Chapter 1: Omegatisation

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes It’s obvious that Marleau doesn’t mean to hit Shane so hard, but that doesn’t make the crunch of two bodies colliding any less brutal. Shane doesn’t just fall: he crumples. Like he’s made of balsa instead of layers of muscle stacked on top of a familiar, solid core. Pike gets to his teammate first, but Ilya is only a second behind. They’re the first two to hear the noise Shane makes before he’s even opened his eyes. There’s a word in Russian that has no English translation. The word is khnykat. It describes a sound. It is not a sound that Ilya has ever heard before, but he knows the word. Everyone knows the word. In English they call it a whine, or a whimper, but Ilya has heard people make those sounds before. He’s quite proud of the whines and whimpers he can pull from Shane, when they have time and they’re alone in a hotel room and he has Shane all to himself. The sound Shane makes now is not a whine or a whimper. It is a khnykat. The Russian word is more descriptive, more plaintive. It has connotations of loss and pleading. It has connotations of desperation. It describes the sound someone makes when they’re in pain, and seeking their alpha. It’s the sound of an omega. It’s the sound of an omega in distress. Ilya stops so fast he might have skated into a brick wall. Pike doesn’t fare any better, tripping over nothing at all and sprawling onto the ice. “Did he just—” someone says from behind him. “Shit, Marleau, did you just bitch Shane Hollander?” It’s not the wording that gets Ilya moving forward again. It’s the way he says it. The emphasis on bitch. “Hollander,” he breathes, too quiet for anyone to hear, especially not Shane, who twitches and rolls onto his belly, still mostly out of it. That had actually been the first thing Ilya had been going to check—that Shane could still move. That the damage wasn’t to his spine, or his head. He doesn’t know if this is any better. “Traumatic designation chain reaction,” Pike is saying, and Ilya doesn’t exactly know the translation of the words, but he understands the meaning. Enough damage to an alpha’s internal reproductive system will trigger a flood of hormones and start an irreversible process which will only end in an emergency room. Shane is dying. Shane is going into heat. Ilya doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think he can. He’s just standing there, staring dumbly at Shane’s body. Which means he hears it plainly the second time. The whine, or the whimper, or whatever-the-fuck these North Americans call it. It’s so loud the cameras parked on the side of the rink can probably pick it up. And Ilya doesn’t know if the stadium has been roaring this whole time or if he’s tuning into it just now, but the bellowing gets immeasurably louder in response, like the crowd hears the khnykat, too. “Get him up,” Pike is yelling at one of his teammates. Berkes, maybe. “Get him upright, get him up!” But Shane does the khnykat again, and Berkes twitches like the sound is hitting him at centre mass. His lips part and he spits out his mouthguard and Ilya sees the white point of an alpha canine and then he’s hefting his hockey stick without even realising it. He swings it into Berkes’ helmet, just as Berkes is leaning down over Shane’s prone body. Berkes tumbles backward, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it. Pike is yelling something which Ilya doesn’t bother trying to understand. He crouches beside Shane, who doesn’t appear to be fully conscious as he whines again and jerks against the ice. “It’s starting,” Ilya tells Pike, muffled, voice coming from across an ocean. He spits out his own mouthguard. “Hollander,” he whispers. Shane’s jerking gets worse, and Ilya chances a glance at the sidelines, where the medic is supposed to be coming from. He wishes he hadn’t looked. There’s pandemonium on the benches. People are yelling. It’s only been a few seconds since Marleau and Shane collided, and Ilya doesn’t think help is going to get here in time. Shane’s body twitches even harder, then flops limp, then twitches again. His helmet cracks into the ice. There’s no time for waiting. Ilya puts hands under Shane’s armpits and hoists him up, praying that Marleau’s hit didn’t damage anything that isn’t supposed to be moved. Shane needs to be upright. They teach basic first aid in Russia, too. There had been an acronym and everything, though Ilya can’t remember what the acronym had been. He only knows that you’re not supposed to move people with injuries, except for when they do the khnykat, because the khnykat means that everything on the inside is reconfiguring, or exploding, or something equally horrific, and being vertical is the only way to stop the organs from crushing themselves through what’s happening. That’s happening inside Shane right now. In a place Ilya can’t even see. He’s—god, oh god— his organs. Ilya doesn’t know how to fix organs. It happened so fast. Ilya should’ve… he should’ve… “Upright,” he says, repeating Pike from earlier, face feeling numb and limbs trembling with useless adrenaline. “Hollander. Up, up.” He puts both of his arms around Shane’s middle and tries to lean him against his own chest. Shane’s body is supposed to feel familiar against his own, but right now it’s just dead weight. His helmet and shoulder pads get in the way. His limp arms flop against Ilya’s sides. It’s not at all like carrying him across the hotel room to throw him on the bed. “Come on, Hollander,” he whispers, straining to his feet, trying to lock his skates in place as the added weight threatens to send him skidding sideways. Pike maybe thinks that Ilya’s about to bare his canines as well, because he tries to pull Ilya away. But once he sees that Ilya isn’t about to do a Berkes, he gets with the program and supports Shane from the other side. His eyes are wide beneath his visor. They share a terrified glance over Shane’s twitching body. Where’s the damn doctor? Shane is meant to be an alpha. Ilya’s never really thought about the kind of injury that can spontaneously change someone’s designation, but it occurs to him now that it must be the hardest hit Shane’s ever taken. The hardest hit that anyone on this ice rink has ever taken. If he doesn’t get medical attention he won’t survive what’s happening to him. Shane makes the sound again, except this time he’s ragdolled in Ilya’s arms and he makes the sound right in Ilya’s ear, like he’s begging all of Ilya’s alpha instincts to come and get him— to come and claim him—and Ilya feels like the urge to do exactly that is being yanked out of his intestines or something, his insides fighting to crawl up his throat. His teeth ache and there’s a wild moment where he thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? To bite Shane right now. This is Shane’s first heat. Any alpha can claim him. It’s illegal to bite an omega without invitation but courts never prosecute if it happens when the omega is in heat, because alphas aren’t expected to be able to resist the khnykat. At least not legally. Omegas stay indoors while they’re heating for this exact reason. He could bite Shane right now. He could claim him before anyone else even gets the chance. And no one would think twice about it. Shane would be his. People would judge and write their stupid articles, but people already judge and write their stupid articles. And then Shane jerks in his arms, hard, still mostly unconscious, and Ilya grits his teeth and focuses. “We need to…” he says, struggling to remember his English past the feral lump that’s growing in his chest. “To… hold.” “Stabilise,” Pike agrees, and crowds in close. Ilya had meant that they needed to find a wall to press Shane into (god, he loves pressing Shane into walls, but focus, Rozanov, focus) but a quick glance around shows that there are no walls easily in reach. Barely a minute has passed but it’s chaos in every direction. Players are yelling. Fans are yelling. Fights are breaking out on the ice. Above him, the giant screen is showing his own face, staring out over the carnage. He looks calmer than he feels. And then he realises that they aren’t broadcasting him, they’re broadcasting Shane, slumped between him and Pike. Players getting accidentally bitched during contact sports isn’t unheard of, but modern rules of play and improved padding means that it hasn’t happened in decades. Things like this are usually only on TV soap operas, or in freak accidents, like car crashes or war zones. This is going to be news. This is going to be global news. Shane Hollander had been Canada’s most eligible bachelor, and now every alpha in the world has a chance at making him theirs. “Connors!” he bellows, because he needs someone with enough bulk to block the cameras, and Connors is a beta who isn’t about to get bitey the next time Shane does the omega whine. Pike sees what Ilya is doing and yells for his own goalie, and then they both start barking orders at their teams. It’s a testament to either the discipline of their players or just the craziness of this situation that everyone does exactly as directed, forming a perimeter around where Ilya and Pike are holding Shane upright. Shane starts thrashing for real and Ilya has to grab Pike’s shoulder with one hand and throw off the glove on his other hand to clench fingers in the fabric at Pike’s waist. Pike does the same in reverse, like they’re about to start waltzing or something, and they hold on tight, crushing Shane between them as Shane jerks in their arms. Their helmets crack loudly against each other. Ilya leans in on his side and Pike does the same, so that Shane’s head is held—stabilised—between them. He isn’t trying to scent Shane but he can’t help it. Not with the way they’re pressed up like this. There’s so much padding in hockey that scents aren’t usually a problem during games, except in the locker room. But Ilya’s become so attuned to Shane’s body that these days he thinks he could find his scent through a full metre of reinforced Russian concrete. Like summer and open skies and swollen clouds right before they start to pour. Except Shane doesn’t smell familiar right now. Or else he does, but… sweeter. His scent glands are already reacting to the flood of hormones from his ruptured alpha system. He always smells delicious, but right now Ilya can’t think of a single thing he wants to do more than lick him, sink his teeth in, claim him, claim him. Abruptly, he remembers that Pike is an alpha, too. Does he trust Shane’s teammate not to bite Shane? Pike must be thinking the same thing because Ilya feels his fingers clench tighter in Ilya’s clothes as Shane whines and jerks again. Ilya hates that past Shane’s sweetness he can smell Pike, too. Ocean breeze and saltwater, like the pure alpha archetype that he is. Disgusting. Ilya forces himself to grip him tighter as Shane’s jerking turns into thrashing. This is the most dangerous time for new omegas. Shane needs to be still during the seizures, while the first flush of released hormones goes through him. The goalies and a few of the forwards tighten the circle they’ve formed around them. Some of them reach out to touch Shane’s shoulder or the side of his head. “Other way,” Ilya snaps, and they turn so they’re facing outward instead, hockey sticks raised. Most major league hockey players are alphas, but there are betas on both teams as well, and they form the majority of the blockade between Shane and the rest of the world. The rest of the alphas stay well clear, and Ilya doesn’t know if that’s because they don’t trust themselves near a heating omega, or if they just don’t care. Maybe they think it’ll be contagious. Ilya kind of wishes it was. He’d take a hit, too, if it meant Shane wouldn’t be alone in whatever’s about to happen. “I don’t…” Shane murmurs, as the shaking eases. “Hollander,” Ilya says, filled with relief. “You are okay?” What a stupid thing to ask. Shane mumbles something and his limbs keep flopping where he’s held in between Ilya and Pike, but he must be regaining consciousness, at least a bit, because he turns his head into Ilya’s neck and breathes in like they’re waking up in bed together. “Ilya?” “I’m here,” Pike interrupts, speaking loudly over the noise all around them. “I’ve got you, bud.” Then, “Rozanov, we need to turn him around, he’s going to freak out if he scents you.” Or I could put puck through your eye, Ilya doesn’t say. “No,” he says instead. “We need to get off ice.” “Ilya?” Shane says again, clearer than before, and then he coughs and something warm spills across Ilya’s neck. He smells blood. Where’s the goddamn medic? “You’re okay,” Pike is yelling. “Shane, I’m here, you’re okay, we’re not gonna let—you’re okay, you’re okay.” Shane reaches a clumsy hand up to the strap of his helmet, moaning. “Do not take off helmet,” Ilya says. “Hollander, can you hear me?” “Ilya, what…?” Ilya can’t see much past the bodies of their beta blockade, but he can tell it’s still chaos all around them. The noise is deafening. The medic isn’t coming. “You got hit,” he says. “You are becoming omega.” Shane tries to shake his head, but he’s still held firm between Ilya and Pike. “No,” he manages, and then he groans and arches, clutching at Ilya’s sides. This time, the khnykat is more of a yell. His face scrunches up, everything going tight except for his mouth, which is open wide. His teeth are stained red. Behind Pike’s shoulder, Ilya sees that one of the news crew is braving the ice. She’ll be banned for life for coming onto the rink, probably, but she must think it’s worth it. She’s got a microphone in one hand and she’s mostly just slipping, but she’s coming toward them like she knows this is going to be the biggest story of the year, and she wants her name on it. Ilya bares his teeth but it’s too late. Shane makes the sound again, and the reporter is close enough that the microphone picks it up, and an omega khnykat is broadcast at top volume across the stadium. The effect is instant. An alpha starts howling, and then another, and then another. “Oh god,” Pike breathes. “They’re gonna frenzy.” There’s a Russian word for this, too, but for once the English version is better. An alpha frenzy. People going ballistic in an attempt to get what they want. A whole stadium of spectators, who knows how many of them alphas, exposed to an omega khnykat. Most people agree that alphas are capable of keeping their heads around a heating omega, but there must be dozens—maybe hundreds—of people in the stands who won’t care about modern standards of behaviour, and won’t try to resist the frenzy at all. Shane goes limp again, and Ilya doesn’t want to think about what kind of injury is causing him to seesaw in and out of consciousness, but it’s obvious that whatever it is, he won’t be able to protect himself. “Frenzies don’t happen,” one of the betas in the blockade is saying. “This is America.” “We’re in Canada, idiot,” someone else says. “This doesn’t fucking happen,” the guy insists. “This ain’t the Dark Ages, we got civilization now.” Ilya looks out at the sea of swarming bodies and thinks that civilization must be a fragile word indeed. “Hollander,” he says, voice barely audible over the sounds all around them. He feels numb and paralysed with indecision. He knows how to skate. He knows how to whack a stupid disc with a stupid stick and score his stupid points. He doesn’t know how to fight off a frenzy. “Hollander, wake up, we must go.” “Ilya Rozanov!” the reporter yells over the bedlam. Her microphone is still in front of her. “Rozanov! Did you tell Cliff Marleau to hit your rival like that? Were you purposefully trying to bitch your—” One of the betas breaks formation to shove the reporter back and then hits the microphone hard enough to smash it. In the gap he’s left in the barricade Ilya catches glimpses of the sidelines. People in the stands are pressed up against the panels at the edge of the rink and are spilling over the dasher boards onto the ice. Most of them fall too hard to get back up, but as Ilya watches one of them gets to his feet. He’s barely keeping upright but his teeth are bared and he’s staring at the knot of players—he’s staring at Shane—like he can smell him already. Shane does the khnykat again, and coughs up more blood, and the man staggers toward them, yelling incomprehensibly. One of the alpha Metros body slams the guy before Ilya can even snarl. But there are more alphas coming. “Go,” Ilya says. Shane’s first seizures have mostly stopped. They have to leave. He tugs Shane and Pike toward him, moving backward. “Go, go!” They move awkwardly, barricade and all. Way too slow, bumping into each other and trying not to let too much of a gap form in their ranks. They’re going in the wrong direction. The medic is stationed on the other side of the rink, but that’s where all the alphas from the stands are coming from. The first alpha started the wave, and now they’re flooding onto the ice. The alphas on both teams start running interference, shoving at the horde. But no one here is a trained fighter. The beta huddle breaks ranks to whack anyone who gets too close. It’s like a scene from a zombie movie. Ilya wishes that big dude, Ryan Price, were still on the team. He’s never been so fucking afraid in his life. An alpha frenzy. They’re so fucking fucked. He needs to get Shane out of here. Occasionally, it’s their own teammates they have to defend against, but a quick knock to the helmet usually shakes them out of the haze that Shane’s khnykat keeps triggering. Ilya has no idea how he’s keeping himself in check. He has no idea how Pike’s doing it either. “I’m not…” Shane gasps, struggling back to consciousness. “I need a doctor. It’s… it’s just an injury. It’s just an injury!” “Yes,” Ilya agrees wildly. “You need doctor.” “I’m not an omega,” Shane urges. “Ilya, I’m not an omega!” Ilya wants to shake him. Can’t you hear yourself? Can’t you smell yourself? But instead he knocks his skates into the dasher board at the edge of the rink as the betas split apart to let him through. “Okay,” he says. He lets go of Pike to grip the back of Shane’s neck with one hand, looping the other arm around his waist. He hauls Shane over the wall backwards, trying to keep him as upright as possible. Shane yells, an agonised sound that reminds Ilya that there might be other injuries apart from the ruined alpha organs. He yanks his own helmet off and tugs Shane’s face into his neck. Shane’s visor is in the way but he can’t do anything about that right now. Pike scrambles over the wall after them, yelling at the betas to form up, yelling at the alphas to go ahead and clear a path. Ilya’s got no idea where they’re meant to be going. This isn’t his home turf. But Shane starts shaking again so Ilya holds him as tight as he knows how, taking his weight as best as he can with the stupid padding in the way. Pike tries to take Shane off him and Ilya snarls at him. No one pauses to remove their skates, they just clomp away from the rink, as fast as they can, down into the bowels of the stadium. It sets Ilya’s teeth on edge. His instinct is to go up. Get somewhere high, where he can see all the threats at once. Get somewhere defensible. Behind them, he hears half a dozen thuds as snarling alphas collide with the dasher boards where they had just been standing. They’re going to be penned in down here. They’re going to be crushed. Shane wakes up again, long enough to repeat that he’s not an omega, and that there’s been some kind of mistake. And then he tries to take some of his own weight, almost tripping Ilya up as their legs get tangled. Pike stabilises both of them as Shane yells and goes limp again, shaking and whining and gripping Ilya’s hair and the collar of his uniform, even in unconsciousness. “Please!” someone yells from a side corridor, and Ilya turns automatically. There’s a young woman, wearing a blue jersey with Hollander’s number on the front, which is not where the number is meant to go. “Please,” she says again. “I can help him!” “You are doctor?” Ilya yells over the noise coming from… everywhere. “No,” she says, pushing through the throngs. “I’m his. I’ll be good for him, I’m his soul mate, I’ll be the best he’s ever—” Ilya staggers backward. She’s not even frenzied, just insane. Where is his hockey stick? He must have dropped it on the ice. “Pike!” he yells, but someone else is already shoving her back down the corridor. Ilya goes in the other direction, hauling Shane back up into his arms as he slips down. The players from both teams are doing their best to keep everyone away but there’s just going to be more and more alphas trying to get at them. He’s not going to be able to stop someone from getting close. He’s not going to be able to protect his… Shane. “Pike,” he says again. “Almost there,” Pike pants, and Ilya realises that they’re headed for the locker room. The layout is a mirror image of the away team’s side of the stadium. “Wrong,” he snarls, unable to figure out the words he needs to explain that the whole point of the locker rooms is to be easily accessible in multiple directions. It’s not defensible. It’s not safe. It’s the wrong place. But they round a corner and there’s a dozen alphas coming to meet them, yelling and snapping their teeth, and half the players break away to deal with that while the rest of them backtrack, going as fast as they can in their stupid skates. Pike takes off his helmet and pegs it at an oncoming alpha. His hair is sticking up in stupid sweaty spikes. Without his helmet he smells overwhelmingly like the enemy: like a rival alpha, here to take something that doesn’t belong to him. Ilya tries to ignore the instinct to snarl at him. As long as he’s not frenzying, Ilya will take all the help he can get. Even if it smells like the motherfucking ocean. “It’s a mistake,” Shane is telling the side of Ilya’s face, slurring dreadfully. “It’s just a mistake, it’s just a mistake.” God, Ilya wishes. He gets a better grip around Shane. His arms are shaking. He trains every single day, but he will not be able to run forever. “Hold on, Hollander!” “Here,” Pike says suddenly, and yanks open a side door. It’s some sort of storage room. There are shelves and an unplugged monitor to one side, and a desk with pamphlets and a box of lanyards. Ilya hustles inside and Pike yells something at the remaining players and follows Ilya in, and then slams the door shut. It has a lock, but it’s the kind of lock that needs a key card to activate. They’ve just stranded themselves in a room that they can’t even lock. Pike starts piling things against the door, swearing. Ilya props Shane against a shelf and uses one hand to shove the equipment off the desk. “You can’t put him on that,” Pike says. “He’s gotta stay upright.” “I know,” Ilya snaps. “Is not to lie on.” He sits on the cleared desk and hauls Shane against him, getting a thigh between Shane’s legs to take some of the weight so Shane can slump against his chest. Shane doesn’t seem to think anything of the position they’re in, or else he’s still too out of it to notice. He grips Ilya’s hair, and he reaches again for the strap of his helmet. Ilya slaps his hand away. “Leave on, Hollander,” he says. He can’t bear the thought of Shane removing even a single layer of protection right now. “Ilya,” Shane mumbles. “What time ‘s it?” Ilya tries to hush him, but Shane wriggles a bit against his thigh. “Don’t move. Hollander, stop the moving.” “You smell nice. S’different.” Ilya doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s Shane who’s different. What if Shane doesn’t want him, after this? What if he wakes up in his new omega body and Ilya is suddenly repulsive to him? What if Shane only likes people who are the same as he is? It occurs to him, painfully, that Rose Landry is an omega. Shane’s breath rattles, and he coughs to clear his throat. Blood speckles the front of Ilya’s shirt. “Pike, he needs doctor.” Pike doesn’t reply. There’s yelling from outside, and something crashes into the door. The doorknob rattles, and Pike puts his shoulder against the wood, bracing hard. There’s another crash, and some muffled yelling, but it doesn’t rattle again. Neither of them say the obvious: they’re not going to be able to leave this room to look for help. Except they might not have any choice. Shane is in the first stages of heat. He’s in the first stages of firstheat. The medics would have been able to dose him up, but without a doctor there’s only one way for an omega to survive a trauma-initiated firstheat. He needs a huge dose of alpha hormones. He needs a knot.

Chapter End Notes

While writing this i did worry that people would be like "actually khnykat does have an English translation" but I didn't want to just make up a whole new Russian word. And then I remembered I was hitting an adult man hard enough to make him grow a cervix and I figured actually maybe no one cares about rules while we're in the sandbox. So yeah khnykat does indeed have a translation it just means whine/whimper but maybe in the omegaverse it gets additional connotations who's to say, who's to say. Gimme kiss 💋

Chapter 2: Knot

Chapter Summary “The damage from the impact is spreading,” the doctor simplifies. “Once it reaches his heart, you will only have minutes.” “Minutes to do what?” There’s a tense silence. “Minutes to do what?” “Knot him,” she says.

Chapter Notes

Someone called this a "wip with no smut" and I left work early to finish editing the chapter so i could get it published today because I am nothing if not easily manipulated 😚 Thanks again to Hermit for whacking this chapter with the almighty beta stick. My commas and I appreciate you immensely. See the end of the chapter for more notes “I’m hot,” Shane whimpers. “Okay, okay.” Ilya’s overheating as well. It’s not every day that he has to carry a fully grown man away from a horde of frenzied alphas. He tries to yank his feet out of his skates but can’t manage it no matter how hard he kicks. If they need to make another run for it he doesn’t want to be slowed down by fucking footwear. “Pike,” he says. “Skates.” Pike has speared two brooms and a mop across the front of the door, secured behind the shelf brackets on either side, and held in place with dozens of stolen lanyards. They won’t withstand a huge amount of force but they’re better than nothing. He adds the only chair in the room to the sad little barricade, hooked under the door handle like this really is a movie. He comes to yank Ilya’s shoes off, and then does his own. He hesitates, and then does Shane’s too, even though Shane doesn’t look like he’s going to be running anywhere any time soon. Ilya notes numbly that the skates are probably ruined. None of them had bothered to put guards on. “Let me take him,” Pike says when he’s done. “No,” Ilya tells him flatly. Pike bristles up, which makes Ilya do the same in response. The tiny room is getting stuffy with alpha pheromones. At least Pike’s ocean scent isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other alphas Ilya knows. “He’s not yours, Rozanov. I appreciate you keeping your head out there, but if your teeth get anywhere near him I’m going to be punching first and asking questions second.” “Same at you,” Ilya spits back. “I’m his friend, you’re Ilya Fucking Rozanov.” “Swear jar,” Shane slurs. “You think I am big enough asshole to bite heating omega?” From the expression on Pike’s face, that’s exactly what he’s thinking. But he doesn’t get a chance to say it out loud because Shane starts shaking his head, and the sweet not-quite- omega smell of him cuts through the overwhelming alpha. “Not an omega,” he mumbles. “‘m not heating.” “Okay,” Ilya says, and lets himself hold a little tighter. Something thuds into the door, and Pike and Ilya freeze. There are no further hits, and the paltry barricade holds. It’s hard to hear anything happening outside, but there are definitely voices yelling. “I told the team to protect the door,” Pike whispers. “Don’ need protection,” Shane grumbles. “Hayd, aren’t you hot?” Pike looks even more stricken. “Rozanov, what does that mean? Why’s he overheating?” Ilya has no fucking clue. “It’s called heat,” he guesses. “Jackie doesn’t get like this,” Pike insists. “I should call her. She’ll know what to—” “No,” Ilya says, at the exact same time that Shane says, “Do not call your wife!” God, Ilya wishes they could call someone though. The stadium security, or the fucking air force or something. There could be an army of alphas right outside their door, and they’d never know. He’s taking his phone onto the ice for every single game after this. As though it can hear his thoughts, a ringtone starts blaring. The three of them jump, though Shane’s is more of a twitch. There’s a box on the wall, which until this moment Ilya had assumed was part of the key card system. But it’s lit up and it’s ringing. “Make it shut up,” Ilya hisses, thinking about the army of alphas that is definitely right outside the door, turning towards the loud noise. Pike jabs at the box. “—locker room sevent—acknowledge the—” a woman’s voice fuzzes through. “Hello?” Pike says. “Hi,” Shane mumbles in response. “This is Shane Hollander speaking.” “Quiet,” Ilya says into his hair. “Looking for—medical evacuation of the—confirm—Shane Holl—” says the voice. “Don’t reply,” Ilya hisses. “It could be trap.” “How would a frenzied alpha access stadium comms, Rozanov?” “Hayden Pike?” the voice asks, clearer. Like whoever is on the other line has heard their voices and is prioritising transmission. “Ilya Rozanov?” “Don’t reply!” Ilya says again. “We’re here,” Pike says, leaning in towards the box. “Please confirm if you’re with Shane Hollander.” “We’ve got him, yeah.” “Oh, thank god,” the voice says. There’s some muffled communication—the woman says Room Seventeen, and then Give the map to— “Who are you?” Pike asks. “I’m a doctor, I’m with the paramedics outside. They’re figuring out how to get to you.” “There’s alphas. They’re… There are people frenzying.” “We know. We’re working on it. How’s Mr Hollander?” “He was coughing blood earlier,” Pike says, “but he’s stopped. He needs… God, he needs a hospital. He’s hot. Is that normal?” “You took his temperature?” “No, what? Should I? I don’t know if we’ve got… He just said he was hot.” “He’s talking?” “Yeah, a bit, is that bad?” “No, that’s good, that’s really good. That means we’ve got some time.” “Time before what?” “Can I speak with him?” she says, notably ignoring the question. “He’s pretty out of it, um, Shane? Shane, bud, there’s a doctor on the phone.” “Five more minutes,” Shane mumbles. He’s drooling a bit on Ilya’s shoulder. The shaking and the whining have subsided, but he’s holding tight to Ilya’s shirt, the fabric on either side of Ilya’s ribs bunched up in Shane’s fists. He’s rocking a bit on Ilya’s thigh. It doesn’t look like he even realises he’s doing it. “Ilya,” he says. “They think I’m an omega.” “I will beat them up,” Ilya promises. “Shane,” the doctor says. “Can you tell me how much pain you’re in right now?” “I took th’ test when I was twelve,” Shane tells Ilya’s neck blearily. “I presented when I was sixteen. I’m not a ‘mega.” “He is in pain,” Ilya says in Shane’s stead, because after all these years he knows Shane’s body as well as he knows his own. “A lot of pain.” “Uh,” Pike says. “Did you catch that?” “The police have arrived. They’re clearing a path so we can get to you, but they don’t know how long it will take. I need to know how long we have. I need you to check him for me.” “I’m not a doctor,” Pike squeaks. “I’ll walk you through it, Mr Pike. Move him as little as possible. His torso needs to stay upright.” “What—how do I—?” “Pull his shirt up. I need you to tell me how far the bruising has spread.” Ilya holds Shane against him as Pike pulls at his clothing, trying to be gentle. Ilya schools his expression as best as he can in preparation. Shane already smells so good. He doesn’t think removing clothing is going to help with that. He tries not to think about how it’s Hayden fucking Pike taking Shane’s clothes off. He was right about the scent thing. As soon as Pike untucks Shane’s shirt the room gets almost unbearably sweet. Pike staggers, and Ilya shoots out an arm to catch him. It was mostly to keep him from falling into Shane, but, “Thanks,” Pike mutters. “How is it?” the doctor prompts. She manages to sound both calm and incredibly urgent. “Uh,” Pike says, and tugs at Shane a bit. Ilya takes the opportunity to rip off his own shirt as soon as Shane stops gripping it. He helps Pike pull Shane’s off so that Shane barely has to move. They have to rip it in order to leave the helmet on, which is a bit insane, but this whole situation is a bit insane “Tha’s nice,” Shane says as he loses a layer, even though he’s wearing black Under Armour underneath, identical to Ilya’s. Ilya hasn’t seen him in it, before. What a travesty. It’s form- fitting and anything that fits Shane’s form is Ilya’s favourite thing for him to wear. Did he ever tell Shane that? He will. He’ll tell Shane every day. He’ll tell Shane all the things that make him beautiful. He swears it, he swears it. Pike lifts the back of the undershirt up. “Holy shit!” he yelps. “Oh, god!” Ilya’s blood runs cold. “What is it?” he says. “Jesus Christ!” “Pike! What is wrong!” “Mr Pike, just talk me through it. What’s the bruising look like?” “This is bruising?” Ilya tries to crane his head to see, but with Shane straddling his thigh he can’t manage it. “What?” he says again. “Is bad?” “Yes it’s fucking bad!” “Swear jar,” Shane says again. Ilya has no idea what the swear jar thing is about, but he’s glad Shane has never tried to get him in on it. “It’s right down his spine,” Pike says. His scent has somehow gotten worse, which is honestly a feat by itself. “I’m less worried about the down,” the doctor says. “How far up does it go?” “Uh.” Pike pulls Shane’s shirt higher. “Oh, Jesus. Like, um. Halfway?” “Halfway up his back?” “Yeah. Yes. Halfway up his—Christ. It’s fucking black.” The doctor doesn’t say anything. “Is bad?” Ilya asks again. “There’s still time.” “Time for what?” The doctor hesitates for a long, fraught second. Shane pants into Ilya’s neck. He seems to be waking up a bit more, and his hands move restlessly over Ilya’s sides before locking around his biceps. “The impact has triggered a reaction in Mr Hollander’s reproductive system,” the doctor says finally. “The release of hormones is currently flooding his organs. Getting him upright stops them from getting crushed by their own swelling, and it also slows the gravitational spread of the hormones upward. To a degree.” “We know this already,” Pike snaps. Ilya actually hadn’t known that that was why you were meant to get people doing the khnykat upright. But he isn’t about to tell Pike that. “There is nothing that can stop the omegatisation process once it begins,” she says, not reacting to Pike’s tone. “The first wave of hormones caused the seizures. The second wave is slower, but just as dangerous. Bruising is a fairly good indicator of progression, though it’s not a direct correlation.” “Correlation?” Ilya repeats dumbly. He’s only barely keeping up with what she’s saying. “Is he okay or not?” “You’ve done excellently already,” she says. “From the footage I can see that you both acted quickly. He would likely be in a much more critical condition if you hadn’t gotten him upright and stabilised during the initial seizures.” “But?” Pike prompts. He’s picked up one of the discarded lanyards and he’s yanking it between his fists distractedly. “But the chain reaction is ongoing. His alpha system ruptured. The human body is not designed to withstand a full…” She takes a breath. “When the second wave of hormones reaches his bloodstream it will be… bad. It will trigger organ failure, neural collapse, and eventually death.” Ilya knows enough of those words to clutch Shane tighter. “Give,” he says, struggling with the English through his own panic. Give me the solution. Tell me how to fix him. Tell me how to make it be me instead of him. Fortunately, Pike is on the same page. “What do we do?” “Every paramedic has a quick-injector with enough alphemerone to save Mr Hollander’s life, but if they can’t reach you in time you will need to administer the treatment in situ.” In situ? Ilya thinks, bewildered. Quick- injector? “In Russian?” he asks desperately, rubbing Shane’s back as his breathing picks up. “The damage from the impact is spreading,” the doctor simplifies. “Once it reaches his heart, you will only have minutes.” “Minutes to do what?” There’s a tense silence. “Minutes to do what?” “Knot him,” she says. “No,” Shane says. What unfortunate timing for him to wake up properly. “No, no. That’s not —” He starts shoving at Ilya’s chest, and Ilya stands and turns, so he can sit Shane on the desk instead. He keeps a hold of Shane’s shoulder in case he can’t keep himself upright, but maybe the doctor’s bombshell was enough to knock some proper coherency back into him, because he only sways a bit. He’s pale and sweaty. Ilya likes him sweaty, but he doesn’t think he likes this kind of sweaty. Shane looks sick. He looks like a character in an old movie, like he’s dying of tuberculosis or something. His freckles stand out sharply on his cheeks. The whites of his eyes are showing. “Shane,” Pike says, and he sounds heartbroken. “Hayd, I’m not—You’ve known me for seven years! I’m an alpha!” “I’m not gonna think different of you or anything,” Pike says, even though it’s an obvious lie. He’s already treating Shane differently. He’s acting like Shane’s had all his limbs blown off or something. But Shane’s fine. He’s going to be fine. Ilya is going to make him be fine. “Doctor,” Shane says. “Miss Doctor Lady?” “Mr Hollander, you sound more lucid. How are you feeling? Can you describe your pain to me?” “There’s no pain! I’m not in any pain! It’s a mistake, I’m—I’m not—” Ilya wants so badly to shake him. He wants to shake him, and then kiss him, and then take him somewhere far, far away. New Zealand, maybe. They will adopt one of those fat bird things and go skiing in the winter and they will never talk about bruising or bitching or in situ ever again. “I’m not an omega,” Shane says again, like if he repeats it enough times it’ll magically become true. “I’m not an omega!” “Shane,” the doctor says, switching to his first name. “I’ve reviewed the footage. I’m afraid there is no alternative explanation for your symptoms.” “Please,” Shane begs. Ilya has always loved Shane begging. But he would rather cut off his ears than hear Shane like this. “Please, Ilya. Hayden, please.” “I’ll be gentle,” Pike says. “Shane, I’ll—It won’t be bad, I swear.” Ilya snorts. “You are not knotting him.” Pike stares at him. “Well who else is going to—Oh, no fucking way, Rozanov.” “Swear jar,” Ilya snarks. “I’m not letting you get your cock anywhere near—” “Gentlemen,” the doctor cuts in. “You are mated,” Ilya points out. He can’t help but notice that Pike is still holding the lanyard, which would be a pretty effective garotte, if this comes to a fight. He looks around for a weapon of his own. “Jackie’ll understand.” “Will she understand when I send you home with a broken—” “Gentlemen,” the doctor says again. Then, “Mr Hollander, we are doing everything we can to get the medical team to your location. But if it comes to it, is there an alpha nearby who you would prefer to administer… treatment?” Treatment, Ilya thinks hysterically. Even he doesn’t have any trouble translating what she means by that. “I don’t need it!” Shane cries. “I’m fine, I’m fine!” “You are not fine,” Ilya tells him. “She says failure and collapse and death, Hollander. You are—ekh.” He struggles to come up with the words for exactly how not fine Shane will be without Ilya’s knot. “I’m not an omega!” “If you’re not an omega then the knot won’t even take,” Pike points out. Shane keeps shaking his head. “I don’t want it! I don’t want it!” “It’s just one time, just to save your life. It’s not gay if it’s like, life saving.” “Hayden! I’m fine!” Ilya would very much like to whack Shane with a hockey stick. And also put him under a pile of blankets and dig a moat around him. “You are in pain, yes?” He moves his hand to the back of Shane’s neck beneath the helmet and squeezes. He’s reasonably sure Shane hasn’t been an omega long enough for scruffing to work on him yet, but a steady hand—especially about anything related to sex—has worked in the past when he’s been unreasonable. He takes Shane’s chin in his other hand to force him to meet Ilya’s eyes. “You do not lie to doctor lady,” he says, firm. “You do not lie to me.” Shane starts hyperventilating, but Ilya doesn’t break eye contact. He moves his thumb fractionally against the back of Shane’s neck. “Hollander,” he says. And then, quieter, “Shane.” The whites around Shane’s gorgeous dark eyes are showing. His hands are clutched around Ilya’s forearms, and Ilya doesn’t know when they got there. For a moment they stare at each other, and then Shane gives a single, shaky nod. “It hurts,” he agrees weakly. “Oh, god.” “Mr Hollander, I know it seems like your choices are being taken away from you, but you do have choices. You will have complex feelings about any medical intervention but I’m sure your… colleagues would agree that they would prefer you to be alive to have those feelings.” “Yes,” Pike says immediately. “Obviously. Shane, be smart. I just want to help.” “I will help,” Ilya says, without breaking eye contact with Shane. He thumbs the back of his neck again. “Don’t be a dick, Rozanov. He’s obviously not going to pick you.” “Yes, he is.” “Hayden,” Shane says, and Ilya goes cold. “Oh,” he says, and takes a step back, hastily removing his hands from Shane’s skin. Oh, fuck. Maybe Shane really doesn’t want him. These last seven years have just been because Ilya was there. And now that Shane has access to Hayden fucking Pike, who smells like the ocean and looks like a movie star, why would he ever want someone like— “Hayden,” Shane says again. “Go wait outside.” Pike goes from smug to shocked so fast he actually flinches a bit. “Shane,” he says. “Go wait outside.” “If this is… If this is about Jackie, man. You know she would want me to… She loves you, yeah? She’d want you to be safe.” “He said fuck off,” Ilya snaps. “You fuck off,” Pike snaps back, and Ilya’s lips pull back from his teeth in mirror to Pike’s own bared teeth. “Hayd,” Shane says. “It’s not like that. Settle down. It’s… Rozanov’s…” And then he doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t say anything more because his words get cut off by a sharp and feral scream. Ilya jumps so hard he almost brains himself on the shelving unit. “Hollander!” Shane runs out of air, but does this horrible thing like he’s still screaming anyway, like his lungs are curdling up his throat. Ilya grabs for him. “Move,” the doctor orders. “Move, move!” Ilya moves. Why had they been standing around arguing? He should have been getting undressed. He should have been— Minutes, she had said. Ilya has minutes. Oh, god. Oh god. “Pike,” he snaps, but Pike is already yanking at Shane’s clothes as Ilya yanks at his own. Ilya almost faints when he sees the bruising Pike had been describing. He doesn’t know what it looks like from the back, but from the front it looks fucking horrendous. Like someone has thrown tar at him. Not the American stuff but the cheap Russian shit that spreads like paint, impossible to remove. Ilya has had his share of bruises, but he’s never seen anything that looks like this. Sometimes bruises don’t show up well under Shane’s tan skin, but this looks devastating. This doesn’t look like the kind of thing people walk away from. Pike strips Shane’s pants off and Ilya almost chokes on his own tongue. God, Shane’s cock. Ilya’s own cock tries to crawl up into his abdomen in empathetic agony. The base, where Shane’s knot is—was—is mottled an ugly blue and purple. “Blyat,” he breathes. “Rozanov!” Pike yells. Ilya doesn’t bother taking off anything properly. There’s no time. He shoves his pants to his knees and grabs one of Shane’s thighs and Shane thrashes but he’s not thrashing away, so Ilya hauls him closer across the desk, hiking the leg up and back so he’s standing between Shane’s spread thighs. Shane is perched right on the edge of the desk, which can’t be comfortable, but he grabs for Ilya and screams like he’s on fire and wraps both of his legs around Ilya’s waist. The gooey omega scent gets abruptly stronger, excruciatingly so, and Ilya is dazedly grateful because he had actually been panicking about how he was going to make this work in such a short time frame. His cock gets hard without him having to do anything at all. It doesn’t even feel good. It’s just… a bodily function. Pike is hard too. Even if Ilya couldn’t see the bulge of his uniform, he can smell the fact that Pike’s hard. Not aroused-hard, but hard-hard, same as Ilya is. He wants to repeat what Shane said earlier and tell Pike to wait outside, but he doesn’t think Pike will go, and he doesn’t want to risk opening the door to shove him out. At least Pike looks like he’s having a crisis about getting hard for another man, so Ilya won’t have to dismember him about it later. Maybe. Shane makes odd jerking motions with his hips, almost like he’s rutting against Ilya’s belly, which is not completely unusual for them. But after a moment Ilya realises that what he’s actually doing is trying to grind down on Ilya, not grind up against him. “Ilya,” he’s panting. Hopefully the way he’s talking directly into Ilya’s chest means the words aren’t as coherent as Ilya fears they are. “Ilya, oh fuck, it hurts, please, please, it hurts.” He makes another desperate scream, which morphs into the khnykat and then back to a scream. Something crashes into the door. It could be a frenzied alpha or maybe one of their own teammates, but Ilya can’t do anything about it. Shane is clutching at the back of Ilya’s shoulders and shoving his hips down like he’ll die without Ilya’s cock and—shit, maybe he will. Ilya reaches for a condom that isn’t there, and tries to pretend the movement was something else entirely. Somehow he hadn’t realised that he would be fucking Shane with nothing in between them. They’ve done a lot, but they’ve never done that. Ilya gets tested regularly, and he hasn’t been with anyone but Shane since the last test, but still it’s… It shouldn’t be like this. Shane should have gotten to choose. This is just another thing that’s being taken away from him. His mouth feels as dry as a desert, but he spits in his hand, then spits again. Rubs it into the head of his cock and tries not to think about how it is absolutely, categorically, not going to be enough. Shane likes it rough but not this rough. Shane screams again and it turns into a choking, wet sound. His eyes are clenched shut. He smells impossibly sweet, almost dreadfully so. He smells like he’s dying. “Fuck!” he yells. “Fuck! Oh, fuck! Ilya!” “I’m here, Hollander. I—” He looks sideways at Pike. “I’ll go slow.” “Don’t,” the doctor says from the stupid box by the door. Ilya grimaces, and lines up, and hates that Pike is watching. “Hollander,” he says one last desperate time, but Shane isn’t listening. He’s choking on his own screams. He’s stripped from the waist down, and the bruising is catastrophically bad, and he’s got legs around Ilya’s waist and he grabs again for Ilya’s arms, then his shoulders, then his hair. Ilya presses up into him. The first thing he thinks is oh thank fuck, because Shane isn’t exactly easy to get into but he’s not as tight as Ilya had feared, and there’s no way his body has developed the ability to produce slick yet, but it isn’t completely dry, either. Maybe it’s because they fucked recently or maybe it’s an omegatisation thing, some evolutionary trait to try and make this work, but Shane yells “Yes, fuck. Oh, god. Fuck.” and Ilya bullies up into his body with a cock that feels like it belongs to someone else, for all the pleasure it’s giving him. Pike takes a hasty step back and makes retching noises behind him. Ilya kind of agrees. He’s disgusted in himself, in his own body. He’s disgusted in the whole situation, in the alphas