Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Pining, Developing Relationship, Secret Relationship, POV Alternating

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-15 Completed: 2026-04-07 Words: 36,010 Chapters: 4/4

wouldn't you love me (if it was easy)

Summary

Shane looks up at him, mouth open around a question that doesn’t come right away.

“What are you- why are you here?” he asks finally.

Ilya frowns now. He knows it’s a risk but he didn’t think Shane would be unhappy he was here. Not after…not now.

“I wanted to check on you,” Ilya tries again, voice careful. “I need to leave soon but-”

But I needed to see you.

I needed to watch you breathing with my own two eyes.

I needed to hold your hand.

“I’m- you were at the game?” Shane asks after a beat, uncertainty colouring his features. “Were we playing against each other?”

*

Or, Shane's hit on the ice leaves him with much more than just a fractured collarbone.

Notes

................wELL. If any of you have read my works for my other fandoms you might know that, as the only form of angst I enjoy writing, me and amnesia aus are old friends askdjfhsa. so, sorry in advance for taking one of the sweetest scenes in canon and making it sad but I joked about writing an amnesia au for hollanov and this idea gripped me and I couldn't let it go so here we are lmao. I have chapter 2 written and I'm currently working on chapter 3 so updates should be every 3 or 4 days ideally!!!
Also, it should go without saying, but every time Ilya and Svetlana are speaking alone they are obviously speaking in Russian!

Title: queen of the season - hazlett
Chapter title: lover, where do you live - highasakite

As always I'm over at littlespoonevan if you're looking or if you would like to yell at me about updating lol
Enjoy 💛💛

Chapter 1: And if I ever see you again, my love

Ilya stands outside Shane’s hospital room, fingers closed around the door handle as he tries to steady his breathing.

It’s fine, he’s fine. The front desk never would’ve given him Shane’s room number if he wasn’t fine. The internet had no news for him all night, nor had his coach when he’d pestered him this morning but if something was really wrong the nurse wouldn’t have smiled and directed him to room 402 like Ilya had any right to be here.

He shouldn’t be here; he has to leave for the airport in an hour. Thankfully, Coach had agreed with him that it was a good idea to visit Hollander in the hospital – represent his team, apologise on Marleau’s behalf.

So he’s here and, for some reason, everyone is giving him permission to be here but opening the door is still terrifying.

Steeling himself, he touches his free hand briefly to the cross at his neck and pushes the door open.

Shane looks small in the bed which is ridiculous because he isn’t.

But his arm is in a sling and he’s got bruises under his closed eyes and there are so many machines and Ilya is aching to gather him up in his arms and never let him go.

The sound of him closing the door behind himself is enough to rouse Shane and his eyes flicker open. He frowns – at the light first, it seems – before his gaze settles on Ilya and he frowns in an entirely different way.

“R-Rozanov?” he asks. He sounds confused, like he can’t believe Ilya’s here. Or he doesn’t know why he would be.

As if Ilya could’ve possibly left without seeing him.

“I just wanted to-” he starts before pausing. “Are you okay?”

Shane’s frown deepens but he looks down at himself as if to check. “Um, fractured collarbone and-” He hesitates, squeezing his eyes shut like he’s in pain, and Ilya’s feet drag him closer.

He’s always been helpless to Shane’s gravitational pull.

“Marleau feels terrible,” he says. “He did not mean to hurt you.”

Shane looks up at him, mouth open around a question that doesn’t come right away.

“What are you- why are you here?” he asks finally.

Ilya frowns now. He knows it’s a risk but he didn’t think Shane would be unhappy he was here. Not after…not now.

“I wanted to check on you,” Ilya tries again, voice careful. “I need to leave soon but-”

But I needed to see you.

I needed to watch you breathing with my own two eyes.

I needed to hold your hand.

“I’m- you were at the game?” Shane asks after a beat, uncertainty colouring his features. “Were we playing against each other?”

Ilya absently feels himself take a step back, the panic flooding through his entire nervous system making him unsteady. “Shane, what-”

The door opens abruptly behind him and he spins around with a jolt.

It’s a nurse and she looks between them with a carefully neutral expression. “Mr Rozanov,” she says. It’s polite but there’s a curtness behind it. “Shane’s not quite up to visitors right now.”

Ilya looks back to the bed. Shane is still staring at him like he doesn’t understand why Ilya’s here. Like he doesn’t know why Ilya would be here.

Something is very, very wrong.

“I- I’m sorry,” he stutters. “I just wanted to check in. On behalf of team.”

He’s waving a hand, clinging to civility and calm, but the nurse seems to at least believe him. Her smile becomes a bit more genuine as she nods.

“And people say you two don’t know how to be nice to each other.” She almost sounds teasing as she says it but she’s all business when she nods to the door. “I’m afraid Shane needs to rest.”

Ilya glances back at the bed one last time, desperate for something.

Recognition, he realises with dawning horror.

And Shane does recognise him but it’s not- something about it is wrong.

“Of course,” he says on autopilot. “Um, get well soon, Hollander.”

“Thanks,” Shane mumbles, still sounding uncertain.

Ilya stumbles out of the room then, mind reeling. What the fuck is going on? What’s wrong with Shane?

What’s-

He bumps into someone as he tries to round the corner. Muttering an apology, he intends to keep going when he hears his name.

“Rozanov?”

He freezes, slowly turning on his heel and coming face to face with Hayden Pike.

Fuck.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Pike demands.

“I just-” Ilya doesn’t have it in him for a fight right now. He feels like he’s going to throw up. “I came to apologise and make sure Hollander was okay. That is all.”

Pike scoffs, crossing his arms. “Well, apology not accepted and tell Marleau I wish I’d cracked his fucking skull open.”

This is bad. This is very bad. Pike might throw punches on the ice but everyone says he’s laid back besides that. An easy-going guy.

If he’s this angry then Ilya’s fears are real. Something is really wrong with Shane.

His vision swims for a moment and he clears his throat, clenching his jaw and trying desperately to stay calm. “The nurse told me I could see him. I did not know-” Pike looks like he’s getting angrier by the second so Ilya gives up on trying to explain himself. “I’m leaving.”

He starts to walk away, considering finding the closest bathroom so he can vomit. Or have a panic attack. Or both.

“Rozanov.” Pike’s voice is quieter now but when Ilya turns back to him there’s still something stern in his expression. “The press don’t know anything about Shane’s condition. And we’re keeping it that way until his parents decide-”

“I will not tell anyone,” Ilya interrupts. He’s used to keeping secrets about Shane Hollander. What’s one more? And then, because he can’t help himself. “He is…his head. Everything is not okay, is it?”

The words are clunky, even to his own ears, but he doesn’t know how to make English work right now.

Pike stares him down, clearly weighing his options, until he sighs and drops his arms by his side. “How do you know?”

“He couldn’t remember that we were playing against each other.”

Pike nods, more to himself. “But he knew who you were?”

Ilya inclines his head uncertainly. Shane did know him, even if something was off. “Yes.”

Pike huffs out a humourless laugh, propping himself against the wall and dragging his hands over his face. He looks like he hasn’t slept all night. Ilya can relate.

“You’re probably one of the only people he does remember.”

“What?” Ilya blurts out and Pike gives him a considering onceover.

“He has amnesia,” he says finally. “Doesn’t remember me or any of the guys on the team. As best as the doctors can figure it, the last big event he remembers is getting drafted. He knows he’s a Metro but he can’t remember ever playing for them.”

Amnesia.

Shane has amnesia.

Shane can’t remember anything.

About his life. About Ilya. About them-

Except. Except no. If he remembers the draft day then he remembers Ilya exists at least. And- and that night at the gym maybe and…

Hayden laughs again and it drags Ilya back to the here and now.

“Man, Shane forgets everyone but somehow still remembers you. Even amnesia can’t get your stupid rivalry out of his head.”

Ilya opens his mouth, tries to find something to say without spilling his heart all over the floor. But no cutting remark or stupid joke is coming to mind and he doesn’t think he could make himself say any of it even if it did.

“I should go,” he says instead. “I will not tell anyone.”

He doesn’t need to say it again but he feels like he should. At least Pike looks like he believes him.

He almost asks Pike to keep him in the loop but he knows that would be too much. Would give him away.

“Sure,” Pike says. “Thank you.”

Ilya nods and finally makes his escape.

Shane can’t remember anyone but he can remember Ilya. That’s what Pike said. And if he can remember Ilya maybe Ilya can make him- make him want him again.

He can- He has to-

He can’t lose him. Not when he was just about to have him for real.

*

The flight home to Boston is a blur.

He can barely look at Marleau without wanting to strangle him so he sits by himself at the back of the plane, earphones in and hood up so no one will bother him. He thinks he’s having a panic attack. If it’s possible to have a panic attack that lasts three hours. He manages to text Svetlana before the plane takes off.

A quick ‘I need you’ that he hopes reads as desperate enough as it feels in his head that she’ll know to be waiting for him when he lands.

He doesn’t remember the drive from the airport back to his house which should worry him but he can’t make himself care. He opens the front door and sets his bag down in a daze; the day still hasn’t caught up with him. He can’t think, can’t move past the white noise in his head.

Footsteps make him look up as he’s toeing off his shoes.

And then Svetlana is there, in front of him with her expression creased in worry, and that’s all it takes for Ilya to break.

The cry that wrenches out of him feels pulled right from his gut and he doubles over with the pain of it. Sveta rushes towards him and he’s vaguely aware of her saying his name, of her arms flitting all over his frame as he crumbles to the floor, but all he can think is that they’re the wrong arms.

He doesn’t know how long he cries for, doesn’t even remember her coaxing him up from the floor and down to the living room but somehow he ends up on the couch with his head in her lap and her arms curled around him.

He cries himself dry until his face hurts and his heart hurts and everything hurts but he’s empty.

Silence falls heavy in the living room and all he can hear is his own laboured breathing until-

“It’s Shane Hollander, isn’t it?”

Ilya’s whole body locks but Svetlana keeps talking before he can say anything.

“Your Jane. It’s Shane Hollander.”

Ilya feels his breath hitch. Lying is instinct – even now, with the person he trusts most in the world. But the way his fingers tighten around her knee has probably given him away. It’s not just his secret to tell and he doesn’t want to betray Shane like that but Shane doesn’t even know there’s a secret to tell anymore and Ilya’s so tired and-

“How did you figure it out?” he asks slowly. His throat clicks uncomfortably around the words, voice scratchy and rough from crying.

Her hand lands in his hair, tangling through his curls in a soothing gesture that’s been familiar to him for years. “I suspected,” she says quietly. “But Shane Hollander ends up in hospital and you come home like this? I don’t know what else I’m supposed to think.”

Ilya closes his eyes, feeling tears burn behind his eyelids once more. “He doesn’t remember.”

Svetlana’s hand stills in his hair. “What?”

“Shane,” he croaks. “His concussion- it was bad. He has amnesia.”

“He doesn’t remember you?” she asks and Ilya recognises the tone in her voice. Svetlana, more than anyone, watched the way Ilya had disappeared in front of his father’s eyes these past few years. She knows how a piece of Ilya had felt like he was dying right alongside him.

Losing Shane like this – she probably thinks he must be borderline catatonic now.

He thinks he might be.

“He remembers me,” he whispers. “He doesn’t remember us.”

Svetlana doesn’t say anything but she folds herself over him, wrapping her arms around him tight enough to bruise.

Ilya wishes it helped.

*

“What am I going to do?” he asks sometime later.

Sveta made him tea at some point. It’s sitting cold and half-drank on his coffee table now. She gave him a blanket too and he tugs at the hem of it to give his hands something to do, pulling at a thread that wasn’t even loose twenty minutes ago.

She regards him from the opposite end of the couch, pity and sympathy warring on her face. It’s not often she lets him wallow. But even she must be at a loss for what could possibly make this situation better.

When she doesn’t come up with an answer for him, Ilya keeps talking, anxiety making the words tumble out of him at an alarming speed. “Shane doesn’t remember a-and even if I could talk to him – even if I could tell him – how would he ever believe me? The whole world, his team, his family- everyone thinks I hate him. And that he hates me. And there’s no proof. No pictures. Nothing. We don’t even have each other’s real names saved on our phones and-”

“Ilya,” she cuts in gently. “Breathe.”

He forces himself to stop, forces air into his lungs even though it burns.

Seven years. It’s been over seven years since he first kissed Shane Hollander and he has nothing to show for it. It’s remarkable how this thing that has consumed Ilya for so long, this thing that made his whole world tilt on its axis more than once, now only exists in his head.

They were- they were building towards something. Becoming something. And now…

“I can’t even ask anyone to tell me if he’s okay,” he mumbles morosely.

Svetlana’s mouth becomes a pinched line until, eventually, she asks, “And nobody knows?”

Ilya shakes his head, staring down at the blanket when his vision starts to blur. “Just you, now.”

“Okay, so no one knows about the two of you but does anyone know about…him?”

Ilya lifts his head again, furrowing his brow.

“I didn’t always know about Shane but I knew about you,” she points out. “Does he have anyone like that? Someone he could’ve told?”

The answer comes to mind immediately.

“Rose Landry.”

Svetlana’s jaw drops. “No fucking way.”

Ilya huffs out a breath that could be a laugh in another universe. “He told me they talked about it. They’re friends now.”

He also told Ilya she was the reason Shane arrived at All Star weekend so determined to fix things between them. It’s why Ilya grits his teeth against the pointless jealousy he feels at the idea of them being friends at all.

Svetlana raises her eyebrows, blowing out a breath. “Wow. I can’t believe I share a secret with Rose Landry.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Sveta.”

“Okay,” she says, expression turning serious again as she nudges his leg with her foot. “Could you talk to her maybe? If she’s his friend someone will probably keep her updated. And then she could pass the information onto you?”

It’s tempting as much as it’s insane.

“I can’t do that to Shane,” he says finally. “Telling her- it’s not just my secret to share.”

“But she already knows half of it. Really, you’d just be telling her about you.”

Ilya thinks about it, tries to imagine how Shane would react. In other circumstances, he might be okay with it but how can Ilya know that now? How is he supposed to make that decision for the both of them?

“If the roles were reversed, would you be mad at Shane for telling me?” she asks and that pulls Ilya up short.

Before, maybe. Probably.

But now? He thinks he’d just be relieved – glad that Shane and Sveta both had someone to talk to. That the two most important people in his life could lean on each other.

“Think about it,” she urges quietly.

He nods, about to agree when his phone chimes with a message.

The traitorous part of his brain hopes it’s Shane, telling him it’s fine, it’s okay, he remembers! When his eyes focus on the screen enough to read the text that hope sinks like a lead balloon.

He throws his phone away, ignoring Svetlana picking it up to read the message for herself, and covers his face with his hands. He can’t even find it in himself to scrub away the tears filling his eyes; he just lets them fall.

Jane: Hey Lily, it’s Hayden Pike – Shane’s friend. I’m guessing you were watching the game or have at least seen the news by now. But Shane’s okay. He’s got a fractured collarbone and a really bad concussion but he’s awake which is the most important thing. He’s not allowed to be on his phone right now so he might not contact you for a while. I’m sure he’ll reach out when he’s ready though. Sorry this is a text and not a phonecall, just felt a little weird calling you when we’ve never even met before but I wanted to make sure someone kept you in the loop!

Shane stares at the monitor next to his bed, watching in mild fascination as his heartrate moves up and down.

84…83…82…81…back up to 85.

He still hasn’t really come to terms with his diagnosis. He thinks he’d probably be freaking out a lot more if not for the cocktail of pain meds the hospital is currently drip feeding him. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the energy right now.

The door opens and he blinks, turning his face away from the machine and remembering too late he’s not supposed to be looking at screens.

Hayden Pike closes the door behind himself, offering a friendly, “Hey, buddy,” as he takes a seat next to Shane’s bedside.

His parents are getting settled at Shane’s house, unpacking their stuff in his guest bedroom and packing him a bag of whatever they think he might need while he’s at the hospital. It’s weird that he can’t even picture the apartment they’ve apparently gone to.

He doesn’t know Hayden, or recognise him even. He’s guessing they must’ve joined the team the same year or else Hayden joined after him, but there’s something about Hayden that puts him at ease. In a lot of ways, he looks way too mild-mannered to be a hockey player.

“How are you feeling?”

Shane shrugs, attempting a smile. “Okay. The uh, the pain relief helped with the headache.”

“That’s good.” Hayden glances back at the door and when he turns back to Shane he looks concerned. Oh fuck. “I bumped into Ilya Rozanov in the hallway.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Shane doesn’t really know what else he’s supposed to say to that.

“What did he want?” Hayden asks carefully. He kind of looks the way Shane’s mom would when she’d ask him if the other kids were picking on him at hockey camp.

“He just wanted to know if I was okay,” Shane says. “He said something about, um, Marleau, I think?”

“He’s the one who checked you,” Hayden confirms. He looks marginally more relaxed though, at least.

Shane nods, only enough that it doesn’t hurt his head. “Anyway, the nurse came in then and told him I needed to rest.”

Hayden nods, relieved, which is confusing. Shane can sort of guess they must be still competing against each other, especially if Rozanov is still playing for Boston but it’s not like the guy came in here to bully Shane. If anything, he’d looked…scared.

“We- were we playing Boston?”

“Yeah,” Hayden says. “Rozanov is captain now. Guess he felt he should come here on behalf of the team.”

“And we’re still…?” He doesn’t know how to finish his question but Hayden laughs like he already knows what Shane’s asking.

“At each other’s throats? Oh yeah.” He shakes his head in amusement. “No way the media was gonna stop pitting you two against each other when you went to play for rival teams.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Shane says half-heartedly even though something about this doesn’t really make sense at all.

In his own memory, Shane can recall maybe a handful of interactions with Rozanov.

Their stilted conversation outside the rink in Saskatchewan, their muttered promises to see each other again when they shook hands at World Juniors, whatever the fuck happened between them in the gym the night of the draft…

He knows everyone else loved hyping up their rivalry – especially around the draft – but are they really still doing that nearly ten years later?

He figures it’s not that important right now. He has more pressing things to worry about.

“So uh, you wanna maybe catch me up on what I’ve missed over the past seven or eight years?”

Hayden laughs and then proves exactly why he’s Shane’s best friend by outlining all of the Metros’ and Shane’s stats since 2010, even going as far as to google anything he doesn’t know off the top of his head. Shane thinks he understands now why Hayden is the one who gets the privilege of keeping watch over him while he waits for his parents to come back.

It’s probably not what anyone else would want to know if they woke up with a chunk of their life missing but it matters to Shane and Hayden clearly knows that. It’s also easier to focus on than anything else Shane could think to ask right now.

Hockey is simple. He couldn’t forget it even if he wanted to. It’s in his bones.

They fall silent once Hayden has brought him up to speed on their current season, the enthusiasm in his voice petering off as he gets to last night’s game.

Shane stares down at his blanket awkwardly, grasping at any other question to ask and settling for a vaguely curious, “Are there any other big life updates I should know about?” He doubts it, but still. “I’m not married or anything, am I?”

Hayden barks out a laugh, shaking his head. “No, you’re not. Just-” His expression freezes, transforming into something faintly horrified. “Oh fuck.”

“What?” Shane presses, anxiety constricting his chest. “I’m not like, engaged, am I?”

There’s no way. He’s what? Twenty-five now? When the fuck would he have found time to even get engaged?

“No, you- you’re not married. Or engaged.” Hayden lets out a strangled noise, shaking his head again. “You’re-”

He cuts himself off and Shane can feel the panic rising inside himself.

There are so many ways Hayden could finish that sentence. The most obvious one is tucked away in the very corner of Shane’s mind and he almost expects Hayden to say it. Scrunching the blanket up in the fist of his free hand, he braces for impact.

“You have a-…girl.”

Shane blinks. What.

“I have a girl,” he repeats slowly.

Hayden releases a long-suffering sigh, slumping in his chair. “Man, I don’t know what to call her! She’s not your girlfriend, I’m pretty sure. But she’s- you’ve been seeing her for years.”

Shane can only stare at him, his mind completely blank. Of all the things he thought Hayden might say, that was probably at the bottom of the list.

“What?” he asks, mostly for a lack of anything better to say.

Hayden sighs again, dragging a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how much I can tell you. Her name is Lily and she’s from Boston. You won’t tell me anything about her but you two have been texting for years. And you always hook up with her when we play in Boston. That’s basically all the information I have. I don’t even know what she looks like, dude.”

Shane looks at the door to his room, not really seeing it, as he tries to somehow work this into what he knows about himself.

It’s not- impossible, obviously. He had a girlfriend before. It’s just- well.

He tries to picture it – having a girl he keeps around purely to hook up with – and he…can’t.

When he was with his ex sex was sort of the least important part of their relationship to him. They didn’t even really do it that often. He was a teenager though; maybe it’s different now that he’s older.

Except.

Except he knows what his nineteen-year-old self thinks about when he wants to get off and it’s not…women.

Unbidden, the image of Ilya Rozanov sitting across from him on the gym floor rises to the forefront of his mind. His sweat-slick curls clinging to his forehead, his cocky grin, his foot almost touching Shane’s but not quite, the brush of his fingers over Shane’s as they pass his water bottle back and forth.

He shakes his head like he can physically shake the thought away. He’s only thinking about him because Rozanov was here earlier. That’s all.

“I can, um- if you want, I could text her,” Hayden offers and Shane makes himself look back at him. “She was probably watching the game. I can let her know you’re okay but that you might not be in contact for a while? That way you don’t have to do anything about it right now.”

Shane nods absently. Yeah. Yeah, that would help. He has no idea what he’s supposed to say to this girl.

“Yeah, uh thanks. That- I mean, I’m not supposed to be on my phone right now anyway, right?”

“Right,” Hayden agrees, reaching across to the side table by Shane’s bed. He picks up a phone that must be Shane’s, frowning for a beat. “Wait, I don’t know your password. Shit, do you know your password?”

