannot.”

Shane exhaled, shaky. He wanted to argue. He really, really did. Instead he dragged both hands over his face, fingers pressing into his eyes until little stars burst behind them.

“You’re going to kill me,” he muttered through his palms. “Forget the anxiety, forget the hockey, I’m going to have a heart attack at twenty-seven because of you, Rozanov.”

“Then we will share hospital ward,” Ilya said. “Very romantic.”

“Not funny,” Shane said, voice wobbling.

When he dropped his hands, his vision was wet. Ilya’s grin had faded into something smaller, field-stripped to its gentle core. 

“Come here,” he said quietly.

Shane snorted wetly. “You’re the one who just proved you can walk, you come here.”

“I already came here,” Ilya pointed out, maddeningly reasonable. “Your turn.”

Shane stepped closer, because of course he did. Up close, the cigarette smoke hit him properly, sharp and acrid over the clean hospital-soap smell.

“Give me that,” Shane said automatically, reaching for it.

Ilya flinched his hand back, eyes widening. “Hey, I am not finished.”

“You’re done,” Shane said. “You are done. I am confiscating your brain-bleed stick.”

“It is one cigarette,” Ilya protested, eyebrows shooting up. “My brain does not know. Brain is up here, smoke is down there.”

“That is not how lungs work,” Shane hissed. “Or blood. Or oxygen. Or literally anything. Oh my God, Ilya…”

Ilya huffed. Then, after a second, his shoulders slumped in a tiny, theatrical capitulation. 

“Fine,” he muttered, and stubbed it out on the edge of the ashtray, grinding his heel over the butt. “Happy now, Mr. Science?”

“Marginally less suicidal,” Shane said. “That’s as good as you’re getting.”

He crowded into Ilya’s space, one hand finding his waist, fingers feeling the tremble in his muscles.

“You’re shaking,” he said, softer, the concern leaking through again. “How far was it? From your room?”

“Far enough that I really want to sit now,” Ilya admitted, some of the bravado slipping. “But not… scary far.” His gaze ticked up to the fourth-floor windows. “Elevator did the biggest work.” A hint of a smirk. “I did the rest.”

Shane’s throat burned.

“Why?” he asked. It came out quieter than he meant, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t planned. “Why this? You could’ve waited until physio and asked Mira to take you further. You could’ve… I don’t know, done laps in the hallway. Why sneak down here?”

Ilya looked past him for a second, out over the parking lot, the rows of cars, the gusts of snow flurries catching in the air.

“Because I miss outside,” he said finally. “The real one. Not just window.” He gestured around them with a little flick of his hand. “Sky. Cold. Ugly parking lot. People not in scrubs. Cigarette.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “You, coming in looking like raccoon with too big bag.”

Shane let out a wet laugh. “Rude.”

“Accurate,” Ilya said. His eyes softened. “I wanted… normal. For five minutes. To stand here and be a man waiting for his boyfriend to come back from car. Not patient in bed waiting for doctor.”

There it was. The part that wasn’t stubbornness, or recklessness, or nicotine addiction. The part that was about dignity. Shane’s anger melted, resentful and reluctant, into something else.

He stepped in closer until their chests brushed.

“You could’ve told me,” he said again, but there was no heat in it now. Just plea.

“I did not know if I could,” Ilya said simply. “And if I could not… I didn’t want you to see me fail. Not this time.” He met Shane’s eyes, naked for a heartbeat. “I wanted to give you this version instead.”

Shane’s breath caught. “The miracle version,” he said, voice small.

“The hard-work version,” Ilya corrected gently. “But yes. Also that one.”

The automatic doors hissed open and shut beside them, visitors coming and going in little gusts. Somewhere behind them, someone laughed. A car alarm chirped as it unlocked.

It all felt far away.

Shane lifted a hand and cupped the side of Ilya’s neck, thumb resting in the warm hollow under his jaw. His fingers brushed damp hair and the edge of tape.

“You’re unbelievable,” he whispered. “You know that?”

“Yes,” Ilya said, and then his expression cracked, pride spilling into something wetter, softer. “But hearing you say is nice.”

Shane laughed, choked, and then leaned in and kissed him.

It was stupid, kissing someone outside a hospital, in the cold, seconds after confiscating a cigarette, but he didn’t care. He kept it gentle, careful of his balance, one hand firm at Ilya’s waist, the other cupping his jaw.

Ilya kissed him back like it was the first real kiss in weeks. No hospital taste. No antiseptic. Just smoke and mint and Ilya, warm and alive and standing on his own feet.

When they broke apart, Shane’s breath was fogging between them. His eyes were wet again.

“You’re going to tell Mira,” he said, voice steadier now but brooking no argument. “And Dr. Lewis. Today. Before they see you mysteriously on security footage and I get a lecture by proxy.”

“Okay,” Ilya agreed, surprisingly quickly.

Shane blinked. “Okay?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “I already planned to. I needed to know first. Now I know.” He tapped his temple lightly. “I can file it correctly for them.”

Shane snorted, wiping at his cheeks. “You’re such a nerd.”

“You want to marry nerd,” Ilya said. “This is on you.”

He shifted, and the tremor in his legs spiked for a second. His face tightened.

“Alright,” Shane muttered immediately. “That’s it, show’s over. Bench time before you do a dramatic faint like a Victorian heroine.”

“There is no bench,” Ilya objected, looking around.

“There is the inside waiting area,” Shane said. “With chairs. And no cigarettes.”

“Inside is boring,” Ilya said automatically, but his knees definitely wobbled.

Shane slid an arm more firmly around his waist. “Tough. Come on, miracle man.”

They turned together. The automatic doors opened with a sigh, washing them with warm air.

“Wait,” Ilya said.

Shane froze. “What, dizzy? Do you need…”

“No,” Ilya said, and then reached up, plucked the spare cigarette from behind his ear, and shoved it into Shane’s hoodie pocket. “For later,” he said. “So you can throw it away dramatically and feel powerful.”

Shane stared at him, caught between exasperation and unbearable fondness. “You’re insufferable,” he said.

“You love me,” Ilya replied.

“Unfortunately, yeah,” Shane said, voice thick. “I really, really do.”

He adjusted his grip, felt Ilya’s arm loop around his shoulders for balance, and together they stepped back into the hospital.

Behind them, the ashtray still held the stub of Ilya’s abandoned cigarette, a tiny smear of ash on the concrete marking where he’d put it out.

Ahead of them: fluorescent lights, physio schedules, lectures from medical staff, the long, boring grind of rehab.

Between the two, just for that moment, there was this: the knowledge that Ilya had walked four floors down to meet him at the door.

On his own.

Because he could.

Shane held that like a live coal in his chest, hot and bright and impossible to ignore, as they headed for the elevators.

***

Dr. Lewis did not yell.

Somehow, that was worse.

She shut the door with a soft click, checked the corridor through the little glass panel, then turned back to the room with her hands in her pockets and a look on her face that made Shane straighten instinctively.

Mira leaned against the wall by the sink, arms folded, expression somewhere between you absolute menace and I cannot believe you survived that stunt.