that forced them to barricade themselves in this fucking room where doctors can’t get to them. He’s disgusted in everyone but Shane himself, who looks about as horny as Ilya has ever seen him despite being in a visibly critical condition. Shane reaches for the strap of his helmet and succeeds in finally throwing it off. His hair is plastered flat to his head. The smell of him is instantly overwhelming. His normal summer scent is almost lost beneath the competing tidal waves of sweet omega arousal and wretched omega pain. With the helmet out of the way he mashes his face into Ilya’s neck and takes huge gulps of air, babbling. “Fuck me, fuck me. Oh, fuck, it hurts, why’s it hurt, why’s it—” Ilya pulls out and shoves back in, fighting against his own revulsion and the way Shane clenches down hard around his cock like his body is unwilling to let Ilya go even a scant few inches. It can’t feel good, but Shane groans and lays stinging kisses across Ilya’s chest. His thighs tighten, clamping down hard around Ilya’s waist like Ilya is a stubborn walnut that Shane is intent on cracking. His face is scrunched up in some dreadful combination of pain and arousal, and this is all wrong. This could not be further from what they usually have. “Hollander,” he chokes. “I…” He doesn’t know how to ask for help. He’s hard— unbelievably so—but not hard like coming in the next sixty seconds to save Shane’s life kind of hard. He’s hard like they’re at the beginning of something, not the please let him come soon end. He doesn’t know how to get from here to there. “Trust your body,” the doctor says over the intercom, like she can hear his panic, too. “Trust your instincts.” Ilya doesn’t know if he has instincts for this kind of thing. He’s knotted omegas before, and it was fine. It had been a fun and unique experience, to feel that part of him swelling. A weird sexual function that never naturally happens outside of an omega’s body. But he hated getting stuck there afterward, making small talk while waiting for his knot to go down, and so he never sought omegas out. Shit, maybe it should have been Pike here, after all. Pike can probably knot in ten seconds flat. How long has it been? Shane is still yelling. How long until whatever’s happening finishes happening? Ten minutes? Ilya doesn’t think he’s ever managed it that fast before. Especially not with Shane bruised and screaming and smelling like his organs are stabbing each other. Shane wraps both his arms around Ilya. One hand grips Ilya’s hair and the other goes around Ilya’s torso, under his shirt, clawing up his back. It means they’re plastered together from the waist up. He keeps turning towards Ilya’s face, like he’s searching for his lips, and it’s taking all of Ilya’s focus to stop himself from pressing their mouths together. He tells himself that Shane will probably just taste like blood. He doesn’t need his kisses. He doesn’t. He pistons his hips and thinks about other times. Better times. He thinks about pressing Shane into hotel beds, into hotel doors, into hotel showers. He thinks about Shane sucking him off, and about sucking Shane off in turn. The weight of Shane’s cock. The taste of him. The way Shane’s face goes open and slack with pleasure, like every time is the best time, the best thing that’s ever happened to his body. His face isn’t slack right now. It’s scrunched up, and he keeps gritting his teeth over cut-off screams. Ilya grips his thighs and hoists him closer, widening his own stance as much as his half-removed clothes allow so that his hips drive up into Shane’s body at an angle that’s supposed to be perfect. Shane hollers but doesn’t go limp like he usually does. Ilya moves his grip from Shane’s thighs to his upper back, gripping his shoulders from behind to haul him down into each thrust instead. Shane’s feet flex against Ilya’s ass, and then his heels wriggle up Ilya’s back, like he’s trying to fold himself in half to get more of Ilya’s cock inside him. “Hollander,” Ilya grits out, fucking into him as hard as he can. He turns his head and says, quieter, so Pike can’t hear, “Shane.” Shane moans, a properly slutty sound, the kind of sound it usually takes Ilya hours to eke out of him. And something warps at the base of Ilya’s spine, some internal yank that feels more like getting punched than getting pleasured, but the pleasure is there regardless, completely infeasibly, like his brain is coughing up the good kind of chemicals just for the hell of it. His knot suddenly aches, not at all how it had felt when fucking omegas for fun, but kind of like someone has plugged it into a microwave and they’re boiling him alive via cock. It’s hot, and painful, and abruptly he realises it’s swelling, thank fucking fuck. His alpha instincts maybe know what they’re doing, after all, because for the life of him he doesn’t think he could’ve gotten there on his own. He doesn’t feel at all like he’s going to come but he breathes in Shane’s new omega scent, chasing the lingering smell of summer, and trusts his body to get him where it needs to go. His knot catches on the rim of Shane’s ass—and holy shit, that’s a feeling he never knew he was going to get with him—and so he stays buried deep, only thrusting the last bare inch so his swelling knot doesn’t slip out, as Shane gets tighter and tighter around him and his knot gets hotter and hotter in tandem. Shane’s breathing hitches on every inhale and comes out in a whine on every exhale, panting (ah, ahs, and Il, Il—Ilya) right in Ilya’s ear, hot breath sending cascades of sensation down Ilya’s spine. Shane clutches at the back of Ilya’s neck like it’s Ilya who needs to be scruffed, or like he’s scared Ilya’s going somewhere, and Ilya doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s never going anywhere. He never was. It’s been years since he wanted to. Every time he pulls his hips back even a little bit Shane makes a punched out sound, like Ilya is fucking the air out of his lungs. Ilya wants to slip a hand between them. He wants to see if Shane is hard, he wants to see if he can make Shane come. He always wants to see if he can make Shane come. But instead he scents up the side of Shane’s neck and licks the spot behind his ear that makes him shudder and moan and—god, he wants Shane shuddering and moaning, he wants—licks again and—Ilya, Ilya, god, oh god, fuck me—and he stops thrusting completely and just crams as far in as he can get, panting against Shane’s ear as Shane squeezes his cock, squeezes his knot and—unmake me, he wants to say, or swallow me whole, or just Shane, Shane, Shane. The head of his cock grinds deep, nothing in between them, not even a condom to stop Ilya from marking Shane so thoroughly it’ll be like Ilya’s up there forever, right where he belongs, deep enough to reach up under his ribs and burrow into his heart and stay there. Fuck him one-two in time with every arterial pulse. And his knot—his knot, god, his knot, fat and hot and desperate and—pulses almost painfully, a spasmodic clench of anticipatory pleasure, and—Shane is so tight around him, and makes such gorgeous sounds as Ilya presses impossibly further in, his knot swelling with a final incomprehensible lurch, filling fully to lock them tight as Shane screeches at the stretch—more than he’s ever taken, so full, so full of Ilya, so full of Ilya’s knot, specifically, stuffed to the brim of— “Shane,” he says again. “Shane, fuck. Oh, fuck. I’m gonna—” Unexpectedly, Pike grabs his hair and yanks his head back, away from Shane’s neck, successfully rattling some part of Ilya’s brain free from… wherever it was. Pike jams something into Ilya’s face and Ilya opens his mouth to snarl at him, but Pike only uses the opportunity to shove the thing further in, and Ilya belatedly realises that it’s a mouthguard. Except it’s not his mouthguard, the imprints don’t match up to his own teeth at all, and he almost gags as he realises it’s Pike’s. Then Shane moans again—Ilya’s name more vowel than consonant, fuck—and buries his teeth in Ilya’s shoulder, and Ilya is abruptly glad for the mouthguard because something twists at the back of his skull and the modicum of sanity is gone and he must black out for a second because he comes to with his jaw clamped down over Shane’s neck, flesh caught tight between Ilya’s teeth, and even with Hayden Pike’s disgusting mouthguard in the way there’s no way that won’t leave a bruise, and just the thought of it being Ilya’s bruise on Shane’s neck is enough to have him clamping down again, harder, grunting like an animal. He uses his hold to yank Shane more fully onto his cock, even though there’s no way Shane could possibly get closer. They writhe against each other, limbs and jaws locked. “Ilya,” Shane groans, and then sinks his teeth back into the imprint he’s already left, and Ilya feels his balls lurch up like they’re trying to reach Shane’s mouth, too. Like they’ll go right through Ilya’s insides just for a chance at touching Shane’s lips. Ilya’s cock jerks, almost mechanically, and then jerks again. For a moment he doesn’t understand what’s going on, but then Shane exhales out a breath of air, almost a sigh, and Ilya realises that it’s happening. He’s doing it. He has the undeniable sensation of coming but without any of the requisite build up. He’s emptying his balls into Shane’s ass like it’s nothing at all, like he’s a coffee machine and someone has simply pressed the button for an espresso. He’s just spilling into Shane’s body, clamped down hard around his neck, his shouts muffled by the skin he’s bruising there. It hasn’t been ten minutes. It’s barely been two. Shane goes boneless against him. Finally. The only part of his body still moving is his ass, which clenches rhythmically around Ilya’s knot. Exactly like an omega’s during orgasm. Ilya wants to look between them, to see if Shane came, too, but he physically cannot make his jaw unlock from around Shane’s neck. He tries to pat around blindly for Shane’s cock, but Shane is holding him so tight he can’t get an inch between them. Shane slurs out some barely-understandable swear words in English, then French, then some secret third language which might be actual gibberish, and then it starts sounding awfully like Ilya’s name and Ilya feels like joining him in the impromptu swear session. His cock jerks and he spills again, coating Shane’s insides with sticky alpha come, and Shane hums against him, like he can feel it happening. “Holy shit,” Pike mutters from the other side of the room. “It worked. You’re knotted.” Well. Holy damn. So he is. He’s been a lot of Shane’s firsts, and now he’s Shane’s first knot. Shane’s only knot, if he has anything to say about it. The thought of some other alpha feeling what he’s feeling right now is literally repulsive. It makes something slimy and possessive climb up his spine, makes his cock jerk and spill again, like even his dick is on board with marking Shane up. God, he hopes they get to do this again. He hopes Shane lets him. He’ll do it properly, next time. He doesn’t know when this thing between them turned into… this. But he knows he’ll never want anything else. Ilya Rozanov’s omega. Shane Hollander’s alpha. They could be properly mated. They could make it work. He clamps his jaw down harder and feels Shane shudder in his arms, achingly warm and familiar and his. The door to their little sanctuary rattles again, and he’s reminded that they’re not yet out of the woods. They’re still holed up like rabbits beneath a fox den. For Shane to make it out of this alive, Ilya needs to keep him safe for just a little longer. He ghosts hands over Shane’s lower back, where the bruising has his skin warm to the touch. His cock pulses again and he tries to find an uninjured part of Shane’s body to cling to and hopes that it’s enough to save Shane’s life.