Shane stutters, about to mumble out the password he always used for his old phone, when Hayden grabs Shane’s free hand and presses his thumb to the button to unlock it.

Okay so that’s apparently a thing now.

Hayden is quiet as he types out a message and Shane allows himself the reprieve. Thinking about everything Hayden has just told him hurts his head so he closes his eyes and tries to think about nothing at all.

It kind of works.

“Okay, I think I got it.”

Shane forces himself to open his eyes again as he listens to Hayden relay the message he typed out and manages a, “Sounds good,” that is apparently convincing enough for Hayden to press send.

Hayden doesn’t push him to talk anymore after that and Shane decides to pretend to sleep until he actually drifts off.

*

When he wakes up again his parents are back and the doctor in his room.

“How are you feeling, Shane?” Dr Kim asks. She’s nice; she always keeps her voice low when she talks which doesn’t hurt his head.

“Okay,” he mumbles. Hayden is gone, he realises, and he finds himself relaxing a little.

It’s not that he doesn’t like him but the guy’s still a stranger. At least his parents are familiar faces.

“Good,” Dr Kim says as if he’s actually said something useful. “I’ve just been discussing with your parents about your treatment going forward. We want to monitor you for another forty-eight hours but you should be good to go home on Sunday.”

He nods, feeling small and embarrassed when he can’t help asking a tentative, “And my memory?”

Dr Kim gives him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid, there’s no perfect timeline with these things. It’s a waiting game. Everything might be back to normal in a few days or it could take months. We can’t predict it.”

He nods again, not knowing what else to say.

Dr Kim hesitates a moment, glancing between him and his parents, before she continues. “You do also need to prepare yourself for the reality that your memory might not return. Or not all of it, at least.”

Shane doesn’t think it’s in any way possible for him to prepare himself for that but he decides he probably shouldn’t say that out loud. He’s used to feeling out of his depth but he doesn’t know he’s supposed to navigate his life like this.

There’s out of his depth and then there’s this and this feels a lot like drowning.

“What about hockey?” his mom asks. Which is a question Shane has had too but it feels sour right now.

“Yuna,” his dad starts but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Retrograde amnesia doesn’t affect your procedural memory,” Dr Kim says. “Shane is out for the rest of the season with his collarbone but once that heals there’s no reason why he can’t get back on the ice. He might not remember the way he’s played for the past seven years but his body does.” She looks back to Shane, reaching out to squeeze his good arm. “You’ll be fine.”

It’s a relief – one positive in this whole mess – but the sick feeling in the pit of Shane’s stomach doesn’t go away either.

“Thank you,” he says, allowing himself to zone out when his mom starts asking other questions. She’ll relay whatever’s important later.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when Dr Kim finally leaves the room but his mom squeezes his shoulder to get his attention again as soon as the door closes.

“Honey, we were talking on the way over here,” she says, nodding at Shane’s dad. “Why don’t you come back to Ottawa with us when you’re released? You would’ve after the playoffs anyway and it- it might be more familiar for you.”

Shane thinks about it.

It makes sense. His parents still live in his childhood home – they’ve told him – and maybe the routine of it would help but he also…

He knows nothing about his life now and maybe he’ll remember it all tomorrow or maybe he won’t but he doesn’t just want to disappear into his childhood bedroom like none of it exists. He’s the captain of an MLH team. He has his own place, his own life, in Montreal. He wants to at least know what it’s like before he runs away from it.

“No, I. Um, I think it might be better if I stay here. Try to re-familiarise myself with my life now, y’know?”

It’s not often he defies his mother’s wishes or doesn’t agree with what she thinks is best.

He can tell she’s surprised but his dad swoops in before she can try to change his mind.

“Of course, bud,” David says, ruffling his hair with a gentle hand. “That makes sense. We can stay with you as long as you need.”

His dad hasn’t called him ‘bud’ since Shane was a child, of that he’s sure.

It makes him feel small now but in a good way. Safe. Protected.

“Thanks,” he mutters

He watches then as his mom relents. The way her shoulders drop and her smile tilts a little until she’s pressing a hand to his cheek and letting out a sincere, “Whatever you need.”

*

Later, when Shane is alone, his phone buzzes on the side table.

He frowns because he’s almost positive Hayden put it on ‘Do Not Disturb’ for him so the notifications wouldn’t bother him. With some effort, he manages to reach across for it with his good hand.

There’s a text notification from Lily and Shane’s heart starts beating faster before he even reads it.

He thumbs the button at the bottom of his phone like Hayden had him do to unlock it and taps on the messenger app to open the text.

Lily: Thank you for letting me know. Tell him I’m thinking of him.

A pang of something like guilt twists Shane’s stomach. Fuck, he feels bad. He knows he shouldn’t. It’s not his fault he can’t remember.

It’s possibly his fault that he can’t imagine actually wanting to be with this Lily person at all.

After a moment’s hesitation, he decides to scroll up through their previous messages. Maybe it’ll give him a better indication of what’s actually going on between them.

He doesn’t scroll for long because he can already feel a headache coming on but it’s-

They talk about hockey a lot.

And they sext. A lot.

Jesus Christ.

His face flushes with embarrassment reading some of the messages. He tells himself it’s the headache and not his own shame that makes him scroll back down to the last messages they exchanged before Hayden sent his earlier.

The very last message he sent was just ‘1919’ but he doesn’t know what it means so he doesn’t dwell on it. Instead he reads the short conversation between them from two days ago.

Lily: Hollander answer your phone!!!

Shane: I was at practice. Which you knew.

Lily: Yes but I am bored 🥺

Shane: Too bad I’m boring or I could’ve helped you with that

Lily: 😭😭😭

Lily: I like it when you’re boring

Shane: No you don’t?

Lily: I do!

Lily: I like it even more when you’re boring with your glasses on

Shane: …Fine, you can call me now.

It’s an inconsequential conversation but it’s the…playfulness that catches Shane off guard. Even though he doesn’t use any emojis or anything like that he knows his own replies are teasing and it’s- weird. To imagine himself being like that with someone.

But this seems like it’s familiar. Routine, for the two of them.

He still doesn’t really get it but maybe- maybe there’s a reason he’s been texting Lily for all these years.

He can only hope he remembers why soon.

*

True to their word, the doctors release him on Sunday.

Shane tries to pay attention to where he’s going on the drive home but staring out the window makes him dizzy so he keeps his eyes closed most of the way. He doesn’t feel any particular type of way stepping into his apartment. Except for the fact that the term ‘apartment’ feels like a gross understatement for the size of the place.

None of it feels familiar but it’s a nice place – he likes the colours and his bed looks comfortable. He doesn’t know what else he can ask for right now.

In the end, he doesn’t do much other than sleep for the day but he wakes up Monday with a renewed sense of curiosity. Or determination.

His memories might not be back yet but that doesn’t mean he can’t find a way to take control of the situation. Shane knows how to do that; he knows how to strategize, how to plan his way out of a corner.

“We should go grocery shopping,” his mom says after breakfast. His dad has already moved to load the plates in the dishwasher. “You didn’t have much in your fridge.”

Seeing his opportunity, he decides to take it. “Do you guys mind going? I don’t even know what food I’d want.”

“I can go,” Yuna says, pushing up from the table. “Your dad can stay here with you in case you need anything.”

“I’m fine, really,” he says, trying not to give himself away. “I’ll probably just rest anyway.”

He watches his parents share a look. It’s one of those silent conversations he stopped trying to decipher when he was a kid. After a beat, his dad shrugs and his mom turns back to him with a faint smile. “Okay, honey. We won’t be long.”

He nods, gritting his teeth through fifteen minutes of their pottering around until he’s finally alone.

It’s not- he loves his parents, obviously. And he’s really glad they’re here – he doesn’t know what he’d do if they weren’t – but they’re also hovering, waiting to see if he can somehow remember anything by looking at a piece of furniture or a picture for long enough.

And maybe this place does have they key to his memory somewhere but he just feels like that might be something he needs to try to figure out on his own.

He starts in the kitchen, looking for any clues about his life now.

The fridge doesn’t have any magnets or pictures or anything on it, save for one Metros magnet that pins a calendar with his schedule to it. Inside the fridge doesn’t reveal much either. His mom was right; there isn’t a lot in there besides condiments but he’s pretty sure the team are flying out for the next couple of games so that’s probably why.

There’s ginger ale which tracks and Coke which doesn’t.

Shane has never been a big soda person. Or a big any kind of drink person. He likes ginger ale because it’s a good substitute for alcohol and it feels like a treat but other than that he’s always been happy to stick to water or a protein shake.

Maybe he drinks Coke when he needs energy?

Shrugging, he moves onto the cabinets but pretty much everything he finds is nondescript. He never really imagined himself as a whimsical mug guy anyway.

The living room has a little more personality. There are pictures – of Shane with his parents and with his team – and a few trophies and medals. It feels surreal looking at them, especially when he doesn’t remember winning any of them. He runs his finger over the engraving of his name on one and smiles to himself.

The first thing he’s doing when he’s allowed to look at a screen properly again is watching the moment they won the cup.

He makes his way upstairs to his bedroom next. The bed is still unmade since he woke up this morning and he takes a second to fold the sheets back into place. He finds himself rearranging the pillows on autopilot but he stops before he puts the last one on. It looks exactly how it had when Shane walked in here yesterday but he can’t tell if he just remembered how it had looked or if it’s muscle memory taking over. He’s probably made his bed a thousand times; put the pillows back in order a thousand times.

Then again, it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out he arranges the pillows from biggest to smallest.

Even so, it bolsters him for a second, reminds him that he still does know how to actually function as a person even if he doesn’t remember this life. He moves on to his closet then – it’s a walk-in but still a modest size which makes sense. Shane’s never really cared about clothes all that much.

The bulk of his wardrobe looks to be a lot of workout clothes and Metros branded stuff and there are other pieces that he knows, without having to confirm, his mom bought for him. She buys him linen because it’s soft and she knows certain fabrics make his skin feel uncomfortable. The next section of clothes are different – branded and more expensive-feeling – but he’s pretty sure he didn’t buy them on his own either.

They’re nice and clearly arranged in outfit formations so he doesn’t have to think about what should go together. He wonders who helped him figure it out.

He’s almost at the end of his inspection when his hand falls on a lone t-shirt.

It doesn’t seem to fit into any of the other categories: not Metros merch, not something his mom would’ve bought, and not paired with any of the other carefully curated outfits.

It’s hung up all on its own.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he picks up the hanger and lifts it off the rail for a closer inspection.

There’s nothing all that special about it. It’s black and plain and the collar looks a little loose. If he had to guess he’d say it doesn’t look as tight fitting as most of his other t-shirts. The label is different to all of them too.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to do it but something makes him lift the t-shirt closer to his face and he takes a sniff. It smells different to the rest of his closet, like it was washed with different detergent or like- like there’s a cologne he doesn’t recognise clinging to it.

It’s a familiar scent, he thinks.

Scent memory is supposed to be powerful, right? He’s heard that before.

And something about it is familiar, tickling a thought at the back of his head that’s just a little too far out of reach.

He stares at it for a moment longer, hoping it might come to him but nothing does.

It still just looks like a black t-shirt.

Sighing to himself, he puts it back. Maybe he’s done enough investigating for now.

*

The week after Shane gets out of hospital passes by uneventfully.

He has doctor’s appointments and physiotherapy appointments but besides that he’s at home, not looking at screens and not doing anything taxing that might aggravate his collarbone.

He’s extremely fucking bored.

It’s just- he’s not used to staying still, not like this.

He’s started a notebook – that he really only writes in when his mom isn’t around to admonish him for straining his eyes – and he’s trying to keep track of where his memories stop.

He constructs a timeline starting with the draft day and he tries to go forward from there.

Hockey practices blur together which make it hard for him to discern what he remembers and what he doesn’t but he figures out his memories at least stretch into 2010. He remembers the second year of World Juniors, remembers beating Rozanov and shaking his hand and telling him he’d see him in October.

Rozanov hadn’t said anything back but his hand had spasmed around Shane’s for a second before he let go.

He has no idea why the fuck he remembers that but he does.

It’s as he moves later into 2010 that things start to get murky.

He has a memory of wearing his Metros uniform but none actually playing in it. He’s had dreams since he came home from the hospital of various games but he has no idea if they’re real memories or his imagination just conjuring up what he thinks these games are supposed to look like.

If he thinks about it too hard it scares the shit out of him – the lack of control, the inability to trust his own mind. But he tries to focus on the forward momentum of it instead, tries to treat his mind like a puzzle he just needs to crack.

It’s easier to dwell on than the alternative.

By the middle of the week his parents start leaving him alone for longer stretches of time. They kind of have to – his mom is dealing with everything with his coaches and the MLH for him and on Thursday his dad is called back to work for some important meeting.

It’s easier when he’s alone. No one is standing over his shoulder trying to figure out if he remembers anything and he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed when he doesn’t.

On Friday his dad is still in Ottawa and his mom is meeting with his publicist about what they should reveal to the press about his condition and Shane decides a little screen time won’t kill him.

Making himself comfortable on the couch, he grabs his laptop and types his own name one handed into the YouTube search bar.

The first results are clips from commentators about his injury as well as multiple versions of the hit itself but he’s not quite ready to look at those yet so he keeps scrolling. He finds a playlist with his highlight reels from every season he’s played with the MLH and figures that’s as good a place to start as any.

It’s surreal watching himself play and not having the memories that go along with it.

Even so, he can feel a phantom tingle in his fingers, a buzzing of anticipation under his skin every time he lines up a shot and it goes in.

God, he wishes he was on the ice right now.

Everything is so much easier when he’s playing. All of the noise goes away and his head goes quiet and all he has to worry about is getting the puck in the net.

He’d do anything if it meant his head was quiet now.

For now, he lets himself fall down a rabbit hole of his own career and doesn’t even realise he’s reached the current season until the recommended videos are all timestamped within the last six months.

He hovers the cursor over one, staring in surprise at the thumbnail. It’s him and Rozanov in the same uniform. The title reads: “Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov All Star Weekend Highlights”.

After a moment’s hesitation, Shane clicks on it.

He doesn’t really know what to expect. It’s not exactly surprising they played on the same team at All Stars at some point in their career. What is surprising is how they play.

They’re on the same line, with Rozanov moving to play wing, and they’re-

They’re incredible, honestly.

Their synchronicity, their passes, the way they seem to always know exactly where the other one is on the ice.

He guesses it makes sense if they’re both still at the top of their game that they know how to adapt. What doesn’t make sense is what Hayden told him. If they’re still apparently ‘at each other’s throats’ like Hayden said, if the whole rivalry thing is still alive and well, how come they’re playing like they know each other? Like they’ve been on the same line for years?

At one point Shane makes a goal on an assist from Rozanov and he watches Rozanov crash into him on screen, smacking a kiss onto Shane’s helmet and beaming at him.

The action is shocking in and of itself but Shane is more focused on his own face. On the quiet delight he can see playing across his features, on the words they mutter to each other before Rozanov pats his back and they separate again.

It’s…confusing.

He scrolls down to read the comments for some context.

To be fair, most of the commenters also seem pretty surprised at how well they play together but there are also others: lamenting what could’ve been if they’d been drafted to the same team, commenting on how clearly they respect each other’s game or that the rivalry can’t be anything more than media fodder at this point.

Shane doesn’t know what to make of it.

The Rozanov who’d showed up in his hospital room sure as hell didn’t seem like he hated him but then, if it really was just a media farce why would Hayden – Shane’s best friend, apparently – be so convinced it was real?

Shaking his head, he lets his gaze fall on the recommended videos column again. The clip of his injury is at the top of the list.

Chewing on the inside of his mouth, he clicks on it before he can change his mind.

It starts at the face off, him and Rozanov clash sticks back and forth and if Shane didn’t know any better, he’d think they were grinning at each other. Shane wins the face off, tearing down the ice with the puck.

And then he’s looking back at Rozanov right as Marleau crashes straight into him.

It’s a stupid fucking rookie mistake. What the fuck was he doing?

He flinches as he watches himself lying crumpled on the ice. Hayden immediately throws down his gloves and attacks Marleau but Shane’s gaze is transfixed on himself, on the medics that rush onto the ice and surround him, at Rozanov still standing above him, unmoving.

The commentators are talking about it, saying something about how even Rozanov doesn’t want to see someone get hurt on the ice.

But it feels like- it feels like more than that and Shane doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t get why his stomach swoops watching Rozanov be pushed away back to his bench. He doesn’t get why Rozanov had looked so scared in his room last week. He’s missing something and he knows it and it’s enough to make frustration burn behind his eyes.

The sound of his front door unlocking makes him jump and he hastily snaps his laptop closed, shoving it to the other end of the couch.

“Hey, honey,” his mom calls as she makes her way towards the living room. “Have a good afternoon?”

Shane hums out a half-hearted agreement and tries to look nonchalant as she rounds the couch to look at him. It’s a futile endeavour; she spots the laptop immediately.

“Shane, were you on your laptop? You know you shouldn’t be looking at-”

“It was just a couple of highlight reels,” he mutters, scrubbing absently at his eyes. “I just wanted to see myself play.”

His mom’s expression softens and she moves to sit beside him, settling an arm over his shoulder. “Did you watch yourself win the cup? Twice?”

Shane ducks his head, feeling his mouth tug up in an involuntary grin. “Yeah. It was pretty cool.”

“It was incredible,” she tells him, squeezing his shoulder. “Back to back wins. And I know that third cup will be waiting for you when you’re ready to get back on the ice.”

He looks up, finding nothing but surety in his mother’s eyes. She might be overbearing at times but no one has ever believed in him the way his mom does.

“That’s if I ever get out of this sling,” he says, trying to sound annoyed and hoping it’s enough to stop his mom from interrogating him about anything else he’d been watching.

“You’ll be good as new for pre-season training,” she says, without a doubt in her voice. “Come on. I’ll make you tea and catch you up on the statement we’re going to release to the press next week.”

Ilya sits in his living room, staring at his phone like he can burn a hole in the screen.

It’s been over a week since Shane ended up in hospital. Over a week since they last spoke.

Over a week since Shane smiled at him like he meant it.

Ilya’s going fucking insane.

He’s playing like shit and everyone knows it. He tells his coach he has a stomach bug and hasn’t been sleeping because of it. The bags under his eyes must do plenty of convincing because he gets sent to the team doctor and written off for their next game so he can be in good shape for the playoffs.

The game he’s supposed to be at right now.

He wishes he cared.

But he just- he can’t concentrate. He can’t stop thinking about Shane and everything that’s happened since January and everything he never got to say. He thinks about sitting on the frozen ground in a tunnel in Moscow and telling him he loved him and wishes that he’d just fucking said it in English.

That he’d been brave enough to let Shane hear it in a way he understood.

Because Shane didn’t know then but he’ll probably never know now and he can’t-

The thought that he’s maybe lost him forever leaves Ilya with a sick feeling in his stomach every time.

He considers calling. Shane would probably answer. Or he might not, since he doesn’t actually know who Lily is.

He wonders if Shane’s read any of their messages, if he’s pieced any of it together. If anyone could figure it out it would be him.

Closing his eyes, he takes a steadying breath before opening them again and going to his Instagram app.

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t but if he doesn’t hear how Shane is doing soon he might actually go out of his mind. The press have only reported on his fractured collarbone and his concussion – nothing has been said about the amnesia. In fact, nothing has been said at all since an article was released a few days ago to say he was now recovering at home.

He searches for Rose Landry’s profile, clicking on the message icon to open a new thread.

Biting his lip, he types out a message and hits send before he can take it back.

Ilya: I need to talk to you. Can I call you please?

The reply comes so fast she must’ve already been on her phone.

Rose: Ummm hello?

Rose: No offense, but how do I know this is actually Ilya Rozanov and that you haven’t been hacked?

Fuck.

Ilya: Fine, you call me instead.

Ilya: Please, it’s about Shane.

He sends his number then and hopes to fucking god everything Shane has told him about her is true.

A few seconds later a blocked number is calling his phone. He almost drops it in his rush to answer, fumbling until he finally manages to swipe across the screen and then pressing the phone to his ear.

“Rose?”

“Holy shit.”

Ilya swallows down his anguish. He’d decided against telling her the whole truth like Svetlana had suggested. He’ll just tell her they’re friends. It should be enough if he’s convincing enough. If she’s as perceptive as Shane has said she should be able to read between the lines.

The odds of this completely backfiring in his face are high but he has to try.

“I’m actually talking to Ilya Rozanov?” she asks when he doesn’t say anything else. She sounds somewhere between impressed and confused and part of Ilya wants to grin.

The cocky part of him that’s preening at the fact that Shane’s ex is impressed by him.

It’s hard to hold onto that now though.

“Yes,” he says. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Uh, why am I calling exactly?” she asks. “You said it was about Shane?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ilya tries to think about what he wants to say. “Have you- has someone updated you about him?”

Rose sounds confused when she replies but she answers nonetheless. “Yeah, um, Hayden called me last week.”

Ilya nods to himself. Good, that’s good. “And he um, did he tell you everything about Shane?”

“…What d’you mean?” Her voice is wary and Ilya is almost glad she doesn’t trust him. It means she really is a good friend to Shane.

Even if it’s incredibly inconvenient right now.

“About his head,” he clarifies, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. “His memory.”

Rose lets out a breath on the other end of the line, finally admitting, “Yeah. He told me.”

Ilya sighs in relief, collapsing back a little against the couch.

“Sorry, but- what does this have to do with you?”

And isn’t that the fucking question of the century.

He drags a hand over his mouth, trying to remember everything he’d planned to tell her. The words feel like they’re losing all meaning now, English slipping away from him with every erratic beat of his heart.

“Shane and I- we are friends,” he tries, throat dry. “No one knows, obviously. And I just- just wanted to know if he is okay. I can’t call Pike or his parents so-”

“So you called me,” she fills in. She’s silent a beat and Ilya waits, patiently impatient, for her to say anymore.