Ilya sat on the edge of the bed like a kid hauled into the principal’s office, bare feet dangling, hospital bracelet crooked on his wrist, hair still a little damp from his shower earlier. The hoodie was gone; he was back in the thin hospital shirt, which made the bandage at his temple look larger again, more stark.

He tried for a grin.

It didn’t land.

“So,” Dr. Lewis said conversationally. “You went on a field trip.”

Ilya winced. “Small one,” he offered. “Very local.”

“A small one,” Dr. Lewis repeated. “From the fourth floor to outside. Unassisted. Without telling anybody. After a craniotomy.”

Shane could feel the blood pulsing behind his eyes. “I told him it was insane,” he blurted, because if they thought he’d encouraged it he was going to move into the hole and never come out. “I walked back in and he was just… just there, like he’d teleported, with a cigarette.”

“Shane,” Dr. Lewis cut in gently. “Take a breath. I am not under the impression you masterminded this. Mr. Rozanov has more than enough poor judgment to go around on his own.”

“I am right here,” Ilya muttered.

“Yes, you are,” Mira said sharply. “Which is the only reason we’re having this conversation and not one involving rapid response teams and an incident report.”

Ilya flinched properly at that.

“Do you understand why what you did was dangerous?” she asked, eyes fixed on him.

“Very,” Ilya said immediately. “Extremely. Top ten of my bad ideas.”

“Top three,” Shane muttered.

“Top three,” Ilya conceded.

“That’s not actually an answer,” Mira said. “Spell it out for me. What could’ve happened?”

He looked… annoyed, more than anything, but he obeyed. “Could fall,” he said. “Hit my head again. Bad for brain. Could pass out in elevator, no one see right away. Could have seizure and no one knows. Could…” He hesitated. “Could make you all very mad.”

“Mad is the least of it,” Dr. Lewis said dryly. She moved closer, resting a hip against the rolling table, her gaze steady on Ilya’s face. “You’re not wrong about the list. Add ‘could have dislodged your brain if you landed badly,’ ‘could have caused a hemorrhage,’ and ‘could have undone weeks of progress in a single, dramatic gesture.’”

Ilya’s jaw tightened. “But I didn’t.”

“No,” Dr. Lewis agreed. “By sheer luck and the fact that your body appears determined to spit in the eye of probability, you didn’t. You did something that, on paper, you are not yet cleared to do. Do you know what that means for us?”

“Liability?” Ilya guessed.

“Liability,” Mira confirmed. “And heart palpitations. And paperwork. So much paperwork.”

“Sorry,” Ilya said, and for once it sounded uncomplicated, no joke curled around the edges, no deflection. His shoulders slumped a little. “I just… wanted to see if I can.”

Dr. Lewis sighed, some of the steel in her posture easing. “I understand the impulse,” she said. “Truly. You’re an athlete. You’ve made a career out of pushing your limits and trusting your body to respond. But this isn’t a pulled hamstring. Your brain is not a muscle we can stretch a little further for the sake of a personal best.”

“I know,” Ilya murmured.

“And here’s the thing,” Dr. Lewis went on. “If you had passed out in that elevator, or had a seizure in the parking lot, we might be having a very different conversation. Or not having one at all.” Her mouth tightened. “I do not enjoy thinking about that scenario. Neither do you. Neither does your partner.”

Shane’s stomach swooped at the word not.

He dug his nails into his palm to stay grounded.

Mira pushed off the wall and crossed her arms the other way, eyes never leaving Ilya. 

“You are ahead of where we expected,” she said. “Way ahead. I’ve had patients younger and healthier than you who can barely stand at this point without feeling like their head’s full of bees. You’re walking laps, standing unassisted, doing covert missions to the smoking area…”

“It was not smoking area,” Ilya said. “It was outside the door. Small smoke.”

“Do not help your case,” Shane hissed.

Mira pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a headache. “My point is, you’re doing incredibly well. I am genuinely astonished at your progress. Which is exactly why we’re trying not to let you sabotage it.”

Ilya’s eyes flicked up, caught on astonished for a second like it soothed something raw in him. “So you are… proud?” he asked, tentatively.

Mira’s mouth twitched despite herself. “Yes, you little menace,” she said. “I am. Very. But it is entirely possible to be proud and also want to shake you.”

“Good,” Ilya said, relief loosening his shoulders a fraction. “Means I am still me.”

Shane rolled his eyes, wet and fond. “Unfortunately, yeah,” he muttered.

Dr. Lewis exhaled slowly. “Look,” she said. “If your recovery continues at this rate, we’re going to clear you for unaccompanied hallway walking very soon. Stairs later. Eventually, home. You are not trapped here forever.”

“Feels like forever,” Ilya said under his breath.

“I know it does,” Dr. Lewis replied, surprising gentleness in her tone. “But the fastest way to get back to your life is to not rush the parts that can’t be rushed. I’d prefer not to write ‘non-compliance’ all over your chart. It makes the rehab team grumpy.”

Mira nodded. “Here’s the deal, Rozanov,” she said. “No more solo expeditions off the unit. If you want fresh air, you ask. We’ll schedule it. You can show off in a controlled environment. You keep pulling jailbreaks, I will personally strap you to the bed.”

Ilya’s eyes widened. “Kinky,” he said, because he had a death wish.

Mira stared at him.

Shane made a strangled noise.

Dr. Lewis’s mouth twitched, betraying a tiny, traitorous smile. “You will not like my version of that, I promise,” she said mildly.

“Okay, okay,” Ilya said, holding up both hands. “No more jailbreaks. No more solo field trips. I promise.”

Mira studied his face for a moment, then nodded once. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“You should have seen him though,” Shane blurted, because the lecture was deserved but he wanted them to have the full picture. “Outside. Just… standing there. No hands. On his own. He walked all the way down… and he was fine.” His voice went soft on the last word, full of stubborn awe.

Dr. Lewis’s eyes darted to Ilya’s legs, to the way his feet were planted, to the subtle tremor still there. “I’m starting to suspect you were built by a slightly overenthusiastic god,” she said. “If you repeat the performance with supervision this afternoon, I might even let myself be impressed.”

Ilya lit up. “You will come?”

“If I can clear my rounds, yes,” Dr. Lewis said. “Purely for scientific purposes, of course.”

“Of course,” Ilya echoed, but the glow stayed.

“Alright,” Mira said, clapping her hands once, as if to physically reset the room. “Lecture over. For now. Hydrate, rest, and if you so much as think about going downstairs alone again, I want you to picture my disappointed face.”

“I am already haunted,” Ilya said solemnly.

“Good.” She gave him one last, long look, then shot Shane a softer one, full of silent I know that scared you. “You okay?” she mouthed.

Shane nodded, throat tight.

Mira slipped out, murmuring something to a nurse in the hallway. Dr. Lewis lingered a heartbeat longer.

“You understand we’re on your side here?” she said, directed at Ilya but with a glance at Shane too. “We’re trying to send you home in the best shape possible, not clip your wings.”

“I know,” Ilya said quietly. “Thank you. For… putting them back on.”

Dr. Lewis’s face softened at that. “Get some rest,” he said, and left.

The door shut.

Silence settled in their wake, thick and oddly echoing.

For a moment, Ilya just sat there, head bowed, fingers worrying at the edge of his bracelet. His shoulders rose and fell, fatigue smoothing the bravado out of his posture.

Shane crossed the space between them and dropped onto the bed beside him, careful of the IV line. “You okay?” he asked, echoing Mira.

“Little bit like school,” Ilya said. “When teacher yells and you know you deserve it.” He scrunched his nose. “But less yelling. More… disappointed TED talk.”

Shane snorted despite himself. “They weren’t disappointed,” he said. “They were terrified. And impressed. In a medically irritated way.”

Ilya hummed. “You were terrified,” he said softly.

“Still am, thanks,” Shane muttered. “My heart hasn’t come back down yet.”

“Sorry,” Ilya said again, turning his hand palm-up between them. “For making your heart do rollercoaster.”

Shane swallowed and laced their fingers together, squeezing. “I forgive you,” he said. “On one condition.”

“Yes?” Ilya perked vaguely, eyes hopeful. “Sex? Lots of sex?”

Shane choked. “No,” he hissed, looking wildly at the door. “Jesus, you’re impossible. I was going to say: you let me know next time you decide to test a new limit. So I’m not walking into surprise miracles like a horror movie.”

“Miracle jump-scare,” Ilya said gravely. “Very niche genre.”

“Horrible genre,” Shane said. “One star. I would not recommend.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, squeezing his hand back, serious again. “Next time, you come with me. We do it together. No more secret missions. Promise.”

Something in Shane that had been braced for a fight relaxed a little. “Okay,” he echoed.

A beat passed.

Then Ilya shifted, bringing his free hand dramatically to his stomach. “Speaking of rollercoaster,” he said, “I am starving.”

Shane blinked. “You just had lunch like, an hour ago.”

“Hospital lunch,” Ilya said, making a face like he’d licked a bandage. “Not food. I want real food.”

“Real food,” Shane repeated suspiciously. “Define ‘real.’”

“Burgers,” Ilya said instantly. “Fries. Maybe milkshake. Large. Two.” He turned his head, fixing Shane with his most infuriating, irresistible expression. “Hollander, my love, my light, my emotional support, my star, my sun, my life. Please, I am begging you.”

The words Hollander, my love mixed with emotional support so hard Shane almost short-circuited.

“You’re not supposed to eat heavy stuff yet,” he said weakly. “Your stomach might…”

“My stomach is fine,” Ilya argued. “It misses grease. It misses flavor. You want me to get better? I need fries. It is scientific fact. Carbohydrates help with healing.”

“That’s not… that’s not how…” Shane started, then stopped, because honestly? He had missed real food too. And Ilya’s eyes were wide and earnest and, more importantly, hungry in a way they hadn’t been in weeks.

“You really feel like you could eat that?” he asked, cautious. “You’re not just saying it?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “I woke up thinking about cheeseburger. This is a strong sign. Appetite is back. Brain wants fats. Body wants fuel. And mouth wants…” He trailed off, looking at Shane through his lashes. “Burger. And your cock. But mostly burger now.”

Shane groaned, face heating. “Don’t make it sound sexy, I’m trying to be responsible.”

“Too late,” Ilya said serenely.

Shane hesitated. “We’d have to clear it with…”

“Dr. Lewis said I am miracle,” Ilya cut in. “I think miracle gets fries. It is in Bible somewhere.”

“That is absolutely not in the Bible,” Shane said.

“She has to say yes,” Ilya insisted. “She is human. And she is a woman. Women cannot resist my charm. This is also scientific fact.”

Shane snorted. “You’re just making up research now.”

“Yes,” Ilya said cheerfully. “So? Hollander. Please.” He tugged on Shane’s hand, lower lip jutting. “Just small burger. Medium, maybe. Okay, large. I promise I will chew very slowly.”

Shane looked at him, the bandage, the fading bruises, the IV, the glow in his eyes, the way his stomach had actually growled loud enough to hear.

Appetite back. Appetite back.

It felt like another milestone, as huge in its own quiet way as the steps.

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll go ask Lewis if you’re cleared for a cardiac arrest in a bun.”

“Cardiac…?” Ilya gasped, scandalized. “Take that back. Burgers are a gift. I will not tolerate slander.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Shane said, but he was already reaching for his phone.

“I know,” Ilya replied smugly. “Get me fries and I will walk to the end of hall without complaining.”

“You already walk to the end of the hall without complaining,” Shane said, typing out a message.

“Okay, I will complain less,” Ilya amended. “One complaint only. Very quiet.”

Dr. Lewis texted back faster than expected: If he can tolerate it and promises to eat slowly, I don’t see why not. One burger, not a feast. No secret trips downstairs to get it. A beat later: And don’t tell the dietitian I said that.

Shane grinned despite himself.

“Well?” Ilya pressed, leaning in. “Verdict?”

Shane schooled his face into sternness. “She said absolutely not. You’re doomed to broth forever.”

Ilya’s expression crashed so dramatically that Shane caved immediately. “I’m kidding,” he blurted. “She said yes. One burger, go slow, no feast.”

The transformation was instant.

Ilya lit up like someone had flipped on a switch inside him. “Yes,” he hissed. “Victory. Tell her I love her. Tell her I name our first child after her.”

“I’m not telling your neurologist we’re naming children in her honor,” Shane said, standing. “I’m just going to go to the drive-thru and pray they don’t mess up your order.”

“Hollander,” Ilya called as he reached the door.

Shane turned. “Yeah?”

“Extra pickles,” Ilya said gravely. “And if they ask if we want supersize, you say yes. We are celebrating.”

Shane’s chest ached in that sharp, stupid, wonderful way again.

“Alright,” he said, voice softer. “One celebration burger and contraband fries, coming up.”

He stepped out into the hallway, the hospital sounds wrapping around him, and for the first time in a long time, the errand felt almost… normal. Partner wants fast food. Go get it. Come back to him.

Behind him, through the half-open door, he heard Ilya humming under his breath, off-key and content, like his body already believed in the promise of salt and grease and warmth.

Appetite back.

Lectured within an inch of his life.

Still stubborn, still impossible, still here.

Shane tightened his grip on his keys and headed for the elevator, thinking, not for the first time:

If he doesn’t kill me, this might actually be okay.

***

After the first cigarette stunt, Shane should have known.

That was the thing that pissed him off most later, not even the cigarettes, not the distance, not the stupid, reckless walk. The fact that some part of him had relaxed, just a little, like the worst might be over.

Days had slipped into something almost like a routine.

Mornings: Mira showed up with her sensible shoes and her patient smile, and Ilya walked. First the corridor, then the short loop around the nurses’ station, then the big rectangle that took them past the bay windows and back.

Afternoons: naps, card games, Shane reading aloud from the book Ilya had bullied him into retrieving. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes Ilya just lay with his eyes closed, one hand wrapped around Shane’s wrist, breathing slowly, steady.

