Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Anya | Ilya Rozanov's Dog, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Farah Jalali, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady

Additional Tags:

Coma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Medical Inaccuracies, medical anxiety, Brain Injury, memory struggles, Scott/Kip if you squint (referenced but not really shown), they're really not in the fic much at all other than like... canon to what Shane and Ilya's experience with them is in HR, Coming Out, the Author does not know hockey specifics but she is Trying her Best, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, I'm coming to the cottage

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-27 Words: 14,925 Chapters: 1/1

how you loved me then

Summary

Shane Hollander has everything. A loving husband, a settled routine, and a life that finally makes sense. And then he wakes up.

Or: The hit Shane takes during the game vs. Boston leaves him in a coma, where he spends four years with Ilya by his side, building their life together. When he wakes up and learns that none of it was real, he’s left to face a reality that no longer matches what he knows.

Notes

This fic is canon up until the hit on Shane during episode 5, and then diverges pretty sharply from there. But also it doesn’t diverge at all. That will make sense in a little bit, I promise.

The weird beeping sound starts on an unremarkable Tuesday.

It’s the offseason, late in June, so naturally Shane is up bright and early, before the sun is even above the horizon. Ilya is still asleep, mumbling something unintelligible into the pillow as Shane slides out from between his arms, leaning in to give him a gentle kiss before crawling out of bed. He pauses at the bathroom door, one arm braced on the wooden doorframe, watching his husband sleep. Ilya has rolled over onto his stomach, covers pooled around his waist, and Shane has to fight the urge to clamber back onto the bed and press his lips to every mole that dots the broad expanse of Ilya’s back. Anya is curled up at the foot of the bed, her head pillowed on one of Ilya’s ankles.

Autopilot kicks in, and Shane dresses quickly in the dark, leaning against the wall to keep himself from falling over as he pulls on his socks. Once he’s dressed, he heads down to the kitchen to fill his water bottle, then grabs himself a protein bar and makes his way down to the cottage’s gym room on the lower level.

Headphones on and music up just loud enough to drown out the rest of the world, he paces himself through his warm-up stretches, and then focuses on his usual routine, letting himself get lost in it. It feels good to use his muscles, especially during the off-season when he’s not playing games and running drills at practice.

Beep.

The high pitched sound is distant, but still loud enough that Shane hears it through his headphones. It pulls him from his focus, and he tugs an earphone out, pausing his music to listen for it again. Perhaps one of the smoke detector batteries died, or one of the gym machines is on the fritz and needs to be serviced.

But the sound doesn’t happen again. Shane frowns down at his phone, rewinding the song enough to check if the beep was in the song. And he knows it’s not in there; this is his one hour gym workout playlist that he curated specifically, making sure each song fits into his routine. He knows these songs backwards and forwards. 

Shaking his head, he chalks it up to his headphones malfunctioning or something (because literally what else could it be) and gets back to his workout.

He finishes up a half hour later, and heads back upstairs to take a shower and actually start his day. Ilya is up already, busying himself in the kitchen making some sort of breakfast for the two of them – whatever it is, it smells good, good enough to make Shane’s stomach grumble. He hadn’t bothered with the protein bar, having left it on the counter down in the gym with all of the other protein bars he’s brought down and forgotten to eat. He rushes through his shower and joins Ilya in the kitchen, walking up behind him to press a soft kiss to the nape of his neck.

“Mmmm…” He can hear the smile in Ilya’s voice as he leans back against Shane. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Shane inhales deeply, smelling breakfast and coffee and Ilya all at once. “What are you making?”

“Eggs and toast. And bacon.” Ilya snaps the tongs in his hand in Shane’s direction, then flips over a piece of bacon frying on the stovetop. “We are in off-season. You do not need to eat like a bird. Good, hearty breakfast.”

Shane rolls his eyes fondly, lips curling in a grin. “Sounds delicious. But I would have preferred Canadian bacon instead, it’s less greasy–”

“No. This bacon is better. Crispy, delicious–”

Beep.