“Look, I’m really not trying to be rude but this all just feels a little suspicious to me. I mean, Shane’s never even mentioned you before and the way the media tells it-”

“The media is wrong about a lot of things,” Ilya interrupts, hoping she hears the weight behind the words. “You of all people should know that.”

In the silence that follows he can feel her hesitating, weighing up whether or not to believe him. “Fine. Tell me something about him that the media doesn’t know then.”

“What?”

“If you’re really his friend then you should know him. The real him.”

Ilya takes a breath. There’s only one thing they both know that the media doesn’t. “I know same secret as you.”

The pause on the other end of the line feels loaded. “What?”

“Shane’s secret. You and me are only people who know.”

Rose inhales a sharp breath. “Okay, I don’t know what the hell your angle is but I’m not doing this. Shane is my friend and I’m not about to let someone who’s only ever been a dick to him-”

“I love him.”

Fuck.

Fuck, he didn’t mean to say that. This wasn’t the plan.

He was supposed to- he was meant to-

Fuck.

“…What?” she asks, disbelieving.

Ilya releases a shuddering breath, hunching forward over his knees and closing his eyes. Shane trusts her. Ilya will just have to trust her too.

“I’m in love with him,” he repeats, the words getting stuck in his throat. “No one knows.”

There’s silence for a beat and then, “Does he know?”

Does he?

Before, he might’ve suspected.

“Not the love part.”

It’s as close to an admission of what they are as he’s willing to give right now. He just has to hope it’s enough.

“Please,” he tries again. “He doesn’t remember and I can’t- I have no way of checking on him. I just. I want to know if he is okay.”

“…Okay,” Rose says finally. “Okay, I believe you. I- I haven’t spoken to him but Hayden called me again after they sent him home from the hospital. He’s doing good.”

Ilya squeezes his eyes shut, the now familiar sting of tears pressing behind his eyelids. “Good.” He exhales and it comes out shaky and ragged. “Is he- is he in Montreal or Ottawa?”

“Montreal,” she tells him. “His parents are staying with him.”

“Are you going to visit him?”

“Uh, yeah. Next week, if I can. I’ve got a break in filming for a couple of days so I’ll see if he’s up for it.”

Ilya gives a noncommittal hum, trying to sound more casual than he feels when he asks his next question. “Will you tell me afterwards? How he is?”

Rose mutters something that he doesn’t quite catch but sounds like a curse word. When she speaks normally though her voice is calm. “Yeah. I can- I can call you.”

“Thank you,” he breathes. “And thank you for being good friend to him. For being nice to him.”

“He’s easy to be nice to,” Rose says and she sounds like she’s smiling.

It makes Ilya smile back and his heart ache. “Yes. He is.”

“Okay, well I’ll-” Rose cuts herself off abruptly and there’s nothing but silence for a second until. “Oh.”

Ilya frowns. “What?”

“Oh my god,” Rose says but she sounds more like she’s talking to herself than him. “You’re the stuff.”

What the fuck does that mean? “What?”

“Sorry, just- I told Shane once that he should follow, um, my friend Miles on Instagram?”

Ilya feels his expression sour, remembering the way Miles had danced at Shane’s back at the club but Rose keeps talking before he can dwell on it.

“And he, uh, he told me he had some stuff to sort out.” She lets out a quiet, wondering laugh. “I’m guessing you’re the stuff?”

Images of Shane’s thumb, brushing over his on the beach, rise unbidden in his head. Shane asking what room he was in, Shane opening his heart and refusing to back down until Ilya took it, Shane kissing him so tenderly and cradling him to his body like Ilya was the most important thing in the world, the grin on Shane’s face as he said goodnight…

Ilya sniffs, realising too late that tears are already carving a path down his cheeks. “Yes,” he says, letting out a wet laugh. “I am stuff.”

Rose is quiet for a minute but her voice is careful, sympathetic, when she starts speaking again. “I’ll call you if Hayden calls me.”

“Thank you,” he whispers.

He just about makes it through the goodbye before a sob shivers out of him.

*

Ilya is in bed, trying very unsuccessfully to sleep, when his phone chimes on the nightstand.

Rolling his head to the side, he considers ignoring it. It’s after eleven which means it’s either someone on the team or Svetlana. If it’s someone on the team, they’re probably drunk. If it’s Svetlana, she’ll call if it’s important.

After a moment’s deliberation, he reaches for it anyway. He’ll take whatever distraction he can get right now.

And maybe- maybe it’s Rose.

As soon as he taps the screen to check the notification he sits bolt upright in bed.

Jane: Hi.

Shane. Shane is texting him. Shane wants to talk to him. Shane-

…Thinks he’s a girl called Lily. Fuck.

A part of Ilya considers coming clean, considers calling him and just being honest, but how the fuck is he supposed to have a conversation like that over the phone? How is he supposed to convince Shane to listen to him long enough before he inevitably hangs up on him?

He shouldn’t reply.

Not when Shane doesn’t know the whole truth.

But-

He misses him. He misses him so fucking much he can barely breathe with it and maybe- maybe it’s okay if he just sends a couple of messages. Just a few. Just enough to make sure Shane is okay.

Taking a breath, he opens the message properly.

Lily: Hi. How are you feeling?

The typing bubbles appear almost instantly and Ilya tries to imagine where Shane is now. In bed, probably. With his glasses on so he doesn’t strain his eyes. Taking longer to type than normal because of his sling.

God, Ilya wants to see him. Wants to touch him and hold him and kiss his temple and ice his shoulder when his collarbone is bothering him.

He remembers being in Moscow, remembers hearing Shane’s voice through the phone asking him to teach him “I wish you were here right now” in Russian. It’d hurt so much then, the ache of missing him. Now, he’d trade this longing for that one any day. At least then it felt like they were both in it.

Now…Ilya’s lost at sea and Shane doesn’t even know he’s missing.

Jane: Okay. The headaches are easing a bit, I think.

Lily: Good, that’s good.

Jane: Yeah.

Jane: This is weird.

Jane: Fuck, sorry. That was rude.

Ilya feels his mouth curl up in a smile immediately, a tremulous laugh shuddering out of him. It would be just like Shane to say what he means and then instantly worry about offending someone.

Lily: It’s okay.

Lily: Have you read our texts?

He’s wondered at that. Sure, they’re careful usually. But they’re not always careful. They’ve definitely slipped up and used each other’s last names before even if he doesn’t remember when. And there are definitely exchanges where it would be clear Shane is talking to a man.

Jane: Some of them.

Lily: Then you know I’m an asshole to you too sometimes

Jane: No you’re not.

Lily: I am but usually in a way that you like

Nothing comes for a minute or two and Ilya wonders if he’s pushed too far, if acknowledging how Shane used to feel is too much. But before he can panic about it his phone buzzes again.

Jane: I’m sorry I don’t remember you.

Ilya’s chest aches as soon as he reads the words. A deep, bruising ache that cuts right through him.

Because Shane means it but he doesn’t. He means to say it to Lily – a figment – he probably wouldn’t be saying it if he knew it was Ilya he was talking to.

With shaking fingers, he types his reply.

Lily: It’s okay. It’s not your fault.

Jane: Feels like it is…

Ilya squeezes his phone in his hand, tipping his head back against the headboard and closing his eyes so he doesn’t do something stupid like call Shane right then and there. When he’s taken three unsteady breaths he opens his eyes again and tries to formulate a response.

Lily: I know. Too bad I am not very good at being mad at you

Jane: Guess I’ll have to take your word for it

Ilya’s vision blurs and he wipes at his face before any tears can fall on his phone screen. He thinks he’s probably cried more in the past week and a half than he has in years. Since he last allowed himself to miss his mother, maybe.

It’s starting to feel like all he’ll ever be allowed to do is miss people.

Lily: You will.

Lily: You should get some rest

It’s as much for himself as it is for Shane. He thought he could do this, could have a piece of him and have it feel like enough. He should know better by now.

Jane: Yeah, probably

Jane: Sorry again about the whole not remembering you thing

Jane: But it was nice talking to you!

Ilya shakes his head, letting out another laugh that turns into a sob halfway through. His stupid, polite Canadian.

Lily: Good night, Shane

Jane: Good night, Lily

*

Chapter 2: i'm lost but found with you

Chapter Summary

“I’m visiting him tomorrow,” she adds.

He sits up straighter, suddenly more alert. “You are?”

“Yeah. Both his parents are back in Ottawa for a couple of days so I promised I’d keep him company.”

Closing his eyes, his tightens his fingers around his phone and sounds out the question he’s been swallowing down for the past month. “Could I- do you think I could visit too?”

He could. He doesn’t have games or practice to worry about. He did his physical already for his ribs. No one is looking for him and even if they were he can just say he’s going back to Russia, dealing his father’s will or something. And- and it’s been too many weeks since he’s seen Shane in person. He just wants to talk to him, to explain, maybe, if he has a chance.

“Ilya, I don’t know…” Rose sounds unsure but it’s not a complete no and he latches onto that.

“Please. I only want to talk to him,” he says, not exactly begging but still only a step above it.

Chapter Notes

Thank you so much for your response to the first chapter!!! I am monumentally behind on replying to comments (you don't even want to see the state of my inbox right now) but please know i read and cherish every single one and i'll get to them as soon as i can! ❤️

chapter title: another place by bastille

Enjoy 💛💛

The Raiders get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.

Ilya knows one person doesn’t make a whole team but he also knows it’s his fault. He’s distracted and heartbroken and, for the first time in his life, winning isn’t enough to hold his attention.

His father isn’t waiting on the other end of the phone to berate him into being better and Shane isn’t there on the other side of the rink to goad him into a competition so who is he trying for, really?

He’d never tell his team or his coaches but part of him is relieved.

He doesn’t have it in him to put up the façade of fine right now or to keep fighting when all of the fight has been sapped out of him. At least this way, no one needs anything from him now. He can wallow at home until the MLH awards in June and wait for Shane’s memory to return. If it ever does.

Rose calls him the day after their last game.

True to her word, she’s kept him in the loop. Her updates have been sporadic with her own shooting schedule but Ilya hoards them anyway. Shane has texted Lily a couple of times but the conversation always peters out quickly – either because Shane probably doesn’t know what to say or because Ilya feels like he’s lying to him every time he replies.

“Sorry about the playoffs,” Rose tells him once they’ve exchanged greetings.

Ilya hums noncommittally. He doesn’t want to talk about it right now. “Thanks. How is Shane?”

“Doing better,” she says, voice bright like she’s trying to cheer him up. “His physical therapy is going well.”

She doesn’t say anything about his head but Ilya doesn’t expect her to. If Shane remembered by now he’d already know.

“I’m visiting him tomorrow,” she adds.

He sits up straighter, suddenly more alert. “You are?”

“Yeah. Both his parents are back in Ottawa for a couple of days so I promised I’d keep him company.”

Closing his eyes, his tightens his fingers around his phone and sounds out the question he’s been swallowing down for the past month. “Could I- do you think I could visit too?”

He could. He doesn’t have games or practice to worry about. He did his physical already for his ribs. No one is looking for him and even if they were he can just say he’s going back to Russia, dealing his father’s will or something. And- and it’s been too many weeks since he’s seen Shane in person. He just wants to talk to him, to explain, maybe, if he has a chance.

“Ilya, I don’t know…” Rose sounds unsure but it’s not a complete no and he latches onto that.

“Please. I only want to talk to him,” he says, not exactly begging but still only a step above it.

“His head’s not in a great place right now. I don’t want to upset him-”

“I won’t upset him,” he cuts in. Ilya wants to spend the rest of his life doing everything he can not to upset Shane. “I promise I will leave if he gets worked up or if he doesn’t want to see me but please, Rose. I need to see him.”

He can feel her wavering on the other end of the line but it’s still an agonising wait for the moment she finally relents. “Fine. But, Ilya, I’m serious. If he doesn’t want to see you, you go.”

“I promise,” he breathes, sinking back in his seat. “Thank you.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says but it’s more resigned than annoyed. “I’ll be at his around 2pm.”

Ilya agrees to see her then and hangs up. Ten minutes later he’s booked his flight.

*

There’s a moment when he’s standing outside Shane’s door – the front door, for the first time; not the fire escape – where he considers just putting in the code and walking in. He knows it, after all.

1919.

The last thing Shane text him before the accident.

One of the last things he said to him in person too.

He doesn’t, obviously, because the likelihood of him being allowed to stay at all is tenuous at best and he doesn’t want to push his luck. So he knocks on the door and holds his breath until Rose appears on the other side.

“Ilya Rozanov,” she says softly, like she hadn’t quite believed any of this was true until right now that he’s standing in front of her. She shakes her head, a faint laugh exhaling out of her. “Nice to meet you in person.”

“Hi,” he says, swallowing hard.

She’s pretty, a traitorous, stupid part of his brain whispers. As if it even matters right now. As if his heart or his head has time for jealousy.

“Did you tell him I was coming?” he asks and Rose shakes her head again, glancing briefly behind her.

“No, um. I didn’t really know how to explain it?” she says, biting the corner of her lip. “I figured it might be better coming from you.”

He nods weakly. It’s strange, having someone trust him with Shane like this. The list of people who wouldn’t is a mile long but Rose is looking at him like she believes in him.

“There’s a coffee place not far from here,” she says. “I’ll give you guys some space but I’ll be back in an hour.”

It’s a warning and he nods again to show he understands. All of his words suddenly feel like they’re stuck in his throat.

“But if this doesn’t go the way you want or he’s upset you need to call me. I mean it.”

“I promise,” he rasps.

Rose eyes him for a beat, looking over her shoulder again to wherever Shane is inside. It’s ridiculous the way Ilya almost feels like he can sense him. She lets out a breath when she looks back to him.

“Okay,” she says, an almost smile tilting the corners of her mouth. “Good luck.”

With that, she slips past him, leaving the door open in her wake. Ilya watches her disappear down the steps for half a second before he turns back to the apartment. This is it. This is what he’s been waiting for.

He steps through the threshold, pressing the door closed quietly behind him.

It’s insane how familiar and yet unfamiliar Shane’s apartment suddenly feels. Ilya has kissed him in every single room in this place. Has pushed him up against the glass wall by the stairs and kissed him until they were both breathless, has chased him up those same stairs to his bedroom with Shane’s laughter echoing behind him, has followed him from the kitchen to the living room to the fire escape over and over again.

“Rose? Who was at the door?”

Just the sound of his voice makes Ilya’s knees weak. He stands stock still, allowing himself one singular moment to let the yearning ache of want wash over him, and then he takes a steadying breath, following Shane’s voice to the living room.

He’s on the couch; his arm is still in a sling but he’s got his phone in his other hand and he’s scrolling idly.

Ilya is painfully fucking in love with him.

Shane looks over the back of the couch, mouth parted with another question that never comes. He freezes when his eyes land on Ilya, his hand going lax around his phone.

“Rozanov,” he stutters after a delayed beat. “You- what are you doing here?”

“Rose let me in,” he says, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he rounds the couch to stand in front of Shane. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Shane’s mouth works around a response but he doesn’t make a sound. And Ilya recognises this look, the way his eyes go distant like he can hide the panic he’s feeling. Or like he’s desperately trying to compartmentalise.

Shane might not know him but Ilya knows Shane.

He’s spent years reading him, studying him, learning every tell. Every hidden meaning in the curve of his mouth and the dart of his eyes.

He can do this. He can make him understand without scaring Shane off.

Ilya clears his throat, stepping forward until he can perch on the edge of the coffee table in front of Shane. “I, um.”

With startling, embarrassing clarity, he realises he has no idea what to say. How does he even begin to explain the last seven years to Shane? How does he even define their relationship?

Closing his eyes briefly, he huffs out a tired laugh. “How are you feeling?”

It’s not what he’d planned to say but it’s just as important.

The question seems to pull Shane up short and he glances down at his arm for a beat for looking back up at Ilya with a questioning gaze. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Only a few more weeks in the sling.”

Ilya nods, feeling a smile touch the corners of his mouth. “Good. And, um, your head? Is it any better?”

Shane’s throat bobs and he blinks rapidly, looking away. Ilya curls his hand into a fist so he doesn’t do something stupid like reach out to touch Shane’s chin and guide his gaze back to him.

“It’s- it’s the same,” Shane mutters. “The headaches are better but-”

He doesn’t say anymore and it seems he’s warring with himself about what he should even share. Ilya can’t really blame him if Shane’s under the impression they hate each other.

“Why are you here?” Shane asks again and Ilya stares at him, searching for some morsel of recognition beyond the basic.

When nothing in Shane’s expression changes, he realises he has no choice but to say it.

“There are- things that you do not remember,” Ilya starts tentatively. “And I need to tell you because-” He shakes his head, flashing Shane a pained smile. “Because I do not think I can carry on much longer without you knowing.”

Shane inhales, quiet but sharp, and he looks…scared. He doesn’t know what Ilya is going to say, Ilya doesn’t think, but his mind has definitely gone somewhere. He looks at Ilya like he’s bracing himself.

Wetting his lip, he tries to put it into words. “We are- We have been-” He grits his teeth, cursing under his breath in Russian. Why is it so fucking hard to say in English? Every word sounds wrong. “Seeing each other,” he lands on finally. “For- for long time and-”

“Seeing each other, like how?” Shane interrupts and he sounds vaguely like he’s choking.

Ilya levels him with a look. Shane might have forgotten him but he’s pretty sure you can’t forget you’re gay.

“You know like how,” he says, beseeching. He needs Shane to meet him halfway here, to read the parts Ilya doesn’t know how to say out loud. He’d gotten used to Shane doing that now, the plain way he knew how to cut through Ilya’s fumbling attempts at connection.

Now, all Shane seems to be able to do is stare at him.

Ilya waits, fingers curling around the edges of the coffee table to stop himself from fidgeting. He knows better than to rush Shane. He needs to figure out what he wants to say on his own.

Except, what he wants to say is possibly the worst thing Ilya could’ve hoped for.

“Is this some sort of joke?”

Shane’s voice is too loud in the quiet of the room. It reminds Ilya of a bathroom in Vegas.

Shane had been spiralling then, panicking, but Ilya had been able to pull him back to centre. How is supposed to do that now?

“What? No, Shane-”

“No.” Shane pushes himself back on the couch as if he’s only just realised how much he’d been leaning forward. “No, what the fuck is this? You- you convince Rose to let you in all so you can, what? Mess with my head? Make fun of me for not remembering? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ilya shakes his head, feeling desperation edge its way into his voice. “No. That’s not what I- Shane, just listen-”

“Fuck you.”

Shane shakes his head and Ilya knows things have never been perfect between them but Shane has never looked at him like this. Like Ilya is someone he can’t trust.

“I’m not lying. Okay? I am telling you the truth-”

“And why the fuck would I believe you?” Shane demands. He’s angry but the tremor in the middle of his words betrays him – he’s scared. Ilya doesn’t want him to be scared.

He stares at him, helpless, before his eyes catch on Shane’s phone left forgotten on the couch. There’s one way he can prove this.

“Call Lily.”

Shane jerks his head back. It’s clearly the last thing he expected Ilya to say. “What?”

“Lily,” he repeats. “Call the number.”

Shane frowns, eyes skittering to his phone and then back to Ilya. “What are you- No. Why would I-?”

Ilya releases a frustrated breath, fishing his own phone out of his pocket and dialling Shane’s number instead. He only has to wait a couple of seconds for Shane’s phone to light up and start vibrating.

Shane’s eyes snap to it, watching the name Lily flash across the screen uncomprehendingly.

“Look,” Ilya insists, turning his own phone screen around so Shane can see the ‘Calling Jane…’ at the top.

Shane gapes at him, seemingly completely lost for words.

Ilya ends the call, opening their text thread and then reaching for Shane’s phone to do the same. He unlocks it quickly, finding their conversation in seconds. He turns both phones around to show Shane.

“Same conversation,” he says breathlessly, holding onto both phones so tightly he’s sure they’ll snap. “I am not lying. I promise.”

Shane’s eyes dart between the two phones, his expression caught, and Ilya tries one last time.

“I am Lily. You’re Jane.”

Shane looks at him and Ilya knows, finally, that he believes him.

Except then Shane starts hyperventilating.

Rozanov says they’ve been seeing each other and the first irrational thought that enters Shane’s head is: he knows.

Somehow, Ilya Rozanov knows Shane’s secret. Knows he likes men, knows he kind of, sort of had a crush on him once maybe, and now he’s using it against Shane. Hayden and the internet and everyone were right: Rozanov hates him and he’s going out of his way to fuck with Shane’s head.

Except, in all of Shane’s fantasising and speculating he’s done the past few weeks, he never pegged Rozanov as cruel.

Seeing Lily’s name flash across his screen when Rozanov calls him a few minutes later elicits an entirely different kind of panic because that means-

He’s been-

They’ve been-

He’s not sure when he stops breathing – or maybe he’s breathing too fast? – but one minute, he’s staring at their phone screens side by side and the next, his vision is swimming. His chest feels like its caving in on itself and he can’t get any air in his lungs and when the fuck did the room get so small and-

“Shane.”

He hears his own name vaguely, through accented English, but it feels too far away.

“Shane.”

A hand accompanies the name now, squeezing the back of his neck, and when had Shane even hunched over? The hand though – it’s firm, grounding. It squeezes again and then there are fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck.

He tries for a ragged breath that doesn’t go anywhere but the pain in his chest only increases.

“Shane, it’s okay.” The hand jostles his neck a little and Shane forces his eyes shut, trying to focus on the touch and that alone.

It’s not- it’s familiar. Sort of. Or, at the very least, his body seems to recognise it.

“Is okay,” the voice says again. Rozanov. “Just breathe.”