Chapter End Notes

It turns out there's another fic with the exact same title as this one and we both posted an update on the same day lmaooo my bad. Rachel Reid maybe knew what she was doing putting the word "Heat" in her book about two wet cats sniffing and yowling at each other. Anyway if you haven't already, you should definitely check out Putting the Heat in Heated Rivalry by decafmusings with lots of smutty heat + rut cottage shenanigans. Last chapter in a few days friends. They gotta stay stuck together long enough to be idiots about it.

Chapter 3: Aftermath

Chapter Summary He does, eventually, manage to pull off Shane’s neck properly. Pike wisely stays quiet about it.

Chapter Notes

Thank you to almighty Hermit for the beta for this fic, and thank you to the HR discord(s) for the pep up. Hockey puck for you! See the end of the chapter for more notes Shane’s teeth stay locked in Ilya’s shoulder, and every time Ilya thinks about how visible the marks will be he feels his own jaw clamping down harder in ecstatic tandem. Shane is unbearably tight around his knot, and that, too, has him shaking in pleasure. “Yeah,” Pike’s saying quietly. Ilya appreciates him keeping his voice down. He doesn’t want any distractions while he tries to memorise the feeling of Shane clenching around him. “Yeah, he’s knotted. Should I check? I can… Yes, yeah. Shane smells better already.” Ilya inhales, and can tell that Pike’s right. Shane still smells ill, but only like a sick omega, not a dying one. He focuses on unclenching his jaw and succeeds, eventually, in releasing Shane’s neck. The poor abused flesh is already colouring. Ilya wonders if there’s any medical repercussions from Shane being more bruise than not-bruise. He tries instinctively to lick at the mark, but doesn’t manage it very well with the mouthguard still in the way. After a moment he gets the urge to check the other side, too, and doesn’t try to resist whatever alpha impulse is fueling him as he ducks around Shane’s chin to nose at the other scent gland. Shane obligingly moves his own teeth to Ilya’s other shoulder. Ilya wonders if this is a new kink for them, or if it’s just hormones making them bitier than usual. Pike hisses as Shane’s neck is revealed. “Oh, damn. Ouch. At least you didn’t break skin, Rozanov. It isn’t permanent.” The thing in the back of his skull twists again, and without conscious thought Ilya finds himself snapping back into place, jaw clamping tight over Shane’s neck. “Alright, sheesh, I should have known you’d be a possessive bastard. Your bruise is very permanent, you gigantic alpha asshole.” Even though he knows he’s being made fun of, Ilya stays locked there, his cock spilling rhythmically as Shane squeezes him. Shane’s legs begin to slip off his hips and Ilya grabs him under the knees, keeping him nice and close and spread wide, sitting at the edge of the shitty desk in this shitty room, stuck tight on Ilya’s knot. They stay like that for a while. Ilya kicks out of his pants properly. As the sweat cools he kind of wants to take his Under Armour off, too, but doesn’t think he can do it without dislodging Shane, who appears to be caught in some kind of fugue state. Or else almost dying and then getting knotted in front of your best friend is the kind of thing that makes him want to nap. What would Ilya know. He does, eventually, manage to pull off Shane’s neck properly. Pike wisely stays quiet about it. Ilya noses the spot, only feeling a little self-conscious about being so obviously smitten with Shane when there’s an audience. He thinks maybe that ship has sailed where Pike’s concerned. He might have gotten away with it if Shane had been facing the other way, on his hands and knees or something, but fucking face to face? Pike’s an idiot but not that much of an idiot. Ilya has no idea what his scent is doing, either, but he doubts it’s being chill about the whole being knotted to Shane Hollander thing. The opposite of chill, more likely. Maybe Shane will let him kill Pike to keep their secret. That’d be nice. Although he kind of gets the impression that of all the people in the world to know, Pike might be the least awful. Shane grumbles a bit against Ilya’s chest. Ilya pets at his hair and the back of his neck, trying to disguise his instinctive alpha rumbles as something totally normal, given the circumstances. “Ilya?” Ilya spits out Pike’s gross mouthguard. “Yes,” he says. “I’m here.” He pauses. “And so is your left wing.” “Heya, Shane,” Pike says quietly. “How are you feeling?” Shane starts to sit up a bit. It tugs against Ilya’s knot and Shane freezes. “Ilya?” he says again, a full octave higher. “You are okay,” Ilya says. And then says it again, gently urging Shane back into position, leaning against him. The movement makes his cock jerk weakly, spilling again, somehow, which is honestly kind of impressive. He feels wrung dry. Shane squeaks a bit, which means he can feel what Ilya’s cock is doing inside him, too. “Ilya, holy fuck!” “Okay,” Ilya soothes. “Is okay.” “It’s—fuck! It’s too big! Ilya, I’m gonna tear!” God, Ilya hopes not. He tries to control his wince. He tries not to jostle Shane at all. “I’m sorry,” he says, as quiet as he can manage. He tries to breathe only shallowly to keep his upper body as still as possible. Every inhale brings the smell of heating omega—of heating Shane. “You can take it,” Pike says from the corner of the room that is physically furthest away from where Shane and Ilya are tied together. “It feels bigger coz you’re tensed up. Just try relax.” “You try relax!” Shane says, voice high. Pike starts doing big, exaggerated inhales and long, slow exhales. After a moment Shane copies him, and Ilya thinks it maybe works a bit, because it stops feeling like a vice is clamped around his knot. His cock twitches and spills again, and Shane whimpers into his collarbone. Ilya squeezes the back of his neck and murmurs to him in Russian, and that helps even more. Pike continues his breathing exercises, and then tells Shane some techniques that his mate apparently uses when she’s scared she’s too full. Ilya doesn’t think about Shane taking a knot like Jackie Fucking Pike. He rubs over Shane’s back and sides with his other hand, and bares his teeth at Pike when he tries to give him pointers. He doesn’t need another alpha telling him how to look after Shane post sex. Shane appears to be properly conscious again, or at least coherent, but he doesn’t take his face away from Ilya’s neck, either, and Ilya doesn’t try to keep the smugness out of his scent. “Mr Hollander,” the doctor says over the intercom. Oh. Was she listening to them fuck? Yeesh. “The paramedics are a few minutes away, but may I ask you some questions before they arrive?” “Um,” Shane says. His scent pitches up, going all tight and embarrassed, and Ilya wants to snap at the doctor for ruining Shane’s momentary peace. “Sure.” The doctor runs through a list. Rank the pain, any black spots in your vision, do you have any allergies, ever had surgery before, etc. One of the questions—do you feel any stabbing anywhere?—makes Ilya choke on a laugh, which must jostle his knot a bit because Shane inhales sharply and refuses to answer anything else. “Did I—” he ventures instead. He pauses, turns his forehead against Ilya’s collarbone. “Did I almost die?” “No,” Ilya says, at the same time that Pike says, “Yeah, man.” Ilya glares at him. “I would not have let you,” he tells Shane. “Oh,” Shane says, quietly. Then, “It kind of felt like I was dying.” “That is because you are very dumb. I am an alpha. And Russian. You were not in any danger.” “You’re such an asshole,” Shane grumbles, which surprises a snort of laughter out of Ilya. He decides not to snark anything about assholes back at him. Low hanging fruit. “You are okay?” he asks instead. “I think I have a concussion.” Ilya nods. Yeah, he thinks so, too. “You took many naps.” “I wasn’t napping, Rozanov.” “Like toddler. Was very cute. Pike sung you lullaby.” Pike makes a distinctly annoyed sound. “Go to hell, dick for brains.” “Swear jar,” Ilya and Shane say in unison, and Pike makes a rude gesture that only Ilya sees, because Shane is hiding his face. There’s another stretch of quiet. “It’s definitely a knot, isn’t it?” Shane asks eventually. It doesn’t even sound like much of a question. Ilya thinks that if he were in Shane’s position with a big fat swollen cock stuck in him the answer would be pretty obvious, so he figures Shane’s not actually asking for a confirmation, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He’s trying very hard not to move his hips. “Yes. I am knotted.” “I’m… I'm an omega, then.” Ilya shrugs a bit. “You are Shane Hollander.” “Captain Shane Hollander,” Pike cuts in. Shane makes a wretched sound. “Oh, god. The team.” “Don’t think about that right now,” Pike says. “They’re just gonna be real pleased that you’re okay, okay?” “Will you… Shit, Hayd. You’ll have to play centre. Coach won’t be able to find a replacement before the playoffs.” “Replacement?” Ilya echoes. “Well, yeah. Now that I’m…” Shane gestures weakly at himself without pulling away from Ilya’s body. Ilya knows a lot of words for dumb fuck idiot in Russian, but Pike beats him to it before he can pick his favourite. “Shane. Dude. There are omegas in the league. I know that you know that there are omegas in the league.” “Yeah, but not—” He gestures to himself again. Like he’s trying to say Not Captains. Not centres. Ilya looks over his shoulder at Pike. “Is because he is Canadian,” he says. “Not enough oxygen up here. He was born stupid. Is very sad.” “I’m serious, guys. There’s never been a captain who was a… a…” “You’ll get to be the first,” Pike says firmly. “Your mom probably has three sponsorship deals already. And a ten step plan.” “Is your mother’s name Yuna?” the doctor asks from the intercom. Ilya keeps forgetting she’s there. “It’s actually twelve steps.” “Oh,” Shane says, and chokes a bit. “She’s here? Can you, uh.” His fingers clench a bit in Ilya’s shirt. “Can you tell her I’m… I’m okay, please? She’ll be worried.” “Of course. The police have cleared a path to you, by the way. The paramedics are coming down now.” Shane jerks upright. “No!” he says. “That’s okay! I’m okay!” He starts wriggling, shoving at Ilya. Ilya grunts. “Hollander. Stop moving.” “Get out,” Shane hisses. “There’s people coming. Get out.” “Oh, for sure. Keep wiggling on my cock. Is helping.” “Asshole. Move!” There’s a knock at the door. Three sharp raps. “Occupied!” Shane yells, like they’re in a bathroom stall and the person on the other side of the door is just going to shrug and walk away. “You are not sending away medical help,” Ilya tells him bluntly. Pike tries to peer past the crack in the door frame. “Uh, doc, can you confirm that’s definitely your guys outside?” “That’s them. The area is clear. Please open up.” Pike turns to dismantle the barricade. Shane starts to hyperventilate a bit, ruining all his hard work at getting calm. Ilya doesn’t know if panic attacks are good for freshly minted omegas, but he thinks probably not. He runs fingers through Shane’s hair, humming softly, not even trying to be subtle about scenting at him. “Ilya. You have to get out. People are gonna see.” “Special conditions,” Ilya tells him. “I think we will be getting a free pass, no?” “Your cock is in my ass!” “They see this probably every day.” “My mom—” “Okay. I will ask them not to let your mother in to see you stuffed full of—” “Ilya!” Ilya huffs a half-laugh. Something strange is happening at the base of his skull. He knows that, logically, people seeing him literally knotted to his arch rival is very dangerous, but he can’t deny that there’s a feral alpha instinct that wants his claim to be recognised. Shane is stuffed with his knot. Shane is wearing his bruises. He squashes the insane urge to simply let the entire world see. He’s reasonably sure that given the circumstances they will in fact be able to argue medical necessity, if any of this leaks. He hooks Shane’s pants from where Pike tossed them on the desk, and ties the legs loosely around Shane’s bruised waist, so the fabric obscures Shane’s cock and most of his ass. “There. Now no one will know.” “You’re half naked! And you’re in me!” And then the door is opening and Ilya grips the back of Shane’s neck to curl him into the safety of Ilya’s body while he snarls over his shoulder. The room gets very crowded, very quickly. “Oh, god,” Shane says, hiding his face against Ilya’s chest with so much force he might be trying to burrow into his ribcage. “Oh god. Oh my god. Oh shit. Holy shit.” Paramedics are very efficient people. They make it extremely clear that they’re the ones in charge and that Ilya is a piece of furniture who is inconveniently attached to their patient. They snap numbers and information at each other and into their radios like this is a war zone. Ilya makes it about three seconds before he loses track of whatever the hell is going on. He tangles his fingers into the fabric tied around Shane’s waist in an effort to not slap every single person who gets too close. Which is all of them. Someone slips a cuff onto Shane’s upper arm to measure his blood pressure. Someone else lifts up the pants—Shane moans miserably—and starts speaking very quickly into a radio while eyeing the place they’re tied together. Ilya doesn’t understand most of the words but none of them sound like “Wow this absolute specimen of an alpha has successfully cured Shane Hollander and we can all stop touching him and leave immediately.” Someone else tries to coax Shane into looking up so they can shine a light in his eyes but Shane just curls in tighter and shakes his head like an obstinate lemming burying itself in the snow. Ilya kind of likes being Shane’s lemming snow. “Mr Rozanov?” someone asks. She has an eyebrow raised. He has no idea what the question was. “Er,” he says. “She wants to know if you’re about to frenzy,” Pike calls from the other side of the room. “Oh. No. Russians do not do this.” “As long as you’re not about to kill each other,” one of the paramedics jokes. Oh, yes. Ha ha. Ilya Rozanov knotting Shane Hollander just to get an opportunity to choke him with a lanyard. Shane flinches in his arms as someone gets an IV into the crook of his elbow. Ilya hopes it’s pain relief. He flinches again as someone else takes a blood sample. Ilya hasn’t got a clue what that could possibly be for. Maybe they’re checking that notorious sex-maniac Rozanov hasn’t given boy scout Hollander some flesh-eating dick infection. “Stop stabbing him,” he tries to tell the room, and no one listens to him. Pike looks equally distressed about the blood draw. “What if he’s pregnant? Jackie’s always going on about omega fertility. What if you…” “Fuck off, Pike.” Omegatisation hormones are clearly something else, but Ilya is reasonably sure they can’t grow a womb in the space of one hour. “His levels are still low,” another paramedic says, looking at a device she’s holding against Shane’s lower back. “He’s going to need more alphemerone.” Shane makes a wordless sound of distress. Ilya cards fingers through his sweaty hair and pretends like that’s something hockey rivals do for each other all the time. While knotted. In a room full of people. The same paramedic turns back to him. “Your knot going down?” she asks. “Yes. I think so.” “Okay, we’ll give you something to help with that.” She pulls out a plastic tube. It kind of looks like those allergy things. Epipens. “Don’t worry,” she tells Shane, who is still refusing to look up. “Your alpha can give you a little more.” With no further warning she jabs the tube into Ilya’s thigh. Ilya bellows, but he only gets half a second to be pissed off about getting literally stabbed, what the hell, before his eyes roll back in his head and his knot—which had just started to deflate—swells so fast it feels like the only thing keeping it from splitting in half is Shane’s tight ass holding it in place. “Fuck!” he shouts. He’s shocked to discover there was in fact more come in his balls, and it feels like it’s getting yanked out of him. Pike grabs the hair at the back of his head to stop him from biting Shane about it, but honestly Ilya’s too busy snarling at the ceiling in a rush of chemically-enhanced adrenaline to notice what’s going on around him. Apparently getting a fresh load of alpha come from a knot that had been about to go down is enough to make Shane snap his head up. “Rozanov? Are you—fuck.” Even from the corner of his eye Ilya can see the blush that goes right down Shane’s chest, stretching out to meet the dark bruising like it’s competing for coverage. The paramedics shamelessly use the opportunity to do the light-shiney thing in Shane’s eyes. The one who had stabbed Ilya doesn’t even look guilty about it. “I thought you meant. Help. Go down,” he grits out in her general direction. “Oh,” she says. “No, sorry. Alphemerone is more potent when it’s fresh.” “Blyat. Jesus fuck.” She eyes him dispassionately. She probably has a whole selection of things to stab him with. “Finished?” His brother should have been a paramedic instead of a cop. He would be good at this kind thing. “No,” he snaps at her. Pike, who hasn’t let go of his hair yet, yanks his head back further so he’s arched ridiculously, teeth bared. His spine pops and Pike shakes him a bit. Ilya thinks he’s enjoying doing it, too. “Be nice, Rozanov.” Ilya will show him nice. Ilya’s going to send him back to his wife with a pair of skates lodged up his ass. “Rozanov,” Shane says quietly, and Ilya realises he’s growling. Literally growling. At the ceiling. Like an insane person. He gropes blindly for Shane’s waist, intending to bring them flush together again, but Pike keeps a grip of his hair and doesn’t let him. Ilya is going to snap him like a motherfucking twig. And then the adrenaline or the hormone or the whatever-the-fuck she stabbed him with does actually start to dissipate. “Okay,” he says, when he stops feeling like he’s going to tear a chunk out of a cinder block with his teeth. “Maybe finished.” “Good. We’re going to move Mr Hollander to a vertical spinal board.” Ilya thinks it’s kind of a bit late to worry about keeping Shane’s spine still, but he’s not a doctor, so sure, okay. He pats Shane a bit more. “How will I…” he tries to make a gesture that adequately conveys trying to get Shane to go anywhere while still knotted. “Oh, we have a cuff for that.” She pulls out a black strap with an honest to god ratchet on one side. Ilya thinks about that thing going around his cock and squeezing hard enough to make a knot go down, and the thought alone almost solves the problem for them. “Fantastic,” Pike enthuses, trying to grab the torture device off her. “Can I do that part?” Ilya’s knot goes down fully and he slips out of Shane in a slick messy slide. Pike makes a disappointed sound. Ilya is immediately pushed to the side as someone slips a black plastic plug—holy shit, hospitals have medical dildos? Hilarious—into Shane’s ass. Ilya guesses it’s keeping his come in, which would be a much hotter thought if it wasn’t accompanied by Shane covering his face with his hands and making a sound of such abject misery that maybe none of Ilya’s thoughts will ever be hot again. The paramedics shoulder Ilya backward as he instinctively tries to move closer. They strap Shane upright to a plastic board and shift him onto a stretcher. Pike jogs alongside them as they wheel him out of the room. Ilya grabs his pants and tries to go after them, hopping on one foot as he pulls his clothes back on. There’s a smear of blood on the floor just outside the door and he tries not to think about what else he’s stepping in while wearing only socks. By the time he’s outside the stadium he’s lost Shane’s scent amidst the chaos. There are half a dozen ambulances loading patients in. Which makes sense. Other people must have been injured during the frenzy. But he doesn’t care about other people. He runs from van to van, scenting frantically. They must have taken Shane already. “Ilya!” someone calls. “Ilya Rozanov!” He looks over to see a crowd of reporters being held back by red tape. Nope. No, thank you. Not dealing with that. He ducks out of sight before any cameras get a shot of him half undressed with Shane’s marks on his neck. He turns to go back into the stadium. He needs to… He needs to find his team. Figure out what’s going on. He’ll visit Shane in hospital, later. Captains often go to visit injured opponents. It won’t be weird. He’ll visit Shane Hollander because he’s the Boston captain. He’ll apologise for Marleau’s hit. And then… Then, who knows. He’ll wait to see what Shane’s new designation means for this whatever they have between them. Maybe people will care less, if it’s an alpha dating an omega. Maybe it would be okay to spend more time together. He thinks about Shane’s soft, summer scent, and his tight ass milking Ilya’s knot. And he thinks about the way Shane had tucked himself against Ilya’s chest like Ilya was a safe harbour in a storm. Yes, he thinks. Okay. He’s all in.

Chapter End Notes

For your Read More I will rec some Hurt!Shane goodies: The Bite by dntat (omega!Shane gets bit by someone who isn't Ilya), tethered and tied, all mine by seeking_amy (Ilya goes into rut), Under Your Ribs by freakshaped (Shane cheating because he thinks he's supposed to, then dropping hard after. the smut is so good), You Didn't Even Give Me Kiss by Yellowvelvetcake (they meet up to kiss after That scene).

Thanks for reading! The ecstatic comments on the first chapters were my bread and butter. This fandom is so depravedly wholesome (you know who you are). I desperately want to write a fic where Ilya goes through an omegatisation too but then I'll be "that bitching author" and i'm not sure i'm prepared for that to be my epitaph, so idk what's next. Shane hit so hard he loses his memories of Ilya? Maybe a kidnapping AU? Much to ponder.

Ginger ale for all!

Update 19/3/26 well damn fellas, you liked this, huh? I see we all just want to whack poor hollanov with the whump stick. Thank you for all your lovely words and kudos and feedback. I added some more recs to the read more up there ^^^ but if you have any other fics that you think people might like after reading this one then hmu and I'll link it as well! In answer to the most common questions: episode 6 happens pretty much as per canon after this fic, except with knots and also Hayden maybe hanging up during That Phone Call. The world probably assumes Hayden knotted Shane to save his life and the thirsty shayden edits are insane. Jackie is leaning IN. Ilya is going quietly insane. Also, yes. Regrettably, i am writing another bitching fic. Ilya this time. Everyone be cool i am coming to terms with who i am 😩 Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!