Shane jerks back from where he’s leaning against Ilya, turning his head to try and catch the source of the noise. Maybe the oven? Or maybe the kitchen smoke detector doesn’t like the smoke coming off of the frying bacon? Shane glances down at the frying pan on the stove, but the bacon looks almost perfectly cooked – it’s not burnt, it shouldn’t set one of the detectors off.

He glances up at Ilya, who’s watching him with confusion on his face. “What is it?”

“It’s– sorry, it’s nothing.” Shane shakes his head, brushing it off. “Got a chill.” 

He’s not sure why he doesn’t mention the sound that he’s heard twice now. It’s probably because Ilya had just continued talking right through the sound as though he didn’t hear it at all. It’s not like it’s a very loud noise, to be fair, and maybe Ilya was focused on something else and the sound just had slipped his notice or something.

He can’t help but glance down at Anya, who is, as always, sitting right at Ilya’s feet staring directly at where he’s cooking as though, using the power of her mind, she can make some of the freshly made food fall off the stovetop and down onto the floor. She makes no indication that she’s heard the sound at all, either.

Hiding his furrowed brow as he gets plates out of the cupboard, Shane moves on, helping Ilya plate and carry their breakfast over to the kitchen table.

After they eat, they change into swim trunks and go outside, with Ilya making his way down the lawn towards the water, while Shane dons his glasses and flops into a chair, cracking open one of his books, Anya lounging at the foot of the chair in the grass. He admittedly doesn’t do too much reading, and instead ends up watching Ilya splash around in the water for a while, before giving up and shedding his shirt, joining Ilya in the lake.

He floats on his back in the shallows near the shore, the warm summer sun shining through his closed eyelids. The sounds of the world around him are muffled, his ears underwater. He can hear Anya bark, Ilya laugh, then water droplets land on his chest as Ilya splashes towards Shane. 

It feels good to exist here, at peace.

A peace that is shattered when he feels Ilya’s arms come around him. He cracks open one eye, sees the grin on Ilya’s face, and has the foresight to take a big gulp of air before he’s pulled unceremoniously under the water. It’s like a shock to his system as the cold water rushes over him, but it feels good at the same time, his body cooling off after roasting in the heat of the sun. Distantly, he can hear Ilya calling out to Anya, and her answering woofs. 

Shane shifts under the water, planting his feet on the bottom of the lake to push upwards and (hopefully) grab Ilya to pull him back down with him, when– 

Beep.

It’s even louder now, right in his ears as though he’s wearing headphones and someone has cranked the volume to the maximum. It comes from nowhere, surprises the shit out of him, and he lets out an involuntary gasp, water rushing into his throat. He bursts from beneath the water, spluttering, ears ringing. His arms are flailing, he’s sure, his body fighting to breathe.

Ilya surfaces just next to him. “Shane? You okay?”

Shane coughs, gagging on the lake water that he swallowed. He waves a hand in Ilya’s direction, not looking at him as he stumbles up and out of the water towards the shore, retching up water and the remnants of his breakfast behind a bush. Fuck.

“M’fine,” he calls towards Ilya, voice hoarse. “Just swallowed water.”

He doesn’t have to look back at Ilya to know that he’s already wading towards land after Shane. “I’m sorry– I thought you had enough air–”

“I did, I just coughed.” Shane shakes his head, dropping down to sit on the grass near the water as his breathing levels out. He turns and spits, trying to force the sour taste from his mouth. It doesn’t work.

Ilya doesn’t respond; instead he sits in the grass next to Shane, his eyes burning holes in the side of Shane’s face as Ilya studies him.

“Stop staring,” Shane mumbles. “It’s not your fault. I’m fine, it’s nothing.” It’s not nothing. He heard the noise again. He could convince himself that it made sense inside, when it could have been a number of things malfunctioning or making a strange sound. But under the water? Outside? What the fuck.

I keep hearing this sound and I think I need to see a doctor, is what he should say. I think something is really wrong with me, is what he should tell Ilya. Instead, he doesn’t say anything at all. He stands up and dries off with a towel, then goes inside, leaving a very confused Ilya sitting by the water’s edge and staring after him.