When he’s able to push past the sound of blood rushing in his ears he realises he can hear breathing. Like Rozanov is purposely breathing louder so Shane can copy him. After what feels like far too long Shane manages to pull in a heaving breath in time with him and the hand at his neck squeezes again.

“Good. Keep going.”

In some corner of his mind, he’s reeling at the way the commanding care in Rozanov’s voice is actually working but he can’t think about it for too long right now with the way his lungs still feel like they’re on fire.

Eventually, he manages to find something of a steady rhythm and opening his eyes doesn’t feel quite so painful.

His head is still hanging down where he’s braced over his knees so all he really sees is the floor at first. Hesitantly, he raises his head and comes face to face with Rozanov. He’s so close it’s disarming but somehow it doesn’t feel like he’s crowding Shane either.

Rozanov lets out a sigh that sounds like relief and offers him a careful smile, rubbing over the spot between Shane’s shoulderblades. “You’re okay,” he says, a reminder. “I promise. Everything is okay.”

Shane stares at him, searching for any trace of deception in his gaze. “You’re telling the truth?” he rasps.

Rozanov nods, expression quietly heartbroken in a way that can’t be fake. “Yes,” he says, voice hardly above a whisper.

Shane opens and closes his mouth around words he doesn’t have until Rozanov’s penetrating gaze becomes too much. He collapses back against the couch in disbelief, dragging his free hand over his face. It dislodges Rozanov’s hand and, ridiculously, he misses the warmth. “Fuck.”

Rozanov makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh. He’s rolling back his shoulders and staring somewhere around Shane’s knee when Shane looks at him.

“Yes.”

Silence falls between them and Rozanov pushes himself up off the coffee table after a moment’s hesitation. The hysterical part of Shane’s brain thinks he’s just planned to drop that bomb and leave but all he does is move to sit beside Shane on the couch. He leaves a careful distance between them but Shane can’t help wondering what it’d be like to close it.

“How long?” The words come out of his mouth before he even realises he’d planned to say them. He figures it’s probably the most pressing question.

Rozanov’s mouth quirks for a moment before his expression smooths out again as he meets Shane’s gaze. “Um, what is last moment you remember? Between us, I mean.”

He wets his lip, already feeling heat rise to his cheeks before he admits, “The gym. After the draft.”

Rozanov smirks for real this time, a quick burst of a chuckle escaping his mouth, and fuck, Shane must’ve been just as obvious as he was afraid he was that night. Rozanov doesn’t actually acknowledge what happened between them though, instead answering Shane’s earlier question.

“We, ah, filmed a commercial together. Summer before rookie season. Do you remember anything about that?”

Shane frowns, casting around in his mind for anything familiar. “I think…I remember talking to my mom about it, maybe? But I don’t remember filming it or anything.”

Rozanov nods and Shane doesn’t miss the flicker of disappointment that flashes across his face.

“Well, after filming commercial,” he explains. “That was first night we…” He gestures vaguely with his hand and Shane feels himself flush again.

Jesus Christ.

This is insane.

He’s not fucking blind. Obviously, he knows Ilya Rozanov is beautiful. He thought it when he was seventeen and he thinks it now. But the idea that he wasn’t delusional? That he not only was right about the fission of electricity between them he felt in the gym but that Rozanov somehow reciprocated? And still does after all these years?

“Since 2010?” he croaks.

Rozanov – Ilya, he should probably start calling him Ilya if it’s been that long – bobs his head, looking almost bashful. “Since 2010,” he confirms.

Shane sits with that for a moment.

This past month, thinking he’s missed out on so much of his life, has been hard. But he’d almost come to a sort of happy medium. If he couldn’t remember his life at least he had hundreds of games to rewatch and remind him. He’d counted himself lucky; all his most important moments had been captured on film.

Except.

Except this.

A whole part of his life that he never even knew existed. A part of his life no one knows exist, it seems like.

“Does anyone know?” he asks.

Ilya exhales, careful and controlled. He’s looking at the coffee table when he answers. “My friend, Svetlana. She figured it out after the accident but she will not tell anyone. She has known about me since we were teenagers. She will protect us, I promise.”

He looks up at his last words, holding Shane’s gaze until Shane nods to show he’s heard him.

“And, um, Rose,” Ilya adds more awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to tell her but she was only person who knew you were gay and I didn’t know who else would listen to me if I asked them to tell me how you were. I was- scared. I’m sorry.”

“It- it’s okay.”

He doesn’t really know if it is, or if it would be to the version of him that remembers everything. But he’d been having a hard enough time wrapping his head around the fact that he dated and broke up with a famous movie star and still somehow managed to stay friends with her. The idea that she knows he likes men and specifically likes Ilya Rozanov kind of makes the rest of that puzzle slot into place.

Also, just- Rozanov looks so miserable and Shane wonders briefly at what the past month must’ve been like for him.

If no one else knew the truth and Shane wasn’t talking to him either…

He’d been watching the playoffs and the commentators had all been saying Rozanov’s poor showing had been a result of him grieving his father after he passed away earlier in the year which is probably true. But there’s a very quiet, very private part of Shane’s brain questioning if any of it had to do with him.

It’s incredibly selfish and he’d never dare say it out loud but the thought is there.

“So we’re like, together?” he asks, partly to shake away his previous thoughts and partly in hopes of answering them.

Ilya tips his head back against the back of the couch, tilting his chin to look at him, as his mouth curls up in a rueful smile. “Is complicated question.”

He blows out a breath, scratching absent-mindedly at his ear. “We, um- we were casual. For very long time,” he explains. “But things have been different since All Star Game this year.”

Shane frowns. Rose told him they dated in late 2016 but they must’ve broken up by the New Year. “Different how?”

Ilya exhales again, shakier this time, and directs his answer to the coffee table. “After you broke up with Rose we…talked. Or- you made us talk.”

He says it with a smile, a faraway fondness in his eyes. Shane can’t fathom that it’s for him.

“We do not pretend we don’t like each other anymore,” Ilya says finally, meeting his gaze. “We have not really given it a name. Being together- it is complicated.”

Shane nods. The thought of coming out is terrifying enough without imagining the reaction people would have to them coming out together.

“But we text more now,” Ilya continues. “And talk more. On the phone and in person. And it’s- it’s nice.”

He says the word ‘nice’ quietly, almost sheepishly, like he’s embarrassed to admit to wanting something so simple but Shane thinks he understands. The idea of finding someone he’d feel that comfortable with has always felt farfetched. Not for the first time, his amnesia feels like a vicious betrayal. Yet another thing he had that it took from him.

“So it’s not casual anymore?” he guesses and Ilya releases a faint laugh.

“I have learned I’m not very good at being casual about you.”

Being hit with the full force of those words and Ilya’s soft eyes is possibly more than Shane’s broken brain can take right now so he ducks his head, hiding his blush and his flustered, bewildered smile until his eyes land on his phone and he realises something else entirely.

“You know my phone passcode.”

Ilya blinks, clearly not following his train of thought, and Shane shakes his head.

“Sorry. Just- I don’t even know my phone passcode. I tried all my old ones and none of them worked; I’ve just been using my thumbprint.” Which is getting increasingly annoying every time it doesn’t immediately recognise him. “Hayden and my parents didn’t know it either. But you unlocked my phone earlier to show me the texts.”

A strange look passes over Ilya’s face and his eyes dart away before skittering back again.

“It’s-” He clears his throat. “It’s 1410.”

Shane frowns, picking up his phone and trying it. Sure enough, it unlocks on the first go.

“What’s 1410 about?”

Ilya coughs, a strangled sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “It is your hotel room number from first time we…” He trails off, widening his eyes, and Shane feels his mouth drop open in shock.

“Oh- oh.”

“I was the one who changed it,” Ilya says, apologetically, as if he wants to reassure Shane that he’s not actually that sentimental. “Last time we were together. As joke. I said our jersey numbers were too obvious.”

Shane nods vaguely, staring down at his phone like it holds all the secrets to how he used to feel. He thinks it might. “I mean, I clearly never changed it back.”

He meets Ilya’s eyes and they’re soft again, painfully so, as he shrugs. “No,” he murmurs. “You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry I don’t remember,” he blurts out. Guilt presses heavy on his chest - and a kind of longing too, he thinks.

A hidden, desperate part of him wishes he could be the man Ilya is looking at like that.

Now, Ilya only shakes his head, resigned. “Is okay. Not your fault.” His hand twitches on his lap like he’s going to reach out but he doesn’t.

Shane kind of wishes he would. Just to know how it feels.

“Has anything come back?”

He shrugs, embarrassed. “Not really. I’ve been trying to keep track. And I dream about uh…hockey a lot,” he admits.

Ilya laughs before he can say anymore. “Of course you do.”

Shane feels himself flush. It’s said too fondly to even be considered a chirp and he wonders idly if this is what flirting feels like. “Anyway I can never really tell if it’s real or not. But that’s kind of…it. For now, at least.”

Ilya nods. Before he can say anything, his phone chimes with a notification, startling them both, and he pauses to check it. “Rose is on her way back,” he says, flashing Shane a small smile. “I should probably go.”

“Are you- I mean, are you going back to Boston today?”

Ilya looks him, eyes flickering all over Shane’s face for a beat too long until he shakes his head. “No. I- Not for a few days.”

“My parents aren’t back until Thursday. If you- I mean, if you wanted to talk some more, we could.”

He doesn’t have time to feel nervous when Ilya starts nodding before he even finishes speaking.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Shane breathes. “Tomorrow, then? You can come over whenever. My days are pretty wide open lately.”

Ilya lets out an amused huff, nodding towards Shane’s phone where it’s sitting in his lap. “I’ll text you.”

Shane already knows he’s going to read every single text they’ve ever sent each other the second Ilya’s gone. He can’t believe he ever thought Lily was a girl.

“Sounds good.”

Ilya stands, something reluctant in his face when he turns back to Shane. “Bye, Hollander.”

Shane belatedly realises he should probably offer to walk him out but Ilya clearly knows his way around his place. And anyway, Shane doesn’t know if his legs are strong enough to walk right now.

So he stays on the couch and feels his breath catch a little when Ilya smiles at him, and says. “Bye, Rozanov.”

*

He hears the front door open again approximately ten minutes after Ilya leaves, followed by a tentative, “Shane?”

“In the living room,” he calls.

There’s the brief sound of footsteps and then Rose is appearing at the side of the couch.

She doesn’t move to sit down right away, hovering uncertainly. “How, um- how did that go? Did you talk or-?”

“You mean did we talk about the fact that I’ve apparently been having sex with Ilya Rozanov since 2010?” he asks wryly. “Yeah, it came up.”

Rose’s face scrunches up in a chagrined laugh and she flops down next to him on the couch. “Well, I wasn’t gonna say it like that.” Rearranging herself, she tucks one of her legs underneath her and props her elbow against the back of the couch to face Shane. “But for the record, well done. I am extremely impressed and not at all jealous.”

Shane lets out an embarrassed huff of laughter, rubbing at his eyebrow. He still can’t quite believe the last hour has been real. He hadn’t…forgotten that he was attracted to men, obviously. But he’d also never even considered the possibility Lily might be a man. Or that he would ever feel okay enough to tell anyone the truth. But Rose clearly knows.

“How come you didn’t tell me you knew?”

Her expression sobers almost immediately and she reaches out to touch his hand. “I’m sorry,” she says seriously. “I wanted to but- you didn’t remember me and I didn’t want to freak you out. Or overwhelm you. Especially if you didn’t feel comfortable with me yet. And then Ilya contacted me and it got so much more complicated and-” She cuts herself off, taking a breath and squeezing Shane’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he says and he finds that he means it. He probably would’ve freaked out if she’d sprung it on him right after he’d met her again for the first time.

And he supposes it’s never really a good time to tell your amnesiac friend, ‘Hey, by the way, I know you’re gay!’

God, has he- is that what he is? Is that what he calls himself? He never used to let himself think about it too much before but seven years of sleeping with another guy kind of feels hard to deny. He shakes his head; he can dwell on it later.

“It does make a hell of a lot more sense why you still kept talking to me after we broke up though,” he adds.

Rose huffs, rolling her eyes. “I kept talking to you because you’re sweet and funny and I like talking to you, Shane.”

He ducks his head, hiding his smile, but he doesn’t protest when she turns his hand over to slot their fingers together. He doesn’t know if he’s ever really been friends with a girl like this before. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

“When did you find out?” he asks then, meeting her eyes again. “About Ilya, I mean.”

“Only when he called me,” she says. “You’d told me you’d been with a guy before and I suspected you were seeing someone these past few months just because you seemed so happy but I didn’t know it was him.”

Shane absorbs that, trying to imagine the version of himself that existed this year that she and Ilya both described.

“I seemed happy?”

Rose grins conspiratorially. “Like a teenager with a crush.”

He lets out a groan, letting go of her hand in a vain attempt  at covering his face while she scoffs beside him. “That’s embarrassing.”

“Look,” she says after a moment and he makes himself face her again. “I don’t really know Ilya all that well but-…he really cares about you. He took a big risk contacting me but he did it anyway because he needed to know you were okay.”

Shane nods. It’s still hard to wrap his head around most of it, honestly. Ilya Rozanov wants him. Has always wanted him. Wants him bad enough he’ll apparently out himself to a complete stranger just for a chance to talk to Shane again.

“I can’t believe Ilya Rozanov likes me.” It sounds so juvenile he can’t help the hysterical laugh that bubbles out of him but Rose laughs with him, patting his knee encouragingly.

“Well, I can’t fault your taste,” she teases, gesturing to herself. “You clearly only date tens.”

He rolls his eyes, not quite able to keep his smile out of his voice. “Clearly.”

“How about I make us some food and you can tell me about how your conversation actually went?”

“Sure,” he agrees and Rose pats his knee again before pushing herself up from the couch.

Once she’s gone he picks up his phone, turning it over in his hand. When he moves to unlock it he purposely makes sure his thumb lands off centre so it’ll prompt him to give his passcode instead. He types it in with a quiet thrill thrumming in his veins.

1410, huh?

*

It’s a miracle Shane sleeps at all that night.

He stays up far too late, scrolling back through his conversations with Ilya, until there’s a steady throbbing in his temples warning him to put his phone away.

He’d looked before, is the thing.

He’d skimmed a few conversations but he’d never lingered on it too long. He can admit now it’s because the idea of having a secret girlfriend made his stomach twist uncomfortably every time he’d let himself think about it.

Looking at it now though, it’s easy to chart the progression of their relationship.

Is it a relationship?

He has no idea.

But true to Ilya’s word, they’ve texted a lot since January. They’re mostly quick bursts of conversations about hockey or when they’re going to see each other again or nothing in particular.

There’s a gaping hole of silence between October 2016 and January 2017 which Shane guesses is a result of him dating Rose and it makes him wonder about the timeline. The last message he has before a ‘Here’ he text Ilya – most likely when they were in Tampa – was a ‘See you soon’ from Ilya after Shane told him he was on the way.

Ilya never explained how Rose fit into everything and Rose didn’t know when he asked but something must’ve happened.

The texts prior to that are flirty, eager. Always teasing, always looking towards the next time they might see each other.

Ilya had said they were casual for a long time and Shane can sort of see it. Their texts before this year are generally about hooking up and not much else but he also feels like there’s something very not-casual about it all.

He remembers then, how Ilya had described it.

We do not pretend we don’t like each other anymore.

He thinks they probably liked each other for a long time.

He spends the following morning nervously pacing around his apartment. They’d never agreed on what time Ilya would come over but Shane feels weird being the one to text. Which is stupid because Ilya got knocked out of the playoffs three days ago and the first thing he did was go see Shane. Ilya obviously wants to see him and if he knows Shane at all then he should know Shane likes set times.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Shane’s phone chimes.

Lily: I will come at 12 if that’s okay?

It’s 11:30 now. That’s fine. That’s thirty minutes for him to figure out what the fuck he wants to say and ask.

He texts back an affirmative and tries his best not to panic.

*

Ilya knocks on the front door at exactly 12pm.

Shane stifles his nerves and opens the door, letting out a, “Hi,” that’s far more breathless than he’d planned.

He’d be more embarrassed if Ilya’s own, “Hi,” wasn’t just as hopeful.

Shane steps back to let him through, closing the door as Ilya shuffles out of his shoes. He nudges them in against the wall next to Shane’s like it’s a practiced routine and Shane is once again reminded Ilya has been here multiple times before.

He clears his throat, ignoring the thought for now. “Should we- uh, we can go to the living room? Do you want a drink or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Ilya says politely, already making his way towards the couch.

Shane can do nothing but follow.

Once they’re situated, almost an exact mirror to their positions from yesterday, Ilya turns to look at him.

“So,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Have you made your list of questions?”

“What?”

“What? You are telling me you have no questions? That you did not spend last night making list of all the things you want to ask me?”

He hadn’t actually gotten as far as writing down his questions but he’d definitely been drafting a list in his head with every text conversation he read. Fuck, Rozanov really did know him well, didn’t he?

“I don’t really know where to start,” he admits and Ilya’s expression softens.

“Shane, you do not-” Ilya pauses, his mouth working, until he finally continues. “I am not expecting anything here, okay? I’m just happy I can talk to you again. Whatever you want to know, I will tell you.”

The idea of Ilya wanting nothing more than to talk to him, like nothing matters more than that, feels impossible to parse. But he can’t find it in himself to doubt the sincerity in Ilya’s expression either.

“Anything I want to know?” he confirms and Ilya nods.

“What happened when I started dating Rose?”

Ilya stiffens immediately, looking down and away, and Shane silently curses himself. Fuck, why’d he have to start there?

“I just- I read through our texts last night and the last one before the All Star game was me saying I was on the way to your place. Or I’m guessing it was your place?” Shane feels like he’s floundering but Ilya finally looks at him again so that helps.

“How did it go from that to me dating Rose?”

Ilya doesn’t answer right away, casting a glance around the room like it might have the answers for him. In the end, he sighs and picks at one of the couch cushions instead of meeting Shane’s gaze.

“We got scared,” he mutters. “I was- I wanted to make it…more. But I didn’t do it right, wasn’t clear enough. And you left.”

Shane frowns. It’s not that he thinks Ilya is lying but his answer doesn’t exactly clear things up. “What d’you mean? Did we fight or something?”

Ilya lets out a humourless laugh, offering him a sidelong glance. “No. We called each other by our first names.”

Shane raises his eyebrows. Seriously? That’s it? “And that made me run away?” he asks sceptically.

This time, Ilya’s laugh is more genuine. “You have to understand – was big step for us. And- and we both knew it meant something more. I don’t- I don’t know if we ever really had sex without feelings but we used to be good at pretending we could.” He shrugs. “We forgot to pretend that day.”

“Oh.” That pulls Shane up short.

He wishes he could remember, wishes he knew what his headspace was like when they were together.

The Ilya he’s talking to now is so open but maybe he’s only like that now after the reassurance of the last few months. Or because he feels he has nothing to lose when Shane doesn’t remember them in the first place.

They probably didn’t talk like this before.

“So you read our texts?” Ilya asks then, most likely trying to change the subject. It works, if only because the slight suggestion in his voice makes Shane flush.

“Yeah, um. I didn’t get all the way back to the start but I got-” He clears his throat, “far enough.”

Ilya raises his eyebrows and the familiar cocky smirk Shane was always on the receiving end of all those years ago makes a reappearance. It’s just as infuriatingly attractive now.

Ilya’s definitely thinking about the sexts. And now Shane’s thinking about the sexts and this is so embarrassing when he doesn’t even remember doing any of that.

He groans, slouching back against the couch and dragging a hand through his hair so he doesn’t have to make direct eye contact. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Ilya asks innocently.

Shane lifts his hand to narrow his eyes at him. Ilya’s eyes are wide and unassuming but his mouth is twitching like he’s trying desperately not to smile.

“I’m not taking any responsibility for those texts. I don’t remember sending them.”

Ilya scoffs. “Ah but you did send them. I can remember enough for the both of us.”

His eyes travel over Shane’s face for a beat, a slow appraisal, before he catches himself and his face seems to go forcefully blank. It’s funny, in a completely nonsensical sort of way. How the fuck is Ilya Rozanov sitting in front of him and actively trying not to check Shane out?

“You know, it’s still kind of hard for me to get my head around this,” Shane says slowly. “Like, in my head I’ve never even kissed a guy before.”

Ilya’s expression catches for a beat, too many emotions flickering across his face for Shane to parse any of them. In the end, he only smiles, light and conspiratorial. “Well, I can confirm you have kissed a guy many times. You are even good at it.”

Shane barks out a flustered laugh, shaking his head. “Fuck off.”

“No, really. I can give you score out of ten if you would like.”

“Are you always like this?” he asks, trying for exasperated and hoping it doesn’t come off as delighted instead.

Ilya cocks an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“An asshole.”

He expects Ilya to scoff or laugh or tease him some more. He definitely doesn’t expect the hitching breath or the glassy-eyed grin Ilya offers him instead. It disarms him, making Shane feel wrong-footed in their conversation again. Ilya glances down and when he looks back up he’s recovered, somewhat. Though his eyes remain unbearably soft.

“Can I ask you how you are feeling now?” he asks.

“How I’m feeling?” Shane repeats dumbly.

Ilya inclines his head slowly. “Yes. If you have more questions I can answer them but I want to know how you are dealing with all of this…If you want to tell me.”

“I…”

It’s not that no one has asked Shane how he’s feeling. He’s actually kind of sick of talking about how he’s feeling. But there’s something about the way Ilya asks it, like he’s not asking for himself, like he only wants to hear it if it’ll make Shane feel better.

He picks at the edge of his sling, trying to gather his thoughts.

“It’s- I’m okay,” he says after a beat. “The doctor said my procedural memory isn’t affected so I should still be able to play hockey.”

“You could still play hockey better than most of league even if they blindfolded you and cut off one of your arms.” Ilya says it so matter-of-factly it makes Shane huff out a laugh.