His appetite stayed.

The burger experiment was a success, followed by contraband fries, followed by increasingly smug orders of “today, I want soup and pudding.” He put on a little weight. Color crept back into his face. The bruises faded.

Dr. Lewis started using phrases like “barring complications” and “we can talk discharge date soon.” The first time she said it, Shane’s chest had gone cold and hot in the same second, like someone had poured ice water over a live wire.

Ilya, of course, took it as a challenge.

“I am going to walk onto that elevator on my own two feet,” he told Shane one night, eyes bright. “And walk off it at home. Not in wheelchair like sad Victorian heroine.”

“You are a sad Victorian heroine,” Shane said, but he squeezed his hand tighter under the blanket.

He’d confiscated the cigarettes a day after the big outside stunt. Every pack he could find. The one behind Ilya’s ear, the one hidden in the drawer, the one in the hoodie pocket that smelled like a bus stop.

“Nicotine is terrible for your recovery,” he’d said, stuffing them into a bag like contraband. “And also for my blood pressure.”

“You sound like pamphlet,” Ilya had muttered, but he’d let them go. “Fine. No more cigarettes.”

He’d promised.

And for a while, he seemed to mean it. He chewed gum. Twirled a pen between his fingers. Fidgeted with his hospital bracelet instead of a lighter. Every now and then he’d say, “I could kill for a smoke,” and then glance at Shane, like he was testing a fence. But he didn’t push.

Shane started to breathe a little easier.

Which was why, when it happened, it slid under his guard.

It was stupid, really. He was just looking for laundry.

He was digging through the little hospital cabinet for the t-shirt Ilya liked, the old grey one with the peeling logo, softer than anything the hospital provided. It wasn’t there. He checked the chair. The bed. Finally he grabbed the hoodie crumpled on the visitor’s chair and shook it out.

Something thunked to the floor.

He looked down.

A pack of cigarettes stared up at him from the linoleum. Brand he’d never seen Ilya buy before, probably whatever was in the display case.

His stomach dropped, a neat little elevator-plunge.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

He bent, picked it up.

Brand-new. One missing, two, maybe three. His fingers shook a little as he thumbed it open.

Inside, a receipt was crumpled in with the foil.

He pulled it out.

CORNER MART – 11:03

The logo of the tiny shop a couple blocks away, the one they’d stopped at once before all this for chocolate and Gatorade. He could see the street in his head, the crosswalk, the shitty pavement, the way cars took the corner too fast because no one respected hospital speed limits.

He stared at the timestamp.

He had been in the shower at home around then, for the first time in days. He pictured it: warm water, soap, the brief illusion of being human again. He’d taken his time. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Thirty. He washed his hair. He even ate some toast. 

He closed his eyes.

How long did it take to get from the fourth floor to the ground, out the doors, across the parking lot, down the sidewalk, into the store, wait in line, buy the cigarettes, and come back?

Too long.

He forced his eyes open and stared at the address one more time, like maybe it would rearrange itself into something safer.

It didn’t. The pack crinkled in his fist. The room was suddenly too small.

“Ilya?” he called, even though he knew. “Hey, babe?”

Silence answered. The bed was empty.

Of course it was.

Something icy sank its claws into his spine.

He shoved the pack and the receipt into his pocket and left the room so fast the door banged off the stopper.

The corridor blurred. He scanned left, right. No Ilya. No mess of blond curls above hospital blue. No familiar slouch.

He checked the family room. Empty.

The physio gym. Empty.

His heart hammered harder, higher, until it was lodged in his throat. His vision went sharp at the edges, too bright.

“Nurse?” he snapped as he barreled up to the station, hardly recognizing his own voice.

They both looked up, startled.

“Mr. Hollander?” the younger one said. “Everything okay?”

“Have you seen Ilya? Mr. Rozanov?” he demanded. “Did he go somewhere with physio? With OT? With… anyone?”

They exchanged a look that made his stomach twist.

“No,” the older nurse said slowly. “He was in his room for vitals twenty minutes ago. Said he was going to read.” She frowned at the empty doorway down the hall. “Do you mean he’s not there?”

Shane didn’t trust himself to answer.

He was already turning. He knew where to look.

The elevator ride was the longest thirty seconds of his life.

When the doors slid open, the lobby spilled around him in its usual low-grade chaos, people at the reception desk, a kid whining about a vending machine, someone arguing quietly about parking fees.

He barely saw them.

The churn of cold air from the sliding doors hit him next, sharpening everything.

He looked right first, toward the little bench by the entrance.

Empty.

His heart lurched.

Then he looked left.

There.

Half-hidden around the corner of the building that jutted out, in the strip of space between a sad ornamental tree and the wall, someone leaned against the brick with one foot up, head tipped back, smoke curling lazily from between their fingers.

Shane’s feet were moving before his brain caught up.

“Ilya.”

It came out flat and dangerous.

Ilya blinked, then turned his head, squinting against the bright. His hair ruffled in the wind. He wore the same soft sweats and t-shirt, Shane’s hoodie dragged on top, hood down. No IV lines. No hospital bracelet visible under the sleeve.

The cigarette between his fingers glowed.

“Hi,” he said, because apparently ‘hi’ was his line for every horrible, heart-stopping reveal. “You found new hiding place fast. I am losing my touch.”

Shane stopped in front of him, chest heaving.

For a second he couldn’t speak.

“How far?” he said finally.

Ilya’s brows drew together. “What?”

Shane pulled the pack from his pocket and held it up. Then the receipt.

“How far is Corner Mart?” he asked, voice too calm. “In blocks. Or minutes. Or however you measured it when you decided to do your own fucking marathon.”

Something flickered across Ilya’s face - surprise, guilt, brief calculation. Then his mouth firmed.

“Three blocks,” he said. “Maybe four, depends how you count corners.” He shrugged, like it was nothing. “Ten minutes one way. I walked slow.”

Ten minutes one way.

Twenty minutes walking. Maybe more.

Shane’s knees went weak. “You crossed the main road,” he said, because his brain was helpfully supplying a map. “Twice.”

“It has crosswalk,” Ilya pointed out. “I am not cat. I do not run in middle.”

“Don’t fucking joke right now,” Shane snapped. The words came out sharper than he intended, riding on a wave of adrenaline and sheer horror.

Ilya’s jaw tightened.

“Okay, Hollander” he said quietly. “No joking.”

Shane stepped closer, clutching the pack so hard it crumpled. “You promised,” he said. “You promised—no more solo trips. No more leaving the unit alone. Do you remember that? Because I remember that. Mira remembers that. Lewis…”

“Lewis said if I keep getting better, we will talk about discharge,” Ilya cut in. “Maybe she is right. If I can walk to store and back, I can maybe walk from bed to car. This is data, yes?”

“Data?” Shane repeated, disbelieving. “You’re calling it data? You disappeared. Again. You walked further than any of us knew you could, in real-world traffic, with fresh brain trauma, alone, for a fucking cigarette.”

The last word came out like it burned.

Ilya bristled. “Not just cigarette,” he said. “I wanted out. Of corridors. Of beep beep beep. Of everyone watching every step like I will explode if I step wrong. I wanted to be normal man walking to corner shop.”

Shane laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “News flash,” he said harshly. “You’re not normal right now. That’s the entire point. You had your head cut open, twice. Your brain is held together with staples and faith. You can’t just, just pretend it didn’t happen because you’re bored and you miss Marlboros.”

Ilya flinched like he’d been slapped. Then he lifted the cigarette, took a slow drag, and exhaled sideways, away from Shane.

“I know what happened,” he said. The words were tight. “I was there.”

“Then act like it,” Shane burst. “Act like the guy who woke up with tubes everywhere and alarms screaming and swore he was going to do whatever it took to stay alive. Not the guy who sneaks off to play tag with trucks.”

“I looked both ways,” Ilya said, stubborn and infuriatingly calm. “And I crossed with little old lady and her walker. Cars would not dare hit us.”

“Stop,” Shane ground out. “Just stop.”

The anger was fraying now, threads of panic and hurt showing through.

“You promised me,” he said, and now his voice was cracking. “You promised you’d tell me when you pushed it. That I wouldn’t have to walk into surprise miracles anymore. Do you have any idea what it’s like, going into your room and finding you gone again?”

Ilya’s hand tightened around the cigarette until ash flaked off onto his knuckles.

“I knew you were not there,” he said, softer. “You were home. Shower. You texted. I knew I had time.”

“That’s worse!” Shane yelled. A couple of people by the doors glanced over; he didn’t care. “You waited until I was gone to pull your stunt. You waited until you knew I couldn’t stop you. That’s not… that’s not just impulsive, that’s…”

“Strategic,” Ilya supplied, a little sarcastic.

“...a breach of trust,” Shane said, ignoring him. “I am terrified all the time. I live on the edge of a panic attack every second you’re not in arm’s reach. And you…” His voice broke. “You keep making me right.”

Silence hummed between them.

Smoke curled in a lazy ribbon from Ilya’s hand and then dissipated into the cold.

His face pinched, pride and regret and something more raw warring behind his eyes.

“It was not about hurting you,” he said finally. “Or breaking promise just to break it. I just…” He looked down at the cigarette, at the glowing tip. “Smoking is stupid,” he said quietly. “I know this. I am not idiot. But it is… mine. From before. From long before you. Before hockey was a safe thing. When everything else felt like someone else’s choice, this was something I chose. I could stand outside my father’s house, or dorm, or rink, and smoke and think, this is my five minutes, my lungs, my bad decision.”

He lifted his eyes again. “Now everything is doctors and scans and ‘we decide when you walk’ and ‘we decide when you eat’ and ‘we decide when you pee.’ You decide when I sleep, because you watch me. You all love me. I know. I am grateful. But I wanted…” He swallowed. “I wanted ten minutes where I am just an asshole on street corner with cigarette again. Where my legs do what I say, not what chart says. Where I feel like I own my body for a second, even if it is in stupid way.”

The words landed like stones in Shane’s chest.

His anger didn’t vanish, it simmered, hot and protective, but it twisted around something tender now. Understanding. Empathy. That familiar ache whenever Ilya talked about “before,” like he was someone who’d borrowed his own life for interest.

“I get that,” Shane said hoarsely. “I do. God, I do. But there’s a difference between ‘I want ten minutes of control’ and ‘I’m going to risk my entire future on one bad walk.’”

“I was careful,” Ilya said, but he didn’t sound as sure now. “I walked slow. Stayed near buildings. Rested on the bench halfway.”

“Rested on…” Shane dragged a hand through his hair, half laughing in disbelief. “If you’d passed out on that bench, who would’ve found you? Some random dog? The guy who stocks the newspaper stand? You think they know what to do with a postoperative craniotomy patient? You think they’d know your story? You think they’d call me?”

Ilya’s throat worked.

He ground the cigarette out on the brick, thumb pressing until the ember died. The filter crumpled.

“I didn’t think about that,” he admitted.

“No,” Shane said, tears stinging now. “You thought about being free for ten minutes. And I get that, I swear to God I do, but you have to also think about me. Because every time I find you gone, I’m back on that hospital floor. I’m back with your blood on the surgon’s hands. And I…” He swallowed hard. “I can’t do that again. I can’t live like that forever, waiting for you to vanish.”

Silence again.

This time, it hurt.

Ilya’s shoulders slumped.

He stared at the smeared butt of the cigarette at his feet like it was a crime scene.

“I am sorry,” he said, finally. No deflection. No joke. Just a raw apology, scraped of its usual protective layer. “Not because of lecture. Because of you. I did not want to pull you back there.” He tapped his temple lightly. “My head is full of that too. I hate it. I should know better than to give it new scenes.”

Shane’s breath hitched.

“Then please,” he whispered. “Act like you know better.”

“I will try,” Ilya said. “I am… not good at sitting still. You know this.” A tiny, self-mocking huff. “But I can be good at telling you when I leave. At least. Even if doctors will be mad. You will be mad. I will tell you.”

“I don’t want you to just tell me,” Shane said. “I want you to not go unless it’s safe. Unless someone signs off. Unless I or Mira or literally anyone who didn’t have their skull opened recently is with you.”

“I walked fine,” Ilya said, almost to himself. “There and back. No dizziness. No blackout. It means something. This distance.”

“It does,” Shane said. “It means you’re stronger than any of us thought yet, and that’s huge and I’m proud and I hate you a little right now.” He laughed, a wrecked sound. “Both things can be true.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. “You hate me only a little?”

“For this minute,” Shane said. “Ask me again when I stop seeing you under a car in my head.”

“You know, your imagination is very dramatic,” Ilya murmured.

Shane’s eyes stung harder. He stepped in before he could talk himself out of it.

His hands went to Ilya’s hoodie, bunching in the front, tugging him forward until their foreheads touched gently.

“Don’t do this to me again,” he whispered, voice breaking for real now. “Please. I don’t care if you crave nicotine so bad your teeth itch. I don’t care if you climb the walls. You want a cigarette, you tell me, and we can fight about it, and maybe I’ll cave and stand here with you while you smoke one. But you do not disappear off the hospital property again. You don’t cross that street without me knowing.”

Ilya’s breath shuddered against his lips.

“Okay,” he said. It sounded like something was being pulled out of him. “Okay. No more corner stores. No more… disappearing.” He lifted his hands and covered Shane’s where they clung to his hoodie, palms warm. “You are right. I am… lucky to still be here. I keep acting like this luck has no limit.” A tired half-laugh. “That is stupid.”

“It is,” Shane said thickly. “You’re allowed one miracle, Rozanov. Maybe two. Not fifty. Stop trying to speedrun them.”

Ilya exhaled, a little laugh-cry escaping. “Two?” he said. “You think I got two?”

“You being alive is one,” Shane said. “You walking to the door to meet me was probably two. This…” he nudged the dead cigarette with his shoe “...is just… evidence you’re also an idiot.”

“Yes,” Ilya murmured. “Fair.”

They stood there like that for a long breath, pressed together just enough to feel each other shake.

The automatic doors sighed open and shut somewhere behind them. Cold air nipped at Shane’s neck. He didn’t move.

Finally, Ilya shifted, carefully stepping on the cigarette butt, grinding it fully into the concrete.

“Okay,” he said again. “No more trips to the store. No more street crossing. If I want outside, I ask.” He paused. “You can say no. I will hate it. But I will stay.”

Shane sniffed, pulled back enough to look at him. “You’re really done?” he asked, eyes searching. “With the secret missions?”

Ilya’s gaze didn’t waver this time. “Yes,” he said. “Because I don’t want you to be afraid of coming back to empty bed. I want you to think, ‘he probably went to bathroom,’ not ‘he disappeared into traffic.’”

“That would be nice,” Shane said, voice wry and wobbly.

He opened his hand.

The crushed pack looked small and pathetic between them.

Without hesitation, Ilya took it, turned, and put it into his hoodie pocket.

No ceremony. No performative sigh. Just a small, decisive action.

Shane watched his hand linger inside for a second, fingertips resting on the gray fabric, like he was saying goodbye to something heavier than paper and tobacco.

Then he turned back.

“There,” he said. “Now if I sneak out without telling, it will only be for bad hospital coffee.”

“Ha,” Shane said. “Hilarious. Very reassuring.”

He reached out and hooked his fingers in the front of Ilya’s hoodie again, gentler this time.

“You’re tired,” he said, hearing it in the slight drag of his consonants, seeing it in the dulling glow of his eyes.

“Yes,” Ilya admitted. “This was… longer than I thought.” He grimaced, hand drifting unconsciously to his thigh. “And my leg is being drama queen now.”

“Good,” Shane said. “Let it complain. Maybe it’ll snitch on you faster next time.”

He slid his arm around Ilya’s waist, solid and familiar, and felt him exhale as he leaned some of his weight in.

“Come on,” Shane murmured. “Back upstairs. We can tell Lewis together before the security cameras do.”

“I will let you speak,” Ilya said as they headed for the doors. “Your angry English is very impressive. I am fan.”

“Don’t you dare be proud of that,” Shane said, but his mouth twitched.

They stepped back inside, into the wash of warm, stale air and bleach.

The doors whispered closed behind them, cutting off the view of the street, the crosswalk, the corner where the little store sat out of sight.

Later, there’d be another lecture. More tight-jawed sighs from Mira. Maybe a note in the chart.

But as they waited for the elevator, Ilya’s hip warm against his, Shane realized his own breathing was starting to slow. The disaster his brain had sketched, cars, sirens, an empty bench, hadn’t happened. This time, it was just a bad decision with a survivable outcome.

“You’re still not forgiven,” he muttered, because he had an image to maintain.

“I know,” Ilya said. He squeezed Shane’s side, fingers digging in just enough. “But maybe when the burger comes, you forget little bit.”

Shane rolled his eyes skyward.

“God help me,” he said. “I probably will.”

The elevator arrived with a ding.

They stepped in together.

***

That night, Ilya’s headache was a dull pressure instead of a spike, the nausea hadn’t shown up all day, and he’d eaten almost everything on his tray and half of Shane’s fries from the café.

The room was dim except for the lamp over the sink and the soft blue wash of the monitor. Snow smeared itself quietly against the window; the city outside felt far away, smudged and unreal.

Shane sat cross-legged on the visitor chair, phone in his hands, pretending to scroll. Really he was just watching Ilya.

Ilya was in the bed half propped up, headphones crooked around his neck, fingers tapping an invisible beat on the blanket. His hair had grown just enough around the incision that the stitches looked less aggressive and more like a strange, pale crescent under soft curls.

Shane’s skin still crawled every time he looked at it for too long.

“You are staring,” Ilya said without opening his eyes.

“No,” Shane said automatically.

“Yes.” Ilya’s mouth tilted. “I can feel it. You are looking at me like raccoon looks at trash.”

Shane huffed. “Romantic.”

“You are very romantic,” Ilya agreed. His eyes finally opened, green catching on the low light. “Come here.”

Shane pushed up out of the chair and crossed the small gap to the bed, heart already doing that stupid, excited-nervous thing. He perched on the edge where the mattress dipped, familiar sag under his weight.

Ilya rolled his head toward him. “Phone,” he said.

“What about it?”

“Give me.”

Shane handed it over, confused. Ilya unlocked it, thumb moving with the easy familiarity of someone who’d stolen it to play games more than once. He flipped through something, then set the phone face-down on the bedside table.

“You’re just… confiscating my phone now?” Shane asked.

“I am upgrading your evening,” Ilya said. His hand found Shane’s, fingers sliding between knuckles, squeeze warm and sure. “Stand up.”

“Why.”

“Because I said so,” Ilya said, all mock authority. “Come on, Hollander, trust the process.”

“The process did unsanctioned field trips to the corner store,” Shane said, but he obeyed, standing, letting their joined hands pull him up.

Ilya shifted, swinging his legs slowly over the side of the bed. It was still work, one could see it in the tightness of his mouth, the way his hands flexed on the edge of the mattress, but less of a battle than it had been days ago.

Shane immediately reached for his elbow. “Do you need me to—”

“I’ve got it,” Ilya murmured. “Just… be there.”

Shane was always there. It was all he knew how to be anymore.

Ilya pushed himself upright, feet planting on the floor. He paused, breathing once, twice, then looked up at Shane again, expression bright and a little mischievous.

“Siri, play,” he said.

As if summoned, the phone on the table lit up and started to hum out quiet music, the soft, unobtrusive kind Shane put on when Ilya couldn’t handle anything loud. A low, steady beat, a voice somewhere in the middle, nothing aggressive.

Shane blinked. “Did you just set Siri?”

“I trained your algorithm,” Ilya said proudly. “Every night, same playlist. Siri knows we need sad gay couple music.”

Shane barked out a laugh. “You’re impossible.”

“Yes.” Ilya’s fingers tightened on his. “Help me up?”

“You sure?” Shane asked, already stepping closer, already sliding his free hand halfway to the small of Ilya’s back. “You walked a lot today. You don’t have to prove anything, you know that, right?”

“I am not proving,” Ilya said. “I am… asking.” He swallowed. “I want to stand with you for a bit. Not walk. Just… stand. Maybe,” he added, eyes flicking away, suddenly shy, “we can try a little… sway.”

Shane’s brain blanked for a second.

“You want to dance?” he said, voice too thin.

“Not dance,” Ilya said quickly. “No spins, no dips, no sexy salsa, sadly. Just…” He lifted their hands and wiggled them. “Slow. Like at prom. Very boring.”

Shane’s heart did a weird, painful twist.

He hadn’t let himself think about that too much, about dancing, about anything that looked like pre-surgery intimacy. It felt… greedy. Wrong. Like asking for too much when he’d already gotten the miracle.

But Ilya was looking at him with that mixture of stubbornness and hope and heat that always, always undid him.

“Okay,” Shane whispered. “Yeah. Okay. We can try.”

He braced his feet, one hand firm at Ilya’s elbow, the other at his waist, fingers spanning the jut of hip under thin cotton.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ilya lied.

Shane felt the tremor under his palm, the hitch in his breath. They’d done this a dozen times with physio - sit to stand, stand to sit - but it always felt different when it was just them. Less clinical. More terrifying.

“One, two, three,” Shane murmured.

Ilya leaned forward, pushed through his legs.

For a heartbeat, everything in Shane screamed: this is a bad idea, this is too much, he will fall, he will crack his skull on the side table, you will kill him…

Then Ilya was up.

Wobbling, yes. Knees shaking. Head tilting for a second as the room caught up. But upright. Solid. Warm under Shane’s hands.

Shane didn’t breathe until he felt that little settling drop in Ilya’s weight, the sign his balance had found itself.

“Okay?” Shane whispered.

“Okay,” Ilya echoed, a breathless little huff. “Legs are complaining, but they always complain. Big babies.”

Shane huffed out a laugh, completely wrecked. “You good to let go of the bed?”

“Yes.” Ilya slid his fingers along the mattress edge, then lifted them, hovering. “But do not go far. You are very important furniture.”

“I’m… what?”

“Human chair,” Ilya clarified. “Very soft, very anxious. My favorite.”

Shane’s throat burned. 

“You’re such an asshole,” he said, but he stepped in closer, until their chests almost brushed, until the hospital shirt and Shane’s hoodie made a warm barrier between them.

The music thrummed gently from the phone, filling the space between beeps.

Ilya lifted their joined hands and set them, deliberately, clumsily, on Shane’s shoulder. His other hand slid, slow, shaking, up to the back of Shane’s neck.

It was the first time he’d reached for him like that since the surgery, confident, sensual, full of promise.

Shane froze.

His own hands hovered a second longer, terrified of putting weight in the wrong place, of squeezing too hard, of jostling something fragile inside Ilya’s skull.

“Here,” Ilya murmured, reading it on his face. He took Shane’s right hand and placed it firmly at his own waist. “Safe zone. No brains there. Only very strong hips.”

Shane snorted, a wet sound, and let his fingers spread, feeling the warmth, the slight indentation where muscle had melted to fatigue and hospital days.

“And here,” Ilya added, guiding Shane’s other hand up, not to his shoulder - too near the head bandage - but lower, over his sternum, where his heartbeat thudded slowly and steady. “Nurse says circulation is good. You can hold.”

Shane swallowed. “I remember circulation is good,” he managed.

“Good,” Ilya said. A small smile. “Then we dance.”

It wasn’t really dancing.

It was more like standing very close and letting the music rock them in tiny increments. A shift of weight from one foot to the other. A careful sway, side to side. Ilya’s knees protested at first, then settled into a slow rhythm, his body remembering that it knew how to do this - stand upright, lean into another person, move not for survival but for the simple joy of it.

Shane’s hand stayed at his waist, fingers digging in whenever he felt the slightest hitch in balance, ready to catch. His other hand splayed over Ilya’s chest, feeling each rise and fall, each tiny stutter of breath when a stronger wave of fatigue hit.

“This is cheating,” Ilya murmured after a moment, head tipping, forehead nearly to Shane’s shoulder. “You are doing most of work.”

“That is absolutely not true,” Shane said softly. “You’re doing… so much. I’m just here so you don’t faceplant.”

“See?” Ilya’s breath warmed Shane’s jaw. “Furniture.”

They swayed in silence for a bit. The room seemed to shrink around them, the corners softening. The IV pole loomed a little in the periphery, the monitor blinked, but none of it felt as sharp. Just background.

“I missed this,” Ilya said quietly.

“Hospital rooms?” Shane tried, because his chest hurt and he didn’t know what to do with it.

“You,” Ilya said, without hesitation. He shifted his hand from Shane’s neck to his cheek, thumb tracing the damp track under his eye. Shane hadn’t even noticed he’d started crying again. “Like this. Close. Not… careful.” He grimaced. “Okay, a little careful. But… you know what I mean.”

Shane’s eyes stung harder. “We are being careful,” he pointed out.

“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “But it feels less like ‘careful with porcelain’ and more like… I don’t know.” His thumb brushed Shane’s cheekbone again, lingering. “Like we are just… us again. For a little bit.”

Shane’s vision blurred.

“I thought we’d never get this back,” he blurted. The words tumbled out before he could filter them. “I thought… best case, you’d be alive and that would be enough. That wanting more would be selfish. That I shouldn’t even think about this kind of…” He gestured weakly between them. “Touch. Kissing. Dancing. Any of it.”

Ilya’s brows drew together, sharply. “Hey,” he said. “Do not call wanting to kiss your boyfriend selfish. That is stupid logic. You need refund on that thought.”

Shane barked a laugh that broke in the middle. 

“I just…” He shook his head. “There was a minute in that hallway where I thought, ‘I will never get to hold him like this again,’ and my brain just… locked it in. Like a fact.”

“And now?” Ilya asked.

Shane looked at him.

Really looked.

At the faint stubble on his jaw, slowly growing back after the morning shave. At the smudge of fatigue under his eyes. At the bandage edge peeking through his curls.

At the way he was standing, on his own, pressed into Shane, warm and alive and swaying clumsily to some random playlist.

“Now I’m… recalibrating,” Shane whispered. “And I’m very behind.”

Ilya’s mouth curved, soft and crooked. “Good thing I am patient,” he said.

Shane snorted, then inhaled sharply when Ilya’s fingers slid down, cupping his jaw properly, thumb resting at the corner of his mouth, stroking over Shane’s lower lip gently.

“Can I kiss you?” Ilya asked.

He’d brushed his lips over Shane’s forehead since the surgery. Let Shane kiss the inside of his wrist, the back of his hand. They even shared small pecks on the lips. Little, light things that didn’t feel like pressure or like pulling him underwater.

But this was different. This was weight and intent and all the unspoken things coiled between them. 

“Are you sure?” Shane said, voice thin. “You don’t have to, like, if you’re tired, or your head, or if the pressure…”

“Shane,” Ilya murmured. “I know my head. Right now, it wants to kiss you. Very strongly. Are you going to say no to an injured man’s wish?”

Shane laughed, broken and helpless, and then nodded. “Okay,” he breathed. “Yeah. Please.”

Ilya leaned in.

The first brush of his mouth was feather-light, lips just ghosting over Shane’s, testing, asking, tongue teasing Shane’s lower lip.

Shane made a sound that startled him - a small, wrecked noise from somewhere deep, somewhere that had been knotted tight since the news about the first seizure.

His hands jumped, then steadied, one clenching reflexively at Ilya’s waist, the other flattening more against his chest. The heart under his palm thudded faster.

Ilya pulled back half a centimeter, eyes searching Shane’s face as if he were checking for damage.

“You’re crying,” he observed softly.

“Yeah,” Shane said, voice shaking. “I… yeah.”

“Bad tears?” Ilya asked.

“No,” Shane said, and it came out on a shuddering breath. “God, no. Just… everything tears.”

Ilya’s expression gentled. 

“Okay,” he murmured. “Then we can have more.”

He closed the distance again.

This time, the kiss deepened. Still careful, no sudden angle, no bruising force, but more present. His mouth moved against Shane’s with slow, deliberate pressure, like he had all the time in the world to relearn it. Their lips slotted together perfectly,

Shane’s eyes fluttered shut. The hospital room fell away.

There was just the soft drag of Ilya’s lips and tongue, the warmth of his breath, the faint taste of mint and something him underneath the lingering antiseptic.

Shane let himself lean in, just a little, just enough to feel the give of Ilya’s body against his. His fingers flexed at his waist, then slid up to the small of his back, feeling the play of muscle, the tremor that wasn’t about balance anymore but about emotion.

He’d forgotten what this felt like. Or maybe he hadn’t forgotten, exactly; he’d filed it somewhere under dangerous nostalgia and slammed the drawer shut.

Having it back felt like ripping that drawer open and finding everything still inside, vivid and intact.

A sob tried to claw its way up his throat.

He swallowed it into the kiss, which only made it worse.

Ilya broke away just enough to breathe, noses brushing. “Hey,” he whispered. “You keep doing that, I am going to think I am bad kisser.”

Shane laughed wetly. “You’re… you’re so not,” he managed. “You’re perfect. I’m just, fuck, Ilya, I thought…”

“I know,” Ilya said. He pressed a quick, clumsy kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth, then another to the damp skin under his eye. “Me too.”

They swayed a little, the movement now more about keeping Shane upright than Ilya.

“I lay there, first days,” Ilya murmured between soft kisses, “and I thought… if I never skate again, it will hurt. But if I never feel you like this again…” He trailed off, throat working.

Shane’s hand at his chest felt that hitch, that tiny stutter.

“…then I don’t know who I am,” Ilya finished quietly. “Hockey is big. But this is bigger. You are bigger than anything else in my life, Hollander.”

Shane’s vision blurred out completely.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, because there was no clever answer in him, just raw, shaking gratitude. “Oh my God.”

Ilya huffed a little, breath breaking against Shane’s lips. “This is not very eloquent,” he said. “But I like it.”

He kissed him again, gentle, unhurried, giving Shane space to make all the cracked little noises he needed to. Shane’s tears wet their mouths, salty and warm; Ilya’s thumb kept sweeping them away, catching them before they cooled.

“I missed your mouth,” Shane blurted at one point, startling himself.

Ilya’s laugh shivered through their bodies. “I missed yours too,” he said. “I missed your stupid little noises when you get overwhelmed.”

“I don’t make…” Another soft sound escaped him as Ilya nipped, barely there, at his lower lip. “Okay. Maybe I do.”

“You sound like puppy,” Ilya murmured, affectionately. “Very happy, very confused puppy.”

Shane snorted into the kiss, which turned it messy and real.

They broke apart eventually, panting a little, foreheads pressed together, swaying just enough to keep their legs from locking up.

The music hummed on softly, unnoticed.

“How’s your head?” Shane asked first, because of habit.

“Full,” Ilya admitted. “Of you. And little bit of blood. But… okay. Not spinning.” He smiled, small and fierce. “Worth it.”

“How are your legs?” Shane persisted, because he could feel the tremor increasing under his palms.

“Angry,” Ilya said. “They will file complaint later. But… okay for another minute.”

Shane hesitated. “You want to keep standing?”

“Yes,” Ilya said immediately, then added, more quietly, “Just a little longer. I like being taller than you again. I like looking down and seeing you right here.” His eyes dropped to Shane’s mouth, then lifted again, softened. “I like feeling… not broken.”

“You’ve never been broken,” Shane said, reflexive.

“I feel less like it when you are close,” Ilya replied simply.

Shane had no defense against that.

“Okay,” he whispered. “One more minute. Maybe two. Then we sit before Mira senses a disturbance in the force.”

Ilya laughed softly, head tipping back a little. Shane watched his throat work, the muscles in his neck shifting under skin, the way the lamp light caught on the edge of the scar.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss, feather-light, just below the bandage.

Ilya shivered.

“That okay?” Shane asked immediately.

“Yes,” Ilya breathed. “Feels like… you are not scared of it anymore.”

“I am,” Shane said honestly. “I’m terrified. But I’m more scared of pretending it’s not there. This is part of you now. I… want to love all the parts.”

Ilya’s eyes flooded suddenly, unexpectedly. He blinked, a tear spilling over, tracking down his cheek.

“Your turn crying, Rozanov” Shane murmured, thumb catching it.

“Shut up,” Ilya said thickly. “Let me be dramatic in peace.”

They clung to each other, swaying in the dim hospital room, music and machine beeps weaving into a strange, tender lullaby.

After a while, Shane felt the tremor in Ilya’s legs tip from “working hard” into “about to mutiny.”

“Okay,” he whispered against his temple. “Time to sit, miracle man. Before you collapse and I have to explain to Lewis that we broke you slow-dancing.”

“Very romantic way to die,” Ilya muttered, but he nodded. “You are right. My legs hate love.”

“Your legs hate gravity, not love,” Shane said.

Getting him back down was its own little choreography. Shane guided him gently, letting him hold onto his shoulders, lowering him inch by inch until he felt the mattress catch him. Ilya sighed as he landed, eyes fluttering closed, chest heaving.

Shane sat beside him, suddenly empty-armed and a little dizzy himself.

Ilya’s hand fumbled out, finding his again, dragging him down until Shane half sprawled on top of the covers, head pillowed near Ilya’s shoulder.

“Stay,” Ilya said. It sounded like a plea and a command all at once.

“Always,” Shane replied.

He turned his face into the curve of Ilya’s neck, breathing in hospital soap and sweat and that underlying note that was just him. His tears had slowed but not stopped; one more slipped out and soaked into the collar of Ilya’s shirt.

Ilya shifted, pressing his lips into Shane’s hair.

“See?” he murmured. “We can still have this. Even without sex. Even with stupid brain. We still have… this.”

Shane’s fingers curled in the fabric over Ilya’s ribs.

“I know,” he whispered. “I just… needed to feel it. To believe it.”

“Good,” Ilya said sleepily. “Believe it. Because I still plan to kiss you for very long time.”

Shane smiled, wet and shaky, and let himself believe it, at least for that night.

In the quiet of the fourth floor, with the snow smearing the world outside and the music humming low, they lay tangled on the narrow bed, hearts pressed together, breathing in sync.

No sex. No wild, consuming anything yet.

Just the simple, impossible miracle of standing together, swaying, and kissing like they hadn’t forgotten how - and the quiet, fierce understanding that this, right here, was worth every lecture, every fear, every carefully negotiated stunt.

Shane fell asleep some time later with Ilya’s heartbeat under his palm and the taste of that kiss still bright on his lips, for the first time in weeks not haunted by the memory of what he’d almost lost, but anchored in the sheer, overwhelming reality of what he’d gotten back.