Shane blowdries his hair, changing into sweatpants and a hoodie; it’s hot outside but the air conditioning is running full blast inside, enough that goosebumps break out across his skin as he changes. He grabs himself a ginger ale from the fridge, then gets comfortable on the couch. He eyes his phone for a moment before picking it up, fingers tapping away as he navigates to Google.

why do i hear a random beeping noise in my head but not a lot just once every hour or two

The results aren’t satisfactory. WebMD tries to tell him it could be tinnitus, which has him spiraling about all of the times he had cranked the volume up on his headphones to shut the rest of the world out while he worked out. He googles the decibel level of an average hockey game, tries to see if that might have anything to do with this, which leads him down another rabbit hole about inner ear injuries that hockey players have experienced.

He sees Ilya come inside with Anya out of his peripheral vision and stand there for a moment, watching him. If he looks up from his phone he knows he’ll see concern on Ilya’s face, and right now that’s not something he can deal with, because WebMD has just told him he could have a brain tumor and he needs to read about the symptoms immediately.

Anya steps up and onto her dog bed, spinning around a few times before flopping down with an exaggerated huff. Ilya disappears into the bedroom, reappearing a few minutes later in something equally as comfortable as what Shane’s wearing. He doesn’t say anything as he sits down on the couch, reaching to pull Shane against him. Shane feels his body relax almost subconsciously, as though Ilya’s presence is enough to assuage his worries. It’s fine. It’s all going to be okay.

“Why are you reading about brain-eating amoeba?” 

Shit. “Uhh… I don’t know, I was just thinking about…” Why the fuck can’t he be honest? Why can’t he just come out and say that he thinks something is wrong with him? “...the water in the lake, and…” 

Ilya sighs, ducking his head to kiss the top of Shane’s. He doesn’t respond, just sits with Shane, the fingers of one of his hands tracing up and down Shane’s arm. Shane can tell that Ilya is reading over his shoulder, and really, he doesn’t mind, because he’s so far off the path of ‘weird beeping noise inside my head’ that there’s no way Ilya would figure out what’s going on with him.

“I do not think you have a brain-eating amoeba, Shane,” Ilya says after a moment.

“How would you know?”

“I swim in the lake a lot. I still have a brain.” Ilya says it like it’s obvious. “Nothing has eaten it. Is fine.” 

Shane purses his lips.

“Besides, it says hot or warm lakes. The lake here is cold. Is not warm. You’re fine.”

Shane feels Ilya’s breath ruffle the hair on the top of his head as he speaks, and despite everything he smiles. He locks his phone and sets it down on the coffee table, letting himself relax into Ilya’s arms. He’s fine. He’s fine.

Beep.

Shane starts so violently, accidentally elbowing Ilya so hard in the stomach that it draws a sound from him, something halfway between a loud puff of air and a groan. He vaults up and off the couch, standing up with his back to Ilya, heart pounding. “Sorry, sorry–”

“What the fuck, Shane–” Ilya sounds almost mad now, his brow furrowed as he stares up from his spot on the couch. But he knows Ilya, knows him inside and out, and this isn’t anger. This is how Ilya sounds when he’s worried, scared even. He reaches out a hand, fingertips snagging on the back of Shane’s hoodie. “Sit down, solnyshko, talk to me–”

Shane shakes his head. “I can’t, I–” He’s panicking, he realizes faintly, his breath coming in harsh pants. His vision is blurry, and he blinks quickly. He feels hands wrap around his wrists, gently pulling them down from where they’ve come up to cover his ears. The warmth of Ilya’s hands in his is a comforting, grounding thing, and he tries to focus on that instead of having to accept the fact that something is very, very wrong with him.

“I keep– hearing this stupid sound, and it’s freaking me out. It’s probably tinnitus or something, I don’t know, but it’s just… loud beeping. And every time I hear it, it scares the shit out of me because I’m not expecting it.”

“Oh.” Ilya’s lips press together, curving down at the edges. “We should call the doctor, yes?”

“Probably.” Shane leans his head forward, forehead thunking against Ilya’s shoulder. “Maybe she’ll refer me to a good ENT, I don’t have one yet–” 

Ilya hums softly, hands sliding up Shane’s arms to wrap around him, holding him close. “Okay. Then we call her, and then we will spend the rest of the day being lazy and watching bad tv. Maybe I will even give you a back rub.” He turns his head, kissing Shane’s forehead very gently, in that tender way Shane absolutely loves.