“Maybe,” he mumbles. “I won’t be able to know for sure until I get rid of the sling though. And like, I know I haven’t forgotten how to skate but- I’m missing almost eight years of experience. Eight years of improving and learning how to be better and I don’t know how much of that can just be muscle memory, y’know?”

“Shane.” Ilya nudges his knee with his own, prompting him to meet his gaze. “It will come back to you. All of it. There is no universe where Shane Hollander is not second best player in the MLH.”

“Second best?” he retorts.

Ilya hums. “Mm. Don’t worry; is better for you. Being the best is a lot of pressure, you know.”

A reluctant laughs pulls its way out of Shane’s chest and Ilya smiles like that’s all he’d wanted.

It makes a specific kind of longing twist behind his ribs.

“It’s not just hockey,” he says. “It’s feeling out of control and out of my depth and-” He sighs, wondering if he looks as helpless as he feels when he meets Ilya’s eyes. “And like the stuff that matters most is just…gone.”

Shane Hollander has called Ilya a lot of things over the last almost-decade.

Ilya’s not sure if he’s ever called him the thing that matters most.

But Shane is looking at him with those wide, lethal, teary brown eyes and Ilya doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to think Shane is talking about.

He swallows, feeling his throat click with the action. “It’s not,” he says when he can manage to make his voice work. “Gone, I mean.”

There’s a desperate edge to Shane’s expression, like he wants nothing more than to believe Ilya. It’s impossible, Ilya thinks, just how many tears can gather in his eyes without falling.

“What if I never remember?” he whispers tremulously.

It’s a thought Ilya doesn’t even want to consider, even though he knows he should.

“Then you make new memories,” he says now, somehow sounding steadier than he feels.

Shane nods, rubbing absently at his eye, and the wobble of his lip is almost enough to kill Ilya on the spot if not for the fact that his next words are, “Is it really selfish if I want the old ones back though?”

He doesn’t think before he does it.

He just sees Shane – scared and sad and longing for something he thinks is out of reach – and something in him snaps.

Reaching up, he fits a careful hand to Shane’s cheek and pulls him in. He feels Shane’s breath hitch just before he slots their lips together. It’s nothing more than a dry press – pillow-soft and more than Ilya ever thought he’d get to have again. He only allows it to last a few seconds but he adds another peck for good measure before he pulls away, gliding his thumb over Shane’s cheekbone.

“There,” he murmurs, only leaning back far enough to look at him. “A new memory that is same as old one.”

Shane’s eyelashes flutter, his eyes unfocused for a second until they land on Ilya. And god, Ilya wants to kiss him again more than he’s ever wanted to kiss him in the past decade. He stops himself, if only because things are too precarious between them right now to assume Shane even wants that. He settles for grazing the backs of his fingers over Shane’s cheek before he finally makes himself let go of him completely.

Shane’s mouth parts but all that comes out is a disbelieving puff of air – too soft to count as laughter. “We’ve um, we’ve kissed here before?” he breathes.

They’ve done much more than kiss on this couch. Shane would probably die if Ilya told him that though.

“I’ve kissed you all over this apartment,” Ilya tells him and he gets to delight in Shane’s cheeks turning his favourite shade of pink.

“Really?” Shane grins, a little dazed and the exact kind of too-sweet that always makes Ilya want to look away.

It’s been so long since he was on the receiving end of it, Ilya’s pretty sure he’ll never allow himself to look away from it ever again.

“Really,” he says, unable to help himself when he knocks their foreheads together – a gentle, affectionate bump that he’s sure completely gives him away.

Shane is still grinning when Ilya leans back, something considering in his eyes. “I guess I never really thought about that.”

And Ilya knows where this could go, knows – as well as he knows the back of his own hand – that if he pushes all the right buttons and flirts the way Shane likes this will end with Shane on his back and Ilya crawling over him.

But he can’t do that right now, not when Shane is still so confused. Not when Shane has only known the truth for twenty-four hours.

So he allows the conversation to drift into safer territory and breathes a private sigh of relief when Shane lets him.

“How about I give you play by play of all our games? You can get live action review of every time I beat you.”

Shane snorts. “You remember every single one of our games?”

Ilya has never forgotten a single second he’s spent in Shane’s presence. He probably shouldn’t tell him that though.

“Of course I do,” he says instead.

Shane stares at him like he’s trying to figure Ilya out. Ilya doesn’t know if he comes to any conclusions but he nods all the same a moment later. “Sure. But I’ve already watched all my highlight reels so I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Ilya barks out a laugh. “Of course you have.”

*

Later, once Ilya has talked himself hoarse relaying their entire career, when Shane is walking him to the door he asks, “So have we ever kissed goodbye here before?” and Ilya can’t help himself.

He turns in the threshold, testing the waters by catching his fingers around Shane’s hand. “Not at front door, no.”

Shane ducks his head, staring at their hands and letting out a quiet, “Oh.” When he raises his head again, there’s resolution in his expression. “So if we did, it’d be a new memory.”

Ilya exhales, not sure if it might turn into a laugh or a cry, and uses the hold he has on Shane’s hand to tug him forward.

He goes easily, like he always does, and Ilya curls his free hand around Shane’s jaw to smooth the last few seconds before their mouths find each other. Shane is more responsive this time, mouth moving tentatively against Ilya’s and fuck- it feels like the first time. Like they could be in a hotel room in Toronto while the whole world tilts on its axis.

He’s smiling and he knows it and it makes kissing with any kind of finesse hard but he can’t help it. He kisses Shane once, twice, on the mouth before pressing his lips to his cheek and jaw in quick succession and burying his face under the curve of Shane’s neck.

“I missed you,” he breathes out before he can stop himself.

Shane shivers at the words, his fingers tightening around Ilya’s where their hands are still locked together. “Is it weird if I say I kind of feel like I missed you too?”

Ilya leans back, shaking his head so he doesn’t do something stupid like cry. “No. Is not weird.”

Shane nods, not quite meeting his eyes, but there’s a smile creeping into the corners of his mouth. “I- can I text you? If I have any more questions?”

Ilya wants to point out that he has spent weeks using every single ounce of his willpower not to text Shane every second of the day but he refrains. Instead, he manages a measured, “Yes,” and one last squeeze of Shane’s hand before he lets go.

They say their goodbyes and it’s charged with something that feels an awful lot like promise.

It’s all Ilya can do to convince himself not to get his hopes up as he walks away.

*

Ilya feels a little like he’s floating as he lets himself back into his hotel room, phone already pressed to his ear and dialling Svetlana’s number.

“So how did it go?” she asks by way of greeting.

He sighs in answer, dreamy and embarrassing, as he flops onto his bed. “Sveta, I think I’m in trouble.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I think I might be even more in love with him than I thought,” he confesses.

Svetlana makes an indignant noise on the other end of the line. “Ilya!” she admonishes. “I thought something was wrong.”

“Something is wrong,” he says. “I want him more than I ever have and I can’t have him. I can’t come on too strong. I can’t scare him off. He’s- he’s talking to me and he’s letting me in and I know- I know part of him still wants me but what if-”

He cuts himself off instead of finishing the sentence. Now that he’s out of Shane’s orbit it’s not really a surprise that his fears and anxieties are starting to creep back in.

“What if what?” she asks.

“What if he only wants me because he thinks it’s the only option?” he says tentatively. “Before- it wasn’t perfect but he knew me. He knew the good things and the bad things and he wanted me anyway. Now, he only knows what I’ve told him.”

“Ilyushka,” Svetlana sighs, sympathetic. “It’s not like you’re not telling him the truth.”

“It’s not the same,” he mutters.

“Okay. Fine.” Her voice is brusque now, all business. “Say, he never remembers. But he still wants to be with you. What are you gonna do then?”

“I-”

“You’re telling me you’d just let him go?”

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

“It’s been two days,” she murmurs. “Give him a chance.”

“I know,” he says, half-burying his face in the pillow beneath his head. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” she says primly. “Now, tell me how it actually went.”

Ilya considers what to reveal for a moment or two but the, “I kissed him,” bursts out of him before he can stop himself.

“Ilya!” she exclaims.

“Twice,” he admits and the sound of Svetlana’s disbelieving laughter fills his ear.

“You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“He wanted me to kiss him.”

“Oh I’m sure he did.”

“Sveta,” he groans, slinging a hand over his face.

When her laughter finally subsides, she’s much quieter but Ilya can still hear the grin in her voice. “I like this.”

“Like what?” he says, the words half-muffled by his hand.

“You, talking about him,” she explains. “You didn’t get to do that before.”

She has a point. She might’ve known about Jane’s existence before but he never actually told her anything, always too afraid that she’d put the pieces together. He should’ve known she would anyway.

And, he’d take back Shane’s accident and every single second of the last month if he could, but he can’t pretend it doesn’t feel nice to confide in her. To be just as pathetically in love and soft about Shane as he wants to be. In an ideal world, maybe he could’ve done this from the start. Maybe he and Shane would’ve figured things out a lot quicker then. Either way, he’s grateful for her. He doesn’t think he would’ve survived the last month without her.

“Thank you for letting me talk about him,” he murmurs.

“Of course.” She takes a breath then, clearly done with the softness for now. “Now, when Shane is feeling better and everything is okay again I expect you to tell me in excruciating detail what a good kisser he is.”

Ilya lets out shocked laugh, curling up on his side. “He’s such a good fucking kisser, Sveta.”

“I knew it.”

*

Jane: I have a question

Ilya grins down at his phone, thankful he’s alone in a hotel room so no one can see just how pathetically weak he gets over something as simple as a text. Today has been long. Shane’s parents were back from Ottawa so Ilya had sequestered himself to the hotel room. The most useful thing he’d done was contact his coach and his agent and tell them he had family business to attend to in Russia for the next few weeks if anyone needed him.

Shane hasn’t exactly asked him to stay but he hasn’t told Ilya to leave either so he’ll stick around as long as he can.

Lily: What’s the question?

Jane: Do I drink coke now?

Ilya frowns. He’d assumed Shane had a question about them, not…wherever this is leading.

Lily: No?

Lily: You drink ginger ale

The reply is instantaneous.

Jane: That’s what I thought!

Jane: Why is there coke in my fridge then?

Jane: It’s there from before the accident.

And Ilya’s heart shouldn’t clench over something as stupid as a few cans of Coke but here he is, holding back tears anyway.

Lily: Because I drink coke maybe

Jane: Oh.

The typing bubbles start and stop so many times Ilya wonders if he’ll ever actually get a reply but right as his phone screen dims with disuse a text comes through.

Jane: You were supposed to come over the night of the accident, weren’t you?

Jane: The last text I sent you was the front door code.

Of course Shane would put that together. Ilya considers denying it in some vain attempt to spare Shane’s feelings but he’s pretty sure there’s no point. Even through text and with amnesia on top of it, he thinks Shane still knows how to see right through him.

Lily: Yes.

Jane: Sorry.

Lily: Hollander, stop apologising. It’s not your fault.

There’s no reply for a minute or two and Ilya wonders if that’ll be the end of their conversation. It’s still only been a couple of days; he shouldn’t push Shane too much. He’d meant what he’d said to Svetlana yesterday: he doesn’t want Shane doing this if it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to want. Before he can dwell on it for too long another text comes through.

Jane: Thank you for coming over again yesterday.

Jane: I know it’s probably not easy explaining all this stuff to me but I appreciate it.

Ilya sighs, resisting the urge to hit the call button. He makes himself type out a reply instead.

Lily: I’m just happy I get to talk to you again

Jane: So you don’t mind if I keep asking questions

Lily: You love asking questions

Lily: Is your favourite thing to do even without amnesia

Jane: I resent that

Lily: It’s okay though. I like your questions

Lily: Usually.

His phone stays silent for a few minutes and Ilya is just about to resign himself to ordering room service and calling it a night but then another text comes through.

Jane: When are you going back Boston?

He chews on the inside of his mouth, considering the best way to reply that doesn’t give himself away.

Lily: No one will be looking for me for another few weeks

Jane: Okay.

Jane: So we could see each other again maybe? If you don’t mind staying a little longer.

Jesus Christ. Does Ilya need to tattoo ‘I’m in love with Shane Hollander’ to his forehead for Shane to get that he wants to stick around?

Lily: I don’t mind. Just tell me time and date

Jane: I will.

Jane: Thanks.

Ilya types out a goodnight and puts his phone aside; he really should order food. He’s only just picked up the room service menu when his phone buzzes. All it says is a simple, ‘Good night, Ilya’ but after weeks of nothing – or somehow even worse, ‘Good night Lily’s – it feels like a love declaration.

Closing his eyes, he presses his phone to his chest and tries to remember to breathe.

Maybe it’s okay to start feeling a little hopeful.

*

Chapter End Notes

ahh i hope you liked it!!! i promised i would fix the angst askdjfha

also the tumblr post for this chapter is here if you feel like giving it a little reblog 🥰

see you for the last part in a few days!! ❤️

Chapter 3: can you feel it? just the same as before

Chapter Summary

Ilya freezes for a second too long, closing the fridge and spinning around to face Shane just as a familiar voice calls out, “Shane, buddy? Are you awake?”

Hayden fucking Pike.

Ilya stares wide-eyed at Shane, looking to him for some direction on what to do, but Shane is completely stock-still. Mouth slack-jawed and eyes alert with panic.

“Shane?” Hayden calls again. Ilya can hear footsteps now; any second he’ll reach the kitchen and see the two of them.

Ilya cringes, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping the kitchen counter behind him. At least there’s a whole kitchen island between them. It’s too late to move or do anything else.

“Hey, man,” Hayden says when he reaches the kitchen, first only noticing Shane. His eyes sweep across the island then to where Ilya stands and he abruptly comes to a stumbling halt. He stares at Shane and then Ilya and then Shane and then back again until he finally seems to remember how to move his mouth.

“I…what the fuck.”

Chapter Notes

Finishing this chapter has very much been a sprint nd not a marathon these past few days askdjfh but here we are!!! Again, thank you so much to anyone who has left comments already, I appreciate it so much 🥰

chapter title: quietly yours by birdy (which is So fitting for them omg)

Enjoy!! 💖

The next few days of Ilya’s life are categorised by waiting for Shane to text.

It’s a state of being he’s used to – though, before, it was always spaced out, always only on game days.

Except back then, where their limited time was a result of flight schedules and curfews, now it’s because Shane’s parents seem reluctant to leave him alone for more than a couple of hours. Ilya can’t exactly blame them. Shane’s still in a sling and he still doesn’t remember the majority of things about his life even if he’s re-learned most of it by now.

Even still, he knows Shane’s been trying to drop hints that they could go home now.

Ilya’s not sure if it’s working but he’s content to soak up whatever stolen moments he’s allowed in between.

They haven’t kissed again and he wouldn’t try – even if sometimes he thinks Shane wants him to. It’s nice though, just spending time with him. He’s pretty sure they’ve never talked as much as they have this past week.

They mostly talk about hockey because amnesia or not, Shane has a one track mind. But sometimes the conversation slips into something about them. They’re innocuous questions always; he gets the impression Shane is absolutely terrified to ask him anything about sex even though Ilya thinks their feelings outside of that are much scarier.

They’re alone in his kitchen now. Shane’s father has pretty much relegated himself to being back in Ottawa during the weekdays, too busy with work to take any more time off, and his mom is off at meetings to do with his brand deals all day.

It means they have the whole day and Ilya’s going to relish in it for as long as he can.

He’s currently making them lunch, even though Shane had put up a good fight about helping.

His collarbone and shoulder aren’t bothering him as much anymore but Ilya points out there’s no reason to aggravate it.

(Also he likes being allowed to take care of Shane.)

And it’s a familiar sight – Shane sitting on one side of the kitchen island in his sweats, watching as Ilya prepares their food. They’re boring grilled cheeses this time – complete with Shane’s high fibre wholemeal bread and low fat cheese – but Ilya’s pretty sure he hasn’t eaten a tuna melt since that day and he’s not about to do over that memory right now.

“How many times have you been in my apartment?” Shane asks curiously.

Ilya pauses where he’d been rifling through the cutlery drawer, considering. “I don’t know. A lot? First time was 2013.”

“Really?”

Ilya hums, busying himself with cutting their sandwiches. When he looks up Shane is appraising him. His expression is too inscrutable to guess at what he’s thinking though.

“It’s weird, seeing how familiar you are with this place,” Shane explains eventually. “You look more at home here than I feel.”

He doesn’t say it any particular way but Ilya’s heart still clenches in his chest when he looks at him. After pushing Shane’s plate towards him, he rounds the counter to sit beside him, knocking their knees together once he’s situated. “Is still your home. That is only reason I feel comfortable here. Because it’s yours.”

Shane stares at him and Ilya can practically see the words ticking over in his head. “Really?” he asks again, hesitant and hopeful.

Ilya nods, nudging his elbow against Shane’s on top of the island.

“If it makes you feel better,” he says after a beat. “For long time, the only room I was familiar with was your bedroom. But sometimes we have snacks now if we have time.”

Shane snorts out a laugh, head ducked and eyes trained at his plate. He picks up the grilled cheese after a moment’s deliberation, doling out a patented, “You’re an asshole,” before he takes a bite,

Ilya grins to himself and focuses on his own food.

It’s strange the way Shane is different but somehow still the same.

There’s a distance between them now, obviously. A gap where Ilya’s memory stretches back and Shane’s ends. It should make things stilted between them – and it does, sometimes. When Ilya is too familiar or Shane goes quiet in a way that makes it clear he’s overthinking everything. But then he smiles at Ilya like he always used to and calls him an asshole in that same familiar, fondly exasperated way and everything feels the same as before.

The feeling never really lasts but it leaves him feeling bolstered every time anyway.

They finish off their food in companionable silence and Ilya goes to the fridge to get them both another drink. They’ll probably move to the living room now. Shane had wanted to rewatch last night’s playoff game. It’s been a good distraction and a good time filler – Ilya’s getting better at talking about his feelings but he’s still no expert.

But watching hockey games with Shane is easy. Shane says he wants to do it to refamiliarise himself with each team’s playing strategy and Ilya is happy to offer his own running commentary on whatever player is relevant to their discussion. It’s light conversation, noncommittal, but he still knows Shane appreciates it.

There’s a reason the two of them are the best in the league.

“Do you want another ginger ale?” he asks, grabbing a Coke for himself.

Shane’s, “Sure, thanks,” is interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

Ilya freezes for a second too long, closing the fridge and spinning around to face Shane just as a familiar voice calls out, “Shane, buddy? Are you awake?”

Hayden fucking Pike.

Ilya stares wide-eyed at Shane, looking to him for some direction on what to do, but Shane is completely stock-still. Mouth slack-jawed and eyes alert with panic.

“Shane?” Hayden calls again. Ilya can hear footsteps now; any second he’ll reach the kitchen and see the two of them.

Ilya cringes, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping the kitchen counter behind him. At least there’s a whole kitchen island between them. It’s too late to move or do anything else.

“Hey, man,” Hayden says when he reaches the kitchen, first only noticing Shane. His eyes sweep across the island then to where Ilya stands and he abruptly comes to a stumbling halt. He stares at Shane and then Ilya and then Shane and then back again until he finally seems to remember how to move his mouth.

“I…what the fuck.”

His voice makes Shane flinch and Ilya is suddenly reminded that this Shane doesn’t know Hayden. Sure, he’s spent time with him over the past month or so and he’s been told Hayden is his best friend but he still doesn’t know him well enough to know how he’d react in this situation. Truthfully, even with all his memories intact he thinks Shane would probably still react the same way.

Ilya doesn’t know if speaking will make things better or worse but one of them has to say something and it’s clearly not going to be Shane.

“Hollander and I were just-”

Pike jerks his chin in Ilya’s direction like he hadn’t expected him to be the one to speak – or like he doesn’t think Ilya has a right to speak. The sharpness of the movement makes him stutter over his words for a second but he forces himself to keep going for Shane’s sake.

“Just, um, going over some games. Getting him up to speed on different players.”

Pike’s expression, if possible, becomes even more mystified and he swings back towards Shane, clearly looking to him for answers.

“Shane, what?”

Shane’s whole body is locked up tight and Ilya wants nothing more than to go over and run a soothing hand between his shoulders until the tension bleeds out of him. He could help him calm down; he knows he could. If Pike would just fuck off.

Shane blinks rapidly, clearly scrambling for something to say. “What, uh, what Rozanov said.”

Hayden shakes his head but Ilya can’t tell if the look on his face is one of shock or anger or hurt. Or maybe it’s a mixture of all three.

“I don’t- why is he even here?” he asks. “How did he-” He stops, turning on Ilya again. “How did you even contact him? Or- or find out where he lives? What the fuck?”

Ilya steels himself. He needs to stay calm. If he bites back and the situation escalates Shane will definitely freak out and who knows if he’ll ever talk to Ilya or Hayden ever again?

“Pike, is not a big deal-”

“Uh, I think I’ll be the judge of that,” he interrupts, something scornful and untrusting in the set of his mouth. “Seriously. What the hell are you doing here, Rozanov? Shane doesn’t need this right now; he’s still recovering and-”

“Hayden, I’m not an invalid,” Shane sighs.

It makes Ilya and Hayden both snap their attention to him. He still looks a little green around the edges but he’s steadier. His gaze flicks to Ilya for the briefest moment – too brief for Ilya to tell what he’s thinking – before he focuses on Hayden.

“We really are just watching hockey,” he says. “Rozanov is helping me catch up on the different teams, players to watch, stuff like that.”

Hayden looks completely bewildered. “And one of the guys on the team couldn’t help with this because…?”

Shane gives a helpless shrug. “You guys were busy with the playoffs.”

“So was he up until a week ago!” Hayden splutters, throwing another confused look in Ilya’s direction.

Ilya, for his part, is still pressed against the kitchen counter and he wonders idly if he presses hard enough could he completely melt into it. Fuck it, he needs to say something else and take the heat off of Shane.

“Maybe I want to make sure Hollander is in top condition for next season,” he says, reaching for the same calm blasé he uses with the press. “Is no fun being the best if my only competition is gone.”

Hayden scoffs but Ilya can tell his words have been somewhat effective. “Shane’s better than you with his eyes closed.”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “I would like to keep finding out, yes? So I help him, make sure there is no unfair advantage.”

“When have you ever played fair?” Hayden retorts and Ilya suppresses the urge to roll his eyes.

“With Hollander and I, is always a fair fight.” He raises his eyebrows as if daring Hayden to disagree but all he does his huff in response.

“You told me I am one of the only people he remembers, yes? We have had same career, I can explain things to him your team cannot. And I want to help, since my teammate was the reason he got hurt.”

Hayden frowns, a deep furrow etched between his eyebrows as he looks between them again. And Ilya can’t really begrudge him for not trusting him but it is frustrating, especially if this leads to him scaring Shane off. Things have been good between them. Shane trusts him; Ilya can’t lose that.

When the silence stretches for too long, Hayden turns to Shane. “Are you really okay with him being here?”

Shane exhales shakily but his voice is sure when he answers. “Yeah, I- he reached out after the season. Offered to help if I needed anything and, well. There’s blanks Rozanov can fill in that you guys can’t.”

Hayden’s expression falls a little but he doesn’t look angry anymore, at least. Ilya takes it as his cue to go.

“I will, uh, get out of your way,” he says awkwardly, flashing Shane what he hopes is a reassuring smile over Hayden’s shoulder. “You don’t need me to babysit now, Hollander.”

Shane looks like he wants to protest but he won’t with Hayden here so he just nods half-heartedly. “I’ll walk you out,” he mumbles.

He pushes himself off the stool and Ilya finally lets go of the counter. He pauses briefly when he reaches Pike, giving him a stiff nod. Pike nods back, unsure and mostly still confused. He and Shane walk to the door in silence and Ilya can feel Shane’s eyes trained on him the entire time he’s putting on his shoes. It isn’t until they’re on either side of the threshold that Shane speaks.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, leaning against the doorjamb and half into Ilya’s space. He’s got one hand on the door like he can shield them both from view just in case Hayden decides to come looking. “I didn’t know he was coming over.”

“It's okay,” Ilya whispers, reaching out and running a careful thumb and forefinger over the strap of Shane’s sling for lack of anything more he can do. “Will you be alright?”

Shane’s eyes tracks the movements of his fingers and when he looks back up there’s a faint smile tucked into the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. I think your story convinced Hayden.”

“I am very good liar,” Ilya agrees and Shane scoffs.

“Sure.”

Their eyes meet and Ilya swallows back the urge to kiss him. He wouldn’t dare with Hayden still in the kitchen, even if he can’t see from there. It’s still too risky. He’s not quite strong enough to stop himself from briefly touching his fingers to Shane’s chin. Shane’s eyes flutter closed at the touch and Ilya makes himself forcibly take a step back as soon as he lets go.

“I will text you later, okay?”

Shane nods, tipping his head against the doorframe. “Okay.”

Ilya allows himself one last look and he turns away. He hears the door close when he’s a few steps away and only then do his shoulders finally drop.

Fuck, that was way too close.

*

Shane ends up calling that night before Ilya can text him.

“Hey,” he says, making himself comfortable on the hotel bed. “Are you okay?”

Shane blows out a breath. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“And Hayden? Was everything okay with him after…?” He’s not really worried but he has to ask anyway. Ilya might not know Hayden Pike very well but he can’t imagine him intentionally doing anything to distress Shane.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “It was fine. I think he believed your story, even if he was still a little confused about why you were there.”

“Okay,” he nods. “Good.”

Shane hums on the other end of the line and silence falls between them. And Ilya could say something, could ask a question or change the topic of conversation, but it feels like Shane isn’t finished talking so he stays quiet.

Sure enough, after a few seconds Shane lets out an uneven, “Fuck.”

His voice is thready when he continues. “That was- We weren’t even doing anything and I still felt so…”

“Scared?” Ilya asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Shane breathes. “Does it always feel like that?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “We have never been caught before.” It’s probably not the most helpful answer but it’s the truth.

“I just- I talk to you or to Rose and you tell me all this stuff about me – all this stuff I’ve kept hidden for so long – like it’s just a known fact and everything feels…easy, like I don’t have to second guess my every move. But then- I forget that I’m still hiding this part of myself from everyone else.”

Shane’s voice is small and Ilya wishes they were together so he could hold him. He’s been wondering at Shane’s mental state through all of this. It had taken years for him to come to terms with his sexuality the first time around; now he’s speed-running the whole experience in a little over a week. He’s honestly surprised he hasn’t had more panic attacks about it.

“You can tell him,” Ilya says after a beat. “Hayden. If you want to. If you think it would make it easier.”

Shane’s answer is immediate. “No. No, I- there’s a reason I haven’t told him yet, right?”

“Same reason we haven’t told everyone,” Ilya shrugs.

Shane sighs. “Right.”

“It doesn’t mean he would react badly though,” he points out. “Hayden is your best friend and he cares about you very much.”

He knows that if he knows nothing else.

“Maybe,” Shane says faintly. “But I- I don’t want to do that right now. Not when everything else feels so…”

“Confusing?”

“Yeah,” he sighs.

Neither of them says anything else for a moment and Ilya considers asking the question he’s been worrying over all afternoon: if this has been enough to scare Shane off him. If it would be easier if he was gone. Before he can work up the nerve to ask it though, Shane starts speaking again.

“Uh, the other reason I called is that my doctor’s appointment got brought forward to tomorrow so we can’t hang out but I’ll text you after? I’m sorta hoping if I get the all clear I can finally convince my mom to go home.”

Ilya huffs out a laugh. “That is not a very nice way to treat your mother.”

“Fine, she can keep living with me and you can waste away in your hotel room until you go back to Boston,” Shane quips.

And it’s a joke, Ilya knows that, but he can’t help asking the question anyway.

“Would you prefer if I went back to Boston?”

There’s nothing for a beat and then-

“No,” Shane exhales while Ilya holds his own breath. “No, um. I mean, unless you’re sick of me obviously then-”

“Shane,” Ilya interrupts softly, fighting a desperately lovesick smile. “I do not think it’s possible for me to get sick of you.”

“Oh.” He pauses and there’s something hopeful in his voice when he continues, “So I’ll text you tomorrow? After?”

“Okay,” Ilya says. He tries not to sound too pleased but then he realises it maybe doesn’t matter if Shane can hear that in his voice. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Shane replies, like a promise.

The next day Shane gets a clean bill of health from the hospital.

Except for the whole memory thing.

“Shane, you’re making good progress,” Dr Kim tells him, voice laced with encouragement. “Your collarbone healed up nicely and most of the effects of your concussion have subsided.”

“Except the main one,” he mutters and she gives him a sympathetic smile.

“It’s only been six weeks,” she says. “Give it time.”

He nods because he doesn’t feel like arguing.

Later though, when he’s in the car with his mom, he decides to voice some of his concerns. “Should we make a statement to the press?”

She casts a quick look in his direction before focusing on the road. “About your collarbone?”

“About my head, Mom,” he sighs. The world still doesn’t know about the amnesia. His coaches do and so do the team but the hockey world at large has been kept in the dark. The longer this goes on though, the less Shane feels like he’ll be able to hide it for much longer.

“Let’s wait until pre-season practice starts up again,” she decides after a delayed beat. “Everyone knows you’re recovering right now; there’s no reason to draw attention to you. Besides, everything might be completely back to normal three months from now.”

“Maybe,” he says because he doesn’t feel like arguing with his mom either.

They sit in silence for the next ten minutes of the drive until he works up the nerve to broach the other topic he’s been sitting on for days.

“Listen, now that I’ve got the all clear from the doctors, you don’t have to keep staying in the guest room.”

Her gaze snaps to him so fast he resists the urge to remind her to watch the road.

“Honey,” she says, eyes darting out the windshield and back to him again. “You know I don’t mind staying with you. Your father would too if work wasn’t so busy right now.”

“I know and I appreciate how much you’ve both done for me,” he says. “But- but I need to start figuring out how to take care of myself again, right? And besides, now that they’re done with the playoffs Hayden and the other guys will be around more. I won’t be completely alone.”

Ilya will be there too, he thinks. He hopes.

Waiting for her to agree or not takes an agonisingly long time but eventually, she sighs.

“Fine,” she relents. “Fine, you’re right. I need to stop babying you.” She reaches across to squeeze his hand and Shane squeezes back before she lets go to reach for the steering wheel again.

“Besides, you’ll be coming up to the cottage in a couple of weeks anyway, right?”

“The cottage?” he repeats dumbly.

“On the lake,” she reminds him. “Remember, we showed you pictures and that segment you shot for ESPN before? It’s only ten minutes from our place; it’s where you’ve spent your summers for years.”

He knows; he remembers his parents telling him about it. It’s just-

He frowns, pulling at a thought he can’t quite catch hold of.

“No, I know. I-” The furrow between his brows deepens and he lets out frustrated sigh. “Sorry. Just- something about the cottage seemed important. Like- like…”

“Like a memory?” his mom asks. She’s doing her best to keep the urgency out of her voice, though she’s not quite succeeding.

“Yeah, I- maybe?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just feel like there was something I was supposed to do.”

She makes a considering noise. “Well, like I said, you usually spend the off-season there. Maybe you’d been making arrangements before the accident?” she suggests. “You’ve been talking about wanting to extend the deck.”

“Maybe,” he says. He’s almost positive that’s not what it is but he’s not going to figure it out now.

Still, the thought lingers in the back of his head for the rest of the drive home.

*

Two day later both of his parents are officially back in Ottawa, Shane has his apartment to himself, and Ilya Rozanov is waiting for him in a rental car outside his fire escape door.

Shane makes his way down the steps, looking around in curiosity. In all the weeks he’s been home, he’s never taken the time to look down here. He never really needed to; everyone has been using the front door and he hasn’t left the house much himself except for doctors’ appointments.

The stairwell is nothing special but he pauses when he reaches the last couple of steps, feeling the strangest sense of déjà vu wash over him. He holds the handrail to keep himself steady just in case it’s actually a dizzy spell but no, he-

He stares at the steps beneath his feet and feels something like anticipation shiver up his spine.

It’s-

There’s a flash of something in his mind – himself, he thinks – sitting on these steps but why…?

The buzz of his phone snaps him out of it and he glances down to see a text from Ilya lighting up the screen.

Lily: Is everything okay? Did you fall down the stairs?

Rolling his eyes, he jogs the rest of the way down the steps and slips out through the back door. Ilya is idling right outside and Shane feels a stupid kind of thrill as he climbs into the car.

It’s not a date. But it really kind of feels like one.

Ilya’s taking him to the rink. Not the Bell Centre but the practice rink the Metros use. Shane had called his coach last night and was promised he’d have the place to himself. He’d sort of made a big deal about not wanting an audience while getting back out on the ice for the first time, said he wanted some time to himself to reacclimatise. Which isn’t untrue but he also doesn’t want anyone questioning why Ilya Rozanov is the one helping him through it.

He’s pretty sure Theriault was so happy he was well enough to skate again he would’ve offered him his kidney if he’d asked though. So Shane has keys in his hand and a promise that no one will bother them as long as they’re there.

“You’re quiet,” Ilya says when they’ve been driving in silence for a few minutes.

Shane blinks, shaking away thoughts of the fire escape stairwell. He should be focusing on where they’re going. And he is – he’s excited and nervous and itching to put on his skates but he also-

“Can I ask you a weird question?”

Ilya side-eyes him but he lifts one hand off the steering wheel to gesture for him to keep going.

“The fire escape. I mean- was that normally the way I used to let you into the apartment?”

It would make sense. Ilya told him the first time he visited Shane’s place was 2013 but Shane only text him the front door code the day of the accident.

“Yes,” Ilya says warily. “Why?”

Shane shakes his head, feeling stupid. It’s probably nothing. “No, I just- When I was walking down them I felt like- like I remembered something.”

Ilya doesn’t slam on the brakes but it’s a near thing. It takes a second for him to get his driving under control again but when he does he sends a quick look in Shane’s direction. “Remembered what?”

“I don’t know. Nothing really.” He’s embarrassed he even brought it up now. He knows Ilya has been hoping he’ll get his memory back and now all Shane can offer him is, I got a funny feeling when I walked down the stairs?

“It wasn’t like, a real memory. Just an image or something. It was just me sitting on them, I think.” He shoots a tentative look in Ilya’s direction but his face is purposefully impassive as he stares at the road in front of him.

“I was wondering why I’d even use them in the first place and you made the most sense.”

Ilya’s jaw tightens and his hands are rigid around the steering wheel but Shane doesn’t miss the way his throat bobs.

“We say goodbye there,” he says finally, voice hoarse. “Most of the time.”

Shane nods. He’d figured as much. “So it’s real? What I remember?”

Ilya’s eyes flicker to him and away again but it’s impossible to miss the emotion swimming behind them. “Do you remember what you were wearing?”

In any other context, he’d think Ilya was teasing him but his demeanour is too serious.

“I’m pretty sure it was just a hoodie. A navy one, I think.”

Ilya sucks in a sharp breath, expression contorting as if he’s in pain but he shoves it all back before Shane can say anything.

“Is real,” he says after a moment. They come to a stop at a red light a few seconds later and Ilya tips his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes.

Shane watches him but doesn’t dare ask what memory the image is attached to. It must be something important if Ilya is reacting like this. After a moment’s hesitation, he reaches over and pulls Ilya’s right hand off the steering wheel.

It’s the first time he’s been the one to reach out but he finds he’s not as freaked out as he thought he would be. He drags Ilya’s hand into his lap, slotting their fingers together. When he looks up Ilya is staring at their joined hands.

He raises his head to meet Shane’s gaze and there’s something weighty behind his eyes. Shane doesn’t know how to begin to decipher it so he just tightens his hold on Ilya’s fingers.

Ilya takes off again when the light changes but he keeps his hand in Shane’s for the rest of the drive.

*

Shane hesitates before he steps onto the ice.

He’s waited weeks for this – the one thing he knows he’s good at – but what if- what if he really has forgotten how to skate? Or what if his talent is just gone? What if it’s more tied to his mind and his experience than he ever thought? What if-

“Hollander, come on. You are scared to watch me skate rings around you?”

Ilya is already on the ice, cutting a graceful arc across the rink. And like Shane’s body is conditioned to his goading, he scoffs and finally steps on.

It’d be a little alarming how quickly it quiets his mind if it didn’t feel so fucking right. The artificial chill in the air, the way his feet immediately adjust in his skates to help him balance, the triumphant grin on Ilya’s face as he watches him.

Shane beams back. “Race you,” he challenges and then he takes off, the sound of Ilya’s laughter echoing behind him.

They can’t actually race for real beyond a couple of laps since Shane is still supposed to be taking it easy but it’s still the most fun he’s had in weeks.

“Don’t feel bad, Hollander,” Ilya says when he beats him easily – because god forbid he ever go easy on Shane. “I am fastest player in the league. You couldn’t beat me even when you were top of your game.”

“Get me a stick and we’ll see whose precision is better.”

“Ah, no,” Ilya says, skating right up to him and only stopping when they’re seconds away from colliding. “You are only just feeling better. We don’t want you putting your sling straight back on.”

Shane makes a face at him but Ilya doesn’t let up.

“Next week, maybe,” he offers instead. “Come on. I can hold your hand today and we can do boring skate around the ice like we are on date in one of those cheesy American movies.”

“Like a Hallmark movie?” Shane laughs but he lets Ilya take his hand.

“Yes, the Christmas ones,” Ilya says, tugging on Shane’s arm until his feet start moving and they begin their lap. “I can buy you hot cocoa afterwards too.”

“It’s May,” he retorts and Ilya makes a face at him.

“Fine,” he sighs, long-suffering. “I suppose you do not need me to hold your hand while you skate either then.”

Ilya makes a show of letting go of him, expression forlorn and shoulders slumped exaggeratedly as he glides away.

Shane shakes his head, fighting an infectious grin and picking up speed so he can catch up. He crashes into Ilya’s back, catching himself with his arms on Ilya’s shoulders so he doesn’t actually send either of them hurtling to the ground.

Ilya glances back at him and, by the twitch of his mouth, it’s clear he’s trying not to smile.

“Maybe just for one lap?” Shane says, slipping his hand back into Ilya’s and towing him along.

Their ‘romantic’ lap doesn’t even last a full loop around the rink, the both of them too used to speed for the leisurely pace but Shane doesn’t really mind. He’s missed skating, has missed the ease of it, has missed trying to keep with Ilya Rozanov. Ilya does eventually find him a hockey stick and a puck and lets him take a few shots on the empty goal but he stops him before Shane can really get into the swing of things.

He knows Ilya is doing the right thing – Shane has been making good progress and he doesn’t want to ruin that – but it doesn’t stop him from feeling disappointed when Ilya takes the puck and refuses to give it back.

An hour later he leaves the rink aching in a good way and lighter than he’s felt in weeks.

When they get back to the apartment Ilya starts to walk in the direction of the main entrance but Shane stops him.

“Just-” He looks towards the fire escape door, thinking back to the moment on the stairwell. “Can we go that way?”

Ilya raises an eyebrow in silent question but doesn’t protest, dutifully following Shane as he unlocks the door and ushers them through.

And this might genuinely be the stupidest fucking idea Shane has ever had but he just needs to see-

“Wait.” He stops Ilya on the third step from the bottom, overcome with a kind of nervousness he doesn’t expect, as he crowds into his space.

Ilya realises what’s happening about three seconds before it does and Shane manages one shaky exhale before he’s clutching the sides of Ilya’s face and crushing their mouths together. Despite his own urgency, Ilya manages to slow the kiss down while still matching Shane’s intensity.

It’s a fucking good kiss. The best Shane has ever had probably – or at least, the best he can remember. Ilya’s arm curls around his waist at the exact same time his tongue curls around Shane’s in his mouth and Shane is now intimately aware that the phrase ‘weak at the knees’ is, in fact, a real feeling people experience. His breath hitches and he twists his fingers through Ilya’s hair and-

And it still doesn’t help him remember anything.

He pulls away slowly, nudging closer again when Ilya’s mouth drags against his own.

When they finally do separate he offers Ilya a sheepish smile. “Um. Sorry. I was just thinking…”

He trails off, glancing down at the stairs. Ilya seems to be able to follow his train of thought, using the hand he’d had on Shane’s neck to turn his chin back to him so they’re looking at each other again.

“Oh I see,” he says lowly. “You think you are Sleeping Beauty. You think kiss from a handsome prince will wake up your brain?”

Shane heaves a put-upon sigh, mostly to hide the blush that’s no doubt colouring his cheeks. But Ilya is still holding his chin so he can’t look away. “Fuck off,” he grumbles.

“No, is okay. Is good theory.” Ilya finally releases his chin to tap his forehead, a small smirk at the corners of his mouth. “Clearly, I did not do good enough job. Do you want me to try again?”

Shane rolls his eyes, shrugging Ilya off even as he tries and fails to hide his smile. “Nope.”

He starts making his way up the stairs, yanking his arm away when Ilya tries to latch onto him. Ilya is snickering behind him, footsteps echoing on the stairs as he follows.

And Shane gets that feeling again. The déjà vu.

Like he’s been here before. Like they’ve done this before. He can’t quite see it in his mind but he can feel it.

He stops at the top of the stairs, right before the door to his apartment, and turns to look at Ilya. He reaches the top of the stairs a second after Shane does and he pauses when he realises Shane hasn’t opened the door yet. Shane looks at him, like if he can just stare hard enough it’ll unlock everything.

Ilya quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

Nothing comes, except the same shivery feeling from before so he shakes his head. “Nothing. Come on.”

Ilya clearly looks like he wants to say more but he doesn’t, seemingly content to follow Shane’s lead.

*

“Are you going to your cottage this summer?”

Shane jerks his head up from his phone. Ilya is on the other end of the couch; he’d also been on his phone texting his friend, Svetlana. Shane wonders what they were talking about that prompted the question.

“What?” he says.

Ilya drops his own phone on the couch, focusing entirely on Shane. “Your cottage,” he repeats. “That’s where you spend your summers, yes?”

“I- yeah,” Shane says. “At least, that’s what my parents told me.”

“Is also what you told ESPN.”

“You saw that?”

Ilya shrugs but he doesn’t make eye contact, rubbing absently at his nose. “Yes. So are you going?”

“Uh, yeah. Maybe.” Shane sets his own phone aside, considering. “I haven’t thought about it much but my mom said it’s like, my favourite place so it’d probably be good for me.”

Ilya nods but doesn’t say anything else and when Shane lets his mind drift it goes back to the conversation in the car from the other day.

“You know, it’s weird. I was talking to my mom about it last week and I had this…feeling. Like there was something about the cottage that I was supposed to do.”

“A memory?” Ilya asks. He’s clearly curious but he doesn’t push. He’s better at hiding his hopefulness than Shane’s parents are. Or else he’s just too resigned to Shane’s fate to feel hopeful.

“I think so?” he says. “I mean, maybe. Whatever it is, I can’t remember what was so important but-” He shrugs, meeting Ilya’s gaze. “I didn’t say anything to you about it, did I?”

Ilya shakes his head. “You told me how nice it was. Nothing else though.”

Shane nods, trying not to feel disappointed. Whatever it was, clearly it can’t be that important if no one else knows. Or, well- he looks at Ilya again and reminds himself that maybe that’s not the best metric to use anymore.

“What, uh, what about you? What do you normally do in the summer?”

Ilya watches him for a beat but he looks away when he answers, picking up his phone and turning it over in his hands. “I normally go home to Russia. But I don’t know if I will this year.”

Right, fuck. Ilya’s father died.

“Right,” he mumbles. “Um, I know I probably said it already at the time but I’m sorry about your dad. I heard some of the commentators mention it during a game.”

Ilya’s eyes find him again. There are too many emotions playing across his face for Shane to really know what he’s thinking but his voice is soft when he answers. “It’s okay. You helped a lot that week.”

Shane feels his own eyes widen. He’s never been the best with emotions – especially other people’s – but Ilya seems completely sincere. “I did?”

“Yes,” he murmurs.

“Was- was he sick?”

Something in Ilya’s expression shutters and he clears his throat. “He had dementia.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Ilya has probably spent months – years? – watching his father slowly forget him and right after he buries him Shane goes and gets himself knocked out and forgets they were ever together. Jesus fucking Christ, how can Ilya even look at him?

“Oh my god, Ilya,” he stammers, horrified.

Ilya’s mind clearly goes where Shane’s had because he straightens, leaning forward and closer to Shane.

“Shane, it’s okay-”

“No, I- god, how are you even talking to me? This must be fucking torture-”

“Shane-”

Shane shakes his head, pushing himself further back into the armrest. Fuck, he’s been so selfish. “No. You’ve been so- so patient and understanding and letting me ask you questions and treat you like- like some kind of experiment and-”

Ilya’s entire body freezes and Shane abruptly cuts himself off.

“Is that what this is?” Ilya asks quietly.

He plays his own words back in his head and feels his face contort in horror. “No. No. That’s not what I meant, I just- Fuck. I just mean- I don’t remember. And you do. And- and I’m trying so hard to remember it all but nothing’s working and this isn’t fair on you-”

Ilya releases an uneven breath, closing his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, the heartbreak is impossible to miss. He shuffles closer until their knees bump. Shane doesn’t dare move.

“Shane,” he says slowly. “I told you I am not asking for anything and I meant it.”

“But you want the version of me from before,” Shane says around a lump in his throat. “And I don’t know if I know how to be him.”

Ilya looks like he’s been sucker-punched but he recovers after a moment, lifting a hand to fit against the curve of Shane’s jaw. “I want every single version of you,” he whispers. “But maybe- maybe this is too much right now. You should be focusing on getting better, not what you think I want.”

The only thing Shane can think of that’s worse than not being what Ilya wants is Ilya not being here at all.

“What? Ilya, no-”

“It’s okay,” he says – promises. His thumb brushes over Shane’s cheekbone and his eyes are glassy and Shane’s never seen someone look so sad when they’re smiling. “Shane, it’s okay. Maybe we just need to take a breath, yes? Spend time with Hayden, Rose, your parents. I- I will still be here whenever you want to talk but me being here so much- it’s confusing you.”

Shane makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat. “It’s not-”

“Sleep on it, hmm?” Ilya gives him a beseeching look, leaning in to press a chaste kiss against Shane’s cheek. “We can talk in couple of days, maybe.”

It’s clear he isn’t going to change his mind and Shane can already feel panic seizing in his chest at the thought of him leaving but Ilya is quietly resolute. Shane doesn’t know what to say to make him stay and he’s not sure he even has a right to ask right now.

“Okay,” he whispers finally.

Ilya gives him another sad smile, and another kiss to his cheek. “I am not mad and we are not fighting. Take your time, okay?”

Ilya says it like a mantra, like a reminder. Like he knows Shane will spiral if he doesn’t. Fuck, does anyone else on the planet know Shane this well?

Shane remembers to nod and Ilya finally lets go of him.

He gets up and Shane can’t make himself follow him to the door. Saying goodbye feels too final. Feels too much like he’s completely fucking this up.

He hears the click of the front door after a few seconds and that’s all it takes for his shoulders to cave in and for him to collapse back against the couch.

Fuck.

*

Despite Ilya’s suggestion, Shane doesn’t actually spend the next day with Hayden or Rose or his parents. Instead, he wallows.

It’s stupid. Ilya told him he wasn’t mad; he’s only doing this to give Shane space because he doesn’t want to confuse him. And Shane is confused, is the thing. He’s confused! Because his whole world has been turned upside down multiple times over the past seven weeks and he’s barely processed most of it.

The person the whole world thinks he hates is apparently the secret he holds closest to his chest. And it’s overwhelming enough to believe he’s let his guard down enough to be with any man, let alone Ilya Rozanov.

Except-

Except being around him feels so easy. Even now, even when Shane has done nothing but try to keep up for the past few weeks. Every touch and smile and feeling he thinks he should want to shy away from, he doesn’t. He finds himself leaning closer again and again and he doesn’t know if it’s because Ilya clearly wants him so much or if it’s because Shane wants him just as badly.

And it’s- it’s a lot.

It doesn’t make the fierce ache in his chest any easier to deal with though.

But he’d meant what he’d said yesterday – this isn’t fair to Ilya.

Ilya, who has been so patient and considerate and so willing to take whatever crumbs of affection Shane is able to offer him. Shane needs to figure out his own feelings, needs to make a decision, needs to know if this is what he wants with or without his memories.

He goes back to his journal and his timeline, writing in the scant flashes of memories he’d felt on the stairs – though he doesn’t know where on the timeline they fit. If it’s one memory or just a collection of them overlapping.

Fuck, this isn’t fair. It’s like- like there’s a locked door in his head and he knows everything is in there if he could just find the fucking key.

He spends most of the day staring at his journal and then staring at nothing at all, replaying everything he can over and over in his head. He doesn’t know if it’s helping or just driving him slowly insane.

Either way, he feels wrung out and exhausted by the time he drags himself up to bed too early that night.

He dreams of Ilya when he sleeps. Dreams of them both – wrapped in each other, Ilya kissing him everywhere, pressing Shane into the mattress, whispering teasing thoughts against his jaw. It’s impossible to tell if it’s a memory or his brain just conjuring up what he wants.

He thinks it could be both.

He kind of hopes it’s both.

The next day isn’t much better and the urge to text Ilya is ever insistent but he does his best to at least be some kind of fully functioning adult. Rose calls him around lunchtime and he’s grateful for the distraction.

She, on the other hand, is probably regretting ever calling him at all when he immediately word-vomits everything that happened with Ilya two days ago.

“Wow,” she says when he finally pauses to take a breath.

“I know,” he sighs morosely.

“How do you feel not having him around?”

“It fucking sucks.”

She laughs but somehow manages to make it sound sympathetic. “Shane. I kind of feel like that’s an answer in and of itself.”

“But- what if I’m just messing with his head?” he presses. “What if I can’t be what he needs me to be?”

“I don’t think he needs you to be anything,” she says.

He rubs at his eyes with his free hand, feeling traitorous tears burn behind them. “But there’s this whole other version of me and- and he can say it’s okay but I know he misses him.”

“Shane.” She sounds heartbroken but more like her heart is breaking for Shane.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Rose lets out a long sigh. “Of course he misses what you two had. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still care about you. You’re still the same person.”

“Maybe,” he mumbles.

“You are. Do you think he would still be here if he didn’t want to keep fighting for you?”

Shane feels the childish urge to point out he’s not here right now but he knows that’s not fair. Ilya is still in Montreal and Shane knows if he called right now he’d be here as soon as he could.

“No,” he admits. “You’re right.”

“Look, you don’t need to decide what you want right now.” She pauses and her words feel weightier when she continues, “But it’s okay if you do want him.”

Shane closes his eyes before any tears can fall but his cheeks are wet in seconds anyway.

*

He lies in bed that night watching the segment he did about his cottage.

It’s stupid but his parents keep telling him how relaxed he feels there and Shane really just fucking wants to relax.

It’s weird watching himself be interviewed so he mostly blocks out his own voice, focusing on the visuals instead. It really does look beautiful and quiet and peaceful and exactly like what Shane needs.

There’s a shot of the lake, with the sun slowly dipping towards the water and he imagines what it’d be like to watch the sunset up close. The image in his mind conjures Ilya next to him almost instantly and he wants to laugh at himself. He’s got such a one track mind right now of course he has to imagine him here too.

Shane’s own private oasis, this thing he keeps just for himself.

Just like Ilya.

No wonder he’d wanted to invite him to stay there.

The thought catches him off guard, making him still, but it doesn’t slip away.

The cottage. The thing he was supposed to do. He was going to invite Ilya to stay at the cottage with him.

He waits, as if expecting the thought to dissipate into thin air – another figment of his imagination like every half-remembered dream – but it’s- he’s right. He knows he is. He-

He remembers.

He had a plan. The night of the accident. Ilya was supposed to come over and Shane was going to ask him and-

It’s not a floodgate opening, like in the movies. It’s more like…unlocking the first piece of a puzzle. Everything doesn’t come rushing back but he can feel his brain rearranging things, slotting pieces together that wouldn’t fit before.

Ilya’s face in his hospital room. Ilya’s face sitting across from him in his living room as he told him the truth. Ilya’s face in a hotel room in Tampa as Shane climbed into his lap.

Oh god, Ilya.

He fumbles on the mattress for his phone, opening their texts with trembling fingers as he types out a message.

Jane: Are you awake?

He doesn’t have time to panic when Ilya replies in seconds.

Lily: Yes. Is everything okay?

Jane: Can you come over?

Jane: Please

Lily: Are you okay?

It takes Shane twice as long to type his reply, he’s shaking so much, but he gets there eventually

Jane: Yes just please come over

The thirty seconds it takes for Ilya to answer is the longest thirty seconds of his life but then he gets a simple: on my way.

Ilya waits approximately forty-five seconds outside Shane’s front door after he’s rung the bell before he gives up and puts in the code to let himself in.

He could be overreacting – he hopes he’s overreacting – but something in Shane’s messages had sounded off and he just needs to make sure.

“Shane?” he calls as soon as he’s closed the door behind him.

The hallway is empty and he gets the sense the kitchen and living room are too. He calls Shane’s name again, moving further into the apartment until he hears footsteps on the stairs. He’s only just stopped in front of them when Shane comes hurtling down them, pausing on the bend in the staircase. He stares at Ilya, eyes wide and frantic, letting out a breathless, “Hi,” after a moment.

“Hi,” Ilya replies, confused. “Is everything okay? Your texts sounded-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Shane is taking the final few steps two at a time and launching himself into his arms. Ilya catches him with a soft huff, stumbling back a step or two with the force of it.

Shane is holding on for dear life, clutching desperately at the back of his shirt, and Ilya makes a soothing noise in the back of his throat, running careful hands over Shane’s back.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs. “What-”

“I’m sorry,” Shane breathes, the words pressed into Ilya’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he says again, kissing Ilya’s shoulder this time. He says it, over and over again, mumbling the words into whatever part of Ilya’s skin he can reach.

Ilya holds him tighter, confused and concerned in equal measure. “Shane,” he tries again. “What’s wrong?”

Finally, Shane pulls back enough to look him in the eye and he looks…cracked open.

His eyes are gleaming with tears and his cheeks are flushed and he looks like-

He looks like he remembers.

Ilya feels his own breath catch in his throat, hands going rigid where they clutch Shane’s hoodie. “Do you-”

Shane kisses him before he can get the question out – heady, desperate, familiar – and Ilya feels something in himself dissolve as he kisses back. They break apart after a few seconds and Ilya doesn’t know if the wetness he feels on his cheeks is a result of Shane’s tears or his own.

“You remember?” he asks, hardly daring to hope.

Shane nods, sweeping his thumb across Ilya’s cheek. It’s so similar to how he’d touched him in Tampa Ilya barely suppresses a whimper. “Not everything,” he sniffs. “I don’t- my head’s still a mess but I-” He cuts himself off with a disbelieving laugh. “I remembered I wanted to ask you something.”

Ilya shakes his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“The night of the accident,” he explains, hands tightening around Ilya. “I had a whole plan.” He glances heavenward and his smile is blinding when he fixes it on Ilya. “I was gonna ask you if you’d come to my cottage this summer.”

“The cottage?” Ilya repeats dumbly.

Shane nods, looking bashful now. “I- I wanted us to have a chance to be alone,” he admits, eyes trained on where his thumb is still pressed against Ilya’s cheek. “Though, I guess we got that anyway even if I didn’t exactly plan it like this.”

Ilya absorbs the words, mind racing. Shane had wanted him to come to the cottage. Shane had wanted to be alone with him, spend the summer with him. Shane had told him the other day there was something important he was forgetting about the cottage. He’d even asked Ilya if he’d told him anything before.

Was this really the important thing he’d been trying to figure out?

“I’m sorry I forgot,” Shane says then, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Ilya, fuck, I’m so sorry. This has been awful for you and-”

Ilya cuts him off before he can say anymore, reeling him back in for a desperate hug. “I don’t care,” he says, the words muffled by Shane’s shoulder. He doesn’t need apologies. He doesn’t need anything, except Shane’s arms around him for as long as possible. “Fuck, Hollander,” he half-sobs, hands finding their way beneath Shane’s hoodie and clinging too tight.

He can feel Shane’s smile against his temple and then Shane’s fingers are curling around his jaw, urging Ilya’s face up until he can drag their mouths together.

Ilya releases a shuddering breath and kisses him hard enough to meld them together, rolling his forehead against Shane’s and bumping his nose and pulling him closer, closer, until every single part of them is touching. Shane kisses back just as eagerly, one arm hooked around Ilya’s neck while his other hand is fisted in his hair.

The stumbling dance up the stairs to the bedroom is a familiar one, though it’s one Ilya hadn’t expected them to do again for a long time – if not ever again.

But Shane is letting out these urgent little noises against his mouth and tugging on Ilya’s collar to drag him along and Ilya can’t let go of him long enough to check where his feet are going but muscle memory is working hard enough for the both of them.

By the time they reach the bed he thinks his heart might actually burst in his chest and spill out all over the sheets. Shane is lying back against the pillows and staring up at him with something akin to wonder and how the fuck is Ilya supposed to make it out of this alive?

He hovers above Shane, settled between the v of his hips and doing his best to ignore the desire to grind down. “Are you sure?” he asks, arms feeling unreasonably unsteady where he holds himself up. “We do not have to.”

Shane slides a hand around his neck, pulling him down until their foreheads are pressed firmly together. “Please,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of Ilya’s mouth. “Ilya, please.”

Ilya’s never been good at saying no to him.

And the next steps should feel routine – the fumbling drag of clothing over shoulders and down legs, interspersed by kisses on any new sliver of skin revealed, the reach for the drawer in the bedside table, fingers and mouths and sharp breaths as he gets Shane ready – they’ve done it more times than Ilya can count. Even if Shane doesn’t remember it all, his body clearly does, arching into Ilya’s touch like he doesn’t know any other way to move.

It’s all familiar, in a comforting, exhilarating way. But it’s also- fucking overwhelming and achingly intense because it suddenly feels like it matters more than it ever did. It’s talking to each other in the way they’ve always known how, it’s falling back into a safety Ilya thinks he’s only ever felt with Shane.

By the time he’s pressing into him he thinks they’re both already on edge, too keyed up to possibly make this last, but it’s okay. They have all night. They have every night if they’re allowed.

He fits his whole body around Shane’s, moving slow and deep in a way that has both of them shuddering, as he turns Shane’s face so he can kiss him. Over and over and over again until they’re not doing much else besides breathing into each other’s mouths.

He trails one of his hands down Shane’s body and takes him in his hand, working him over until Shane stutters out a choked off gasp against his mouth and comes. Ilya doesn’t take long to follow him over the edge, too worked up and too fucking in love to hold out.

Later, after he’s cleaned them both up and they’re tucked up under the safety of the blankets, settled in each other’s arms, Shane lifts a hand to brush the hair back from Ilya’s forehead.

“I know it’s not my fault,” he says quietly. “But I really am sorry. I hate that this hurt you.”

Ilya shakes his head, already feeling unshed tears burn behind his eyes. “Is okay,” he whispers. It doesn’t do anything to hide the way his voice cracks. “I meant what I said the other day; I want every version of you. Whether you remember or not.”

Shane smiles faintly, thumb finding its way back to Ilya’s cheek. “Well, if it’s any kind of consolation, I’m pretty sure I was falling for you all over again these past couple of weeks. Turns out even amnesia can’t make me stop wanting you.”

Ilya stares at him, heart beating so hard he’s sure the imprint of it must be visible through his ribcage and he can’t- he can’t keep it in any longer.

He pulls Shane in, tipping their foreheads together and nudging his nose against Shane’s. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he breathes. “I love you.”

Shane stills for half a second before a disbelieving puff of air hits Ilya’s face and he’s grinning. “I love you too,” he says, awed. Abruptly he leans back. “Wait, we haven’t said that before, have we? I’m not forgetting?”

Ilya huffs a wet laugh. He’ll tell him about Moscow another day. Besides, “No. This is new a memory,” he says and he knows the affection must be pouring out of him because Shane’s face softens into something quiet and sure.

He’s still smiling but it’s gentle now as he touches careful fingers to Ilya’s eyebrow, his cheek, his jaw. “I love you so much.”

Ilya grins and cries and laughs all at once, so overcome he can’t think of anything to do except roll them over and blanket Shane’s body with his own. Shane’s arms come around him and Ilya thinks he never wants to move from this spot ever again.

They lie like that for a few minutes, the silence syrupy slow, until Shane breaks it.

“You know, you never answered my question earlier.”

Ilya frowns, picking his head up to meet Shane’s gaze.

“Will you come to the cottage with me?” he asks, barely biting back a smile.

“You still want me to?”

Shane rolls his eyes but he’s smiling too wide for it to be anything other than fond. “Yes, I want you to. So much.”

Ilya wonders for a moment what it would’ve been like if Shane had never been hit on the ice. If he’d come over here like he’d planned all those weeks ago and they’d had their time together and Shane had asked the question then. He wonders if yes would’ve come as easily as it does now. They were closer to more than they’d ever been in March but it was still scary, still something Ilya had to routinely remind himself not to fuck up.

Now, having tasted what a life without Shane could feel like, it feels impossible to say anything other than: “Yes. I’ll come with you.”

Shane beams at him, leaning up for a delighted kiss before pulling Ilya back down into his arms. They settle against each other and Ilya thinks he might actually be able to falls asleep just like this when Shane lets out a sudden, embarrassed laugh.

“Oh my god, what the fuck am I supposed to tell the doctor when I say I remembered something?”

“You say Ilya Rozanov’s dick is so incredible I simply could not forget it-”

Shane barks out another laugh, louder this time, as he grabs Ilya’s sides and rolls them over. “In your fucking dreams.”

Ilya smirks, secretly pleased, as Shane leans over him. “We will think of something,” he says, placating.

Shane nods, smiling down at him and looking so ridiculously happy, Ilya can’t help kissing him again.

And they still have a long way to go; Shane doesn’t remember everything and they still live hours apart and they still have to keep this a secret but maybe-

Maybe none of that matters all that much when being together feels like this.

*

Chapter End Notes

ahh i hope you liked it!!! thank you for reading, i have honestly loved writing this fic so much 💛 (i'm lowkey thinking about a cottage epilogue but also. what could i do with the cottage that the show hasn't already done y'know aksdfh)

as always i'm on tumblr at littlespoonevan and the post for this fic is here if you feel like giving it a reblog 🥰

Chapter 4: quietly keeping this hope in my heart

Chapter Notes

hi lol. it's me again askdhsa

fistly, thank you so, so, so much for your response this fic. it truly means the world 🥹 secondly, here's the epiloge as promised 😘

“I think I should tell my parents.”

Ilya’s hand stills where it’d been running through Shane’s hair. He glances down, right as Shane shifts to look up at him. “Are you sure?”

They’d never really discussed it before. They’d never discussed telling anyone, honestly, but Ilya can’t deny having Svetlana and Rose in on their secret has made it a little easier to bear. He certainly doesn’t think he would’ve survived the past two months without them.

Shane shrugs but then he nods, sitting up straight. He doesn’t actually shuffle out of Ilya’s arms and Ilya allows himself a moment to feel privately pleased about that before he focuses on Shane’s face again.

“It was one thing, keeping it from them before, but now I’m lying to them about my memories and it just feels…wrong.” He sighs, dropping his gaze to play with the collar of Ilya’s t-shirt. “And it’s already confusing trying to keep track of what they do and don’t know, I feel like I’ll just end up blurting it out by accident.”

It’s been a week since Shane had his first breakthrough with his memory.

A week since he remembered Ilya.

A lot has come back in the interim. It’s not necessarily all specific memories but he’s more certain about things and people now. He can remember details even if there are some blanks about how he came to learn those details in the first place. He knows Ilya’s pizza order, for instance, even if he doesn’t remember the conversation they had about it. He knows Hayden Pike now, even if he can’t remember the first time they met still.

It’s huge progress and Dr Kim is really happy with him.

His parents know some of his memories have come back but Shane’s been vague on the details, focusing on hockey mostly instead of anything specific he’s remembered about his personal life. Ilya can understand how trying to keep track of it all – especially when he’s still putting together the puzzle pieces of his own mind – can be confusing.

“Okay,” he says, cupping a hand to Shane’s jaw and thumbing over his cheekbone. “If you think telling them will help then we should tell them.”

Shane smiles gratefully; it presses Ilya’s thumb deeper into his cheek. “You’re really okay with it?”

Shane remembers their conversation in Tampa, Ilya knows that much, so it’s not like the question is a surprise but after everything that’s happened the past few months, that fear he once cocooned himself in is too hard to reach for.

“Shane,” he says seriously. “They are your parents and they love you. If you want to tell them the truth then you should. I already let Rose and Svetlana in on the secret without your permission.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “Situation kinda forced your hand.”

Ilya shrugs. “Still. You should tell them.” He pretends to frown, tilting his head. “Unless you think they will have me deported. In which case, please don’t.”

Shane rolls his eyes again, with his whole body this time, and shoves Ilya lightly before curling up under his arm in the same position he was in before. “They won’t have you deported.”

He settles his head on Ilya’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his middle. “I won’t let them,” he promises. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

Ilya draws both arms around him, kissing the top of Shane’s head and suppressing a smile. A month ago he was convinced Shane would kick him out if he ever showed up at his doorstep and tried to talk to him again. “I am only going to be gone for four days.”

“Why though?” Shane sighs, burrowing further into the curve of Ilya’s neck. “Boston’s season is over. And I want to watch the last game of the playoffs together.”

“Because, Hollander, when I left my house four weeks ago I only brought enough clothes to last me a week,” he points out. Not that he’d ever complain – the fact he’s still here feels like a miracle of all miracles. “I did not clean up after myself. I did not empty out my fridge-”

“There’s month old food in your fridge?” Shane interrupts and Ilya can so clearly imagine the disgusted wrinkle of his nose.

“No, I had Svetlana stop by and throw things out for me,” he says amusedly. “But I still need more clothes if we are going to the cottage-”

“Debatable.”

Ilya snorts, still marvelling at this version of sure-but-unsure Shane. He’s simultaneously so tentative and so brazen in his feelings for Ilya.

“Besides, I will be back before last game of the playoffs. And you can tell your parents while I am gone,” he suggests, deciding to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand. “That way, I will not be in the way while they get used to it.”

Shane doesn’t say anything but Ilya can hear him thinking. He waits him out and then, eventually:

“Is it okay if I want you here with me while I tell them?”

Ilya can’t reply right away, momentarily struck dumb. It’s just- Ilya is used to being a problem, to making everything worse, and he knows – even if neither of them is saying it – that him being there could make things worse. Except. Except it wouldn’t for Shane. In fact, the only way Shane thinks he can get through it at all is if Ilya is there and that’s-

That’s sort of unbelievable in a way Ilya isn’t sure he deserves.

“Of course I can be here with you,” he says when he remembers his voice, punctuating the promise with a kiss to Shane’s hair.

“Thanks,” Shane mumbles, shifting closer and letting out a contented sigh.

*

It’s strange being back in his house in Boston.

It doesn’t look any different to how it had when he left – though the cleaner he pays has obviously been in to deal with any mess he’d left behind – but everything about his mental state feels so different. The last time he’d been here he was lost in a storm of hopelessness, convinced he’d never get to be with Shane ever again.

Now, he’s here to pack. Except instead of his usual ritual of returning to Russia for the summer, he’s packing for Shane’s cottage. For weeks of uninterrupted time alone with a chance he’s been chasing for years.

It feels surreal still.

He does actually have other things to do while he’s in Boston besides pack. He checks in with his coach and his agent and confirms he’ll still be available to attend the MLH awards in June. He has no desire to leave Shane again if he doesn’t have to but he has to remember the outside world exists at some point too.

He texts Marleau and gets a beer with him and doesn’t feel resentful of his presence for the first time since March. It’s nice; Marley is the closest thing he has to a best friend besides Sveta and while he knows the hit on the ice was an accident, it’d been near impossible to look at him in the aftermath.

Sveta comes to his house for dinner the night before he leaves and he indulges in telling her every embarrassing, lovesick thought that’s run through his head for the past week.

It’s a nice few days, even if Shane is in the back of his mind the entire time.

When he flies back to Canada it’s to Montreal. Shane wants to drive them to the cottage himself and Ilya isn’t going to argue away hours in the car with him. Besides he’d told Ilya on his second night home that his parents would be coming to Montreal first so they could talk. Ilya doesn’t know if he doesn’t want to disturb the peace of the cottage with any potential distress or if it just feels easier to control this way but he doesn’t argue. Whatever makes this more bearable for Shane.

Either way, Ilya found out this morning before his flight that Shane’s parents aren’t the only people who he’ll be facing off in Montreal.

He knocks on Shane’s front door and is only about thirty-two percent surprised when Hayden Pike opens it.

Here we go.

“Pike,” he greets with a nod.

Shane had blurted it out on the phone this morning that he’d used Hayden as a sort of practice run for telling his parents. Ilya doesn’t give a fuck if Hayden Pike knows; he is, however, completely uninterested in defending himself to him.

“Rozanov,” Hayden replies, not moving from where he’s blocking the door.

Ilya raises his eyebrows, feeling the cocky asshole persona he uses on the ice settle over him. “Well? Are you going to let me in? Those are not very good Canadian manners you have.”

Hayden grits his teeth but dutifully steps back and pulls the door with him,

Ilya comes through the threshold with a shit-eating grin and it’s not like he means to but Pike is just so easy to irritate. He can feel his eyes on him the entire time he’s toeing off his sneakers but Ilya ignores him in favour of moving his suitcase to sit against the wall in the entrance way by their shoes. He hears the front door close but before he can walk any further into the house Hayden is grabbing hold of his arm.

Ilya pauses, turning to face him. Hayden looks nervous even if his expression is fierce. Ilya sighs, crossing his arms over his chest, and waits for the shovel talk.

“Look, if this is you fucking with Shane-”

He scoffs. “Yes, Pike. I seduced Shane seven years ago just in case he would get amnesia all these years later so I could take advantage-”

“I just mean-” Hayden snaps and then stops. There’s a deep wrinkle between his eyebrows as he frowns and Ilya finds himself straightening at the seriousness in his expression. “He says he loves you.”

Ilya’s shoulders relax. He doesn’t hate Pike is the thing; he doesn’t really care about him at all, honestly. But he’s Shane’s friend and Ilya can’t begrudge him for trying to protect Shane’s heart. He’d do the same.

“And he did not tell you I love him back?” he challenges lightly, smirking when Hayden blinks back at him.

“I- you do?” Hayden asks dumbly and Ilya heaves a put-upon sigh.

“What? You do not think Shane is loveable? You do not think he is very easy to fall in love with? That is not a nice way to talk about your friend, Pike-”

“Fuck off, I didn’t say that,” Hayden huffs but then Ilya’s words seem to catch up with him and his expression blanks with surprise. Or- not surprise, really, but something.

“You really love him?”

Ilya nods slowly like Hayden is too stupid to follow the movement. “Yes.”

Hayden chews on the inside of his lip, giving him a distracted nod. “At the hospital,” he says after a beat. “When I was texting Boston Lily- I was texting you?”

Ah. That.

“Yes,” Ilya answers honestly. “For long time, you were the only person who let me know how Shane was doing. Thank you.”

Hayden looks more shocked by Ilya thanking him than anything else that’s happened in the last two minutes but Shane appears at the bottom of the stairs before he can say anything about it.

“Hey,” Shane says cautiously, looking between them with faint concern.

Ilya turns to him and can’t help the way his own expression softens when being faced with Shane’s smile. “Hi.”

“Everything okay here?”

Ilya looks back to Pike who is now staring at him like he’s grown a second head. “Of course,” he says, expectant. “We are just getting to know each other, right, Pike?”

Hayden looks between them – not unlike the way he had a couple of weeks ago in Shane’s kitchen – blinking rapidly like multiple things are slotting into place in his head. “Right.” He nods faintly at Ilya, in approval maybe, and the silence that falls between the three of them is awkward and tentative.

After four days apart Ilya would very much like to kiss Shane hello but he doesn’t know if that would be allowed so he settles for reaching out a hand for Shane’s hip when he gets close enough. Shane smiles at him, his own hand landing on Ilya’s shoulder. It’s painfully innocent and yet Ilya still feels a little weak at the knees.

“This is so weird,” Hayden says and Ilya watches the way Shane’s expression drops then shutters.

He tightens his hold on Shane’s hip, clenching his jaw and readying for a fight, before Hayden starts sputtering across from them.

“Hey, no, Shane, not like that!” he stammers. When Ilya looks at him his face is creased in panic. “I just mean- seeing you guys- like. I didn’t exactly expect to be faced with Ilya Rozanov’s heart eyes when I showed up here this morning, y’know?”

Shane’s worry cracks then and he lets out a bashful laugh even as Ilya swings around to face Pike again.

“My what?” he demands.

“Heart eyes,” Hayden repeats with a smirk. “They’re like, painfully obvious, dude. How have you two even kept this a secret for so long?”

Shane laughs again, his hand tightening over Ilya’s shoulder before he lets go. He’s flushed with delight when Ilya catches his eye and he wonders idly if either of them had ever thought before that telling someone could’ve felt this good. Or hopeful.

Ilya clears his throat, lifting his chin. “Yes, well. Don’t forget, Pike, I can still kick your ass even with heart eyes.”

Hayden only rolls his eyes but Shane is still grinning and that’s all Ilya had wanted, really.

“Game’s about to start,” Shane says then, looking between them. “Can we, like, move on from this weird interaction now please?”

“Yes,” Hayden says, releasing a relieved breath. “I’ll go turn on the TV.”

He leaves them to go to the living room, definitely not out of earshot but out of eyeshot, at least.

Ilya fits both hands to Shane’s waist when he’s out of sight, meeting his eyes. “Okay?” he whispers because even if the last few minutes have been fine, he still wants to check.

“Yeah,” Shane breathes, bumping their foreheads together before leaning back with a small smile. “Let’s hope telling my parents goes just as smoothly.

Ilya squeezes his hips in agreement before leaning in to steal a kiss. “Go sit down. I will get your ginger ale.”

“And a beer for Hayden,” Shane says, darting in for another kiss when Ilya huffs. “Thank you.”

“Go,” Ilya says, sending him off with one last kiss to Shane’s cheek before he makes his way to the kitchen.

He pauses at the fridge with a private smile; it feels a little like they’re playing house. It feels a lot like a future Ilya could get used to.

Shane has been pacing for so long he’s not sure how he hasn’t worn a hole in his floor yet. It still does nothing to calm him down when he hears a key turning in the lock of the front door. He doesn’t know if the noise of distress actually escapes him or if it’s just in his head but either way, Ilya is at his side in an instant, clutching his hand tightly and pressing his forehead into Shane’s temple. The points of contact manage to steady him, if only for a second.

“It’s okay,” Ilya promises quietly, letting go just as they hear the front door open.

Fuck.

Okay.

“Shane? Honey?” That’s his mom.

Shane swallows around the lump in his throat, squeezing his eyes shut and reaching blindly for Ilya’s hand to get one last hold in. “In the kitchen,” he manages, gripping Ilya’s fingers hard enough to bruise before letting go.

His mom appears a moment later, his dad right behind her, and Shane watches – sick to his stomach – as the smiles of greeting fall off their faces when they see Ilya standing next to him. It’s not anger, he reminds himself desperately. They’re just surprised. And why wouldn’t they be? They have no reason to think Ilya would be here.

“Hi,” he croaks.

His dad recovers first. “Hey, bud,” he says, quietly coaxing. He’s always been good at smoothing over Shane’s panic.

“This is, um, Ilya. Rozanov,” Shane says lamely. “But you knew that.”

Ilya offers a stiff, “Hi,” from beside him. Shane doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so still.

“What-” Yuna clears her throat, smile slipping into something professional and distant. “What is he doing here?” It’s polite but cut through with an undercurrent of curtness that makes Shane cringe.

“Could we, um, could we sit down?” He gestures to the dining table woodenly. “I’ll- I’ll explain everything then.”

His parents share a look but obediently move to sit on one side of the table. Shane stumbles back a step, bumping into Ilya on his way to the other side of the table. Ilya touches his waist briefly. If his parents notice it probably just looks like he’s steadying him but Shane gleans comfort from it anyway.

The quiet of the room is suffocating once they’re all sitting but neither of his parents makes the first move to say anything. They’re clearly waiting him out. They used to do that when he was a kid too – when he was upset about something and couldn’t get his words out.

Shane braces his hands on the table and focuses on the woodgrain beneath his fingers. “So, you know some of my memories have come back…”

“Of course,” his mom says. Her voice makes Shane look up; she’s confused but she’s not pushing. “It’s wonderful.”

“Yeah,” he exhales, flashing them both a weak smile. “The thing is, I haven’t-” He swallows, mouth dry. Fuck, he wishes he’d gotten them all water first. “I haven’t told you everything I remember.”

His dad’s eyebrows shoot up but it’s the look his mom casts between him and Ilya that makes Shane’s stomach flip.

“Like what?” she asks.

Shane takes a fortifying breath, feeling Ilya’s foot tap against his under the table. It makes a memory rise, unbidden, in his head. A different room. A different table. Cameras and press all clamouring to get a soundbite. Him jumping in to help Ilya answer a question he didn’t understand. Their feet pressed together under the table.

He hadn’t remembered it before. Having it come back to him now is all the reminder he needs that he should do this.

“I’m gay,” he blurts out, trying not to flinch at the flicker of surprise that crosses over both his parents’ faces. “I mean, I didn’t forget that, obviously. But- but I never told you and I should’ve. I’m sorry. And, well, Ilya and I-”

He cuts himself off, looking helplessly in Ilya’s direction. Ilya smiles back at him, small and tight-lipped but encouraging all the same. He turns back to his parents.

“We’ve been-” Fuck, how did Ilya explain it to Shane the first time? What did he say?

His mom gets there first.

“Are you two- together?” she asks, bewildered.

Shane nods, unable to make his voice work.

She looks shocked. Not…angry, he doesn’t think. Confused, definitely. His dad gives less away but Shane’s brain is too scrambled to try and figure out what he’s thinking.

Ilya’s hand lands on his thigh under the table, thumb and fingers digging into Shane’s skin through his shorts until he remembers to breathe.

“I, um, I’m sorry. Because I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear,” he explains hollowly. “But…the first memory I got back was about him and- and even forgetting everything about us couldn’t stop me from starting to fall in love with him again so I don’t- I can’t help it.” He says it all in a rush, to the table more so than his parents, but he’s saying it and that’s what matters. “Even if I wanted to.”

He closes his eyes when he feels them start to burn. A hand covering his own on the table a moment later makes him look up again.

“Shane.” His mother is watching him, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologise for.”

Shane stares at her, dumbfounded, only pulling his gaze away to check his father’s reaction. He nods as if in agreement, giving Shane a smile somewhere between proud and encouraging.

Ilya’s grip is still a vice on his leg.

“I- really?”

A sound that could be a laugh or a sob escapes Yuna’s mouth. “Of course not. Shane- we would never ask you not to feel how you feel.”

“And we’re sorry we ever made you think we would,” his dad adds, sitting forward and covering both his and Yuna’s hands.

“I-” Shane looks between them until his vision blurs. He doesn’t know what to say or how to explain how overwhelming all this has been or what to do to even begin to process this.

His mom must be able to tell because she smiles. It’s her professional one again even if it looks far more watery than Shane has ever seen it. She lets go of Shane’s hand, prompting his dad to do the same, and sits back. “Can you tell us about how this happened?”

For the first time in too long, he looks to Ilya. And just seeing the look on his face makes Shane feels like a puppet with his strings cut. He feels himself deflate, feels all the air rush out of him at once, and he’s not sure if he actually would’ve hit his head against the table or not but Ilya is there to catch him regardless. His hand leaves Shane’s thigh, reaching up to grip the back of his neck and guide their foreheads together.

“You’re okay,” he whispers, thumb rubbing over the nape of Shane’s neck.

Shane closes his eyes, nodding against his temple. He only pulls away when he hears his mom make a noise on the other side of the table.

She’s looking at them with something close to awe. His dad’s smile isn’t all that different but there’s something quietly knowing there too.

“Okay, now I have to hear how Ilya Rozanov made you fall in love with him twice,” she says and Ilya huffs a laugh.

“Luck, I think.” It’s the first thing he’s said since they’ve arrived and Shane finally remembers how nervous he’d been to face them. “And a lot of miracles.”

Shane shakes his head, tapping his foot against Ilya’s under the table. “It wasn’t luck,” he mutters.

It was perseverance on Ilya’s part. So much. And hope and patience. And believing in Shane in a way no one else has ever had.

He doesn’t think he has it in him to explain all that to his parents right now.

His mom looks between them, clearly waiting for more, but his dad claps his hands together and pushes himself up from the table. “Why don’t I get us all a drink and you can tell us?”

Shane exhales and nods. “Sure.”

*

By the end of the week, Shane is at the cottage with Ilya, sitting on the couch and watching the final game of the playoffs.

It’s ridiculous how something so fucking mundane feels like a dream come true. Except, obviously, for the fact that he’s not actually the one about to win the Stanley Cup.

“The playoffs are boring without us,” Ilya complains from beside him and Shane grins.

“I got concussed. What was your excuse?”

Ilya fixes him with a look, raising one eyebrow imperiously. “You got concussed.”

“You can’t use my injury as an excuse for your shitty playing.”

Ilya scoffs, face contorting in outrage. “Uh, yes I fucking can.”

He can, really. They’d talked about it a little – how the fight had gone out of Ilya by the time he’d reached the playoffs with everything else going on. Shane can’t find it in himself to feel too bad about it since it meant Ilya was able to come see him. Who knows where they’d be now if he hadn’t shown up on Shane’s doorstep all those weeks ago. Would he even remember anything?

Shane stares him down now, relenting the second Ilya tugs on his shoulder to pull him down against his chest.

“You’re just mad Scott Hunter is winning the cup,” he says, kissing Ilya’s chest before he focuses on the TV again. There are only fifteen seconds left until the final buzzer.

“Dinosaurs are not supposed to win.”

Shane rolls his eyes, smacking Ilya’s stomach with the back of his hand. “Be nice. He’s a good guy.”

“He’s hot for an old man,” Ilya muses right as the final buzzer sounds and the Admirals crash into each other in celebration on screen.

Shane sighs, sitting up straight again, Ilya’s hand drops from his shoulder but still stays draped around his waist. He’s looking at Shane when Shane turns to him, a faint smirk on the corners of his mouth as if daring Shane to argue back with him.

Too bad Shane is too busy revelling once again in the fact that he gets to have this to allow Ilya to ragebait him.

“Y’know, I’m glad neither of us were in the playoffs.”

Ilya gapes at him, abruptly sitting up from where he’d been slouched against the cushions. He feels Shane’s forehead with the back of his hand, reaching up then to seemingly check Shane’s head for bumps. Shane tries to bat his hands away and gets a pinch to the cheek for his trouble.

“No. do you have fever?” Ilya says seriously, catching Shane’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You must. We must call doctor. Shane Hollander just said he is glad he is not in playoffs.”

Shane heaves a long-suffering sigh but doesn’t shake Ilya off, a hopelessly fond smile making its way onto his face. “I just mean- I used to think about this. Before.”

Ilya’s grip loosens, his hand falling to Shane’s neck as his expression slips into something less teasing. More soft. “Think about what?”

“You being here,” he admits quietly. “Us watching hockey together here. And I know it’s- god, it’s such a boring thing to fantasise about,” he says, feeling himself flush in self-deprecation.

“On brand for you,” Ilya murmurs but his eyes are practically sparkling with the way he’s quietly beaming at Shane.

“But it felt out of reach for so long,” he continues, ignoring the joke. “And now we’re here and- it’s nice.”

He meets Ilya’s eyes, feeling his mouth curve up helplessly. Ilya kisses his smile and nudges his nose against Shane’s cheek. “Let’s watch hockey then.”

He slips his hand into Shane’s and turns back to the TV. Shane does the same a second later, not quite willing to tear his eyes away from Ilya just yet. And isn’t that a metaphor for his life for the past decade? Always caught somewhere between Ilya Rozanov and hockey.

“What is he doing?”

Shane blinks, finally looking at the screen. They clearly missed Hunter lifting the cup. The whole team’s families are on the ice now but Hunter is over near the boards, gesturing for someone in the crowd, it looks like. The commentators are wondering about it too so this clearly wasn’t planned.

Shane frowns, trying to figure out what they missed when he notices someone moving through the crowd. It’s a man, probably a little older than him and Ilya, slowly shuffling his way through the stands. “Who is that? I thought Hunter didn’t have any family.”

He catches Ilya’s shrug out of the corner of his eye, unable to look away completely from the screen.

It isn’t until the man is hopping the boards and Hunter is urging him onto the ice that Shane starts to feel his heart thump heavier in his chest.

Hunter takes the man’s hand and Ilya squeezes his so hard it hurts.

Shane stares, mouth dropped open in shock, as Hunter pulls the man onto the ice. They’re talking but the cameras don’t pick up the conversation. The cameras do pick up Hunter’s smile though, bright and brilliant, right before he sweeps the other man into a triumphant kiss.

Ilya gasps quietly beside him. Shane feels frozen, feels every thought in his head come to a grinding halt.

Because-

Because there are two men kissing on the ice. His ice. The ice he loves so much but that he knows would never accept this part of him. Except behind the blood rushing in his ears he doesn’t think anyone is booing. The commentators are saying, ‘Good for Scott Hunter!’

There are two men kissing on the ice and one of them just won the Stanley Cup. And it’s not them.

But maybe it could be. Someday.

He never thought it could be. Truthfully, they’ve never talked about it. They might’ve, before, if Shane’s accident hadn’t happened. But they’ve spent so much of the past two months trying to reconstruct the past and settle into the present, they haven’t really had much time for the future.

But maybe-

Maybe.

Ilya lets out a harsh breath beside him and Shane finally looks at him. Their hands are still crushed together but he can’t remember how to let go.

Ilya looks dazed, mouth half-open around a disbelieving smile and Shane is sure his own face must look similar. And there are no words, he thinks; nothing either of them could say right now to fully explain what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling. But he looks into Ilya’s eyes and he knows they’re thinking the same thing.

They could do that.

Maybe.

Someday.

For now, Ilya kisses him on his couch at the cottage and Shane remembers everything they had to do to get here and it feels just as much like a victory.

*

Chapter End Notes

thank you so much for reading!!! for those of you who wanted a little bit more, i hope this fulfilled that and tied up any potential loose ends 🥰 (fun fact: the line about how there was nothing either of them could say post-skip kiss was because i couldn't come up with anything as earth-shattering as 'i'm coming to the cottage' askdjfhs)

as always i'm over at littlespoonevan on tumblr if you wanna come say hi 💖