Shane wants to melt into his arms, wants to stay here for forever, if he could.

But instead he pulls his head back enough to look into Ilya’s eyes, gives him a soft smile, kisses him gently, then steps back in order to call the doctor. She doesn’t answer, so he leaves a message asking for a referral, then allows Ilya to lead him over to the couch.

True to his word, Ilya puts on some awful reality show that Shane has never seen before. It’s repetitive, but interesting enough that it keeps Shane’s mind off of what’s going on with his head. Anya hops up onto the couch and rests her head in Shane’s lap. Normally he’d tell her to get off, but he’ll let it slide today. He runs his fingers through the fur on her back gently, fingers scratching enough that her tail wags with a thump against the couch cushions. It’s soothing and repetitive, calming. 

At some point Ilya gets up to start cooking dinner, although he returns in between minding a pot on the stove in order to watch episodes of the show with Shane. The air starts to smell good, fragrant and decadent, enough for Shane’s stomach to start grumbling. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Soon, Ilya carries over two bowls of stew, setting one down in front of Shane. “Here, dorogoy,” he says with a gentle smile, disappearing for just a moment and returning with a can of cold ginger ale. 

They sit and watch more television while they eat, shooing Anya away when she tries to stick her nose into first Shane’s bowl and then Ilya’s. It’s a hearty meal, full of ground beef and vegetables, the perfect compromise between Shane’s rather particular diet and Ilya’s less-strict one.

The episodes available on Netflix run out, and Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s cheek, standing up to make himself a cup of tea. Shane shakes his head when Ilya asks if he wants one too, but after he hears the kettle start to sing on the stove, he changes his mind. He stands, flicking off the television, bending over to pet Anya where she lays still curled up on the couch, taking advantage of one of the few times she’s allowed to be up here.

Shane stretches, arms above his head, his back making a soft pop. Rolling his shoulders, he heads into the kitchen; he grabs a mug, fills it with hot water, dunks a tea bag into it, and slides into one of the chairs at the kitchen table to wait for his tea to steep.

At that moment, he realizes he hasn’t heard the sound in a while. Hours, even. He counts backwards, letting out a soft sigh of relief. He turns his head to smile at Ilya – Ilya, who stands at the kitchen window staring out at the lake as he sips on his tea. The sun is on its way to setting, golden hour trailing itself around Ilya gently, illuminating him in honeyed light.

BEEP.

It’s fucking back, and this time it’s loud enough that Shane grimaces in pain, ducking his head. Everything goes fuzzy for a moment, his vision darkening around the edges. Shane feels faint, like he’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean during a violent storm; he grips the edge of the table with one hand, trying to steady himself. The last time he remembers feeling like this was when he’d last been concussed, after Cliff Marlow had collided with him and knocked him to the ice.

This doesn’t feel like tinnitus, not anymore – this feels like he’s been punched in the back of the skull with a sledgehammer. A headache, perhaps? Maybe that’s all this is, just a lead-up to the world’s worst migraine or something–

BEEP.

Shane groans, eyes shut tight as he breathes through the next wave of pain, nausea churning in his stomach. Okay. This is worse. This is much worse. Despite his best efforts, this might have made its way into hospital territory. Even if they can’t diagnose him officially there, maybe they’ll give him something to knock out whatever pain this is. 

As he considers that this could be a thunderclap headache caused by a brain aneurysm and that maybe he’s fucking dying, from his periphery he notices darkness creeping up behind him. It looks almost like shadows are sweeping across the floor, tendrils of dark smoke reaching out to twine around his body.

He turns his head just as a dark figure cloaked in midnight wraps its arms around him tightly. He yelps, struggling against its iron grip as it pulls him backwards and off the chair. The chair falls to the ground, one leg snapping. Distantly, Shane thinks about how they’ll need to replace it, how he hopes that it didn’t damage the floor where it had landed.

BEEP.

“Ilya–!” Ilya’s name tears from Shane’s lips as he scrabbles to break free even though it feels like he’s fighting against a brick wall. His bare feet can’t find purchase on the floor, fingers scrambling to grip onto the person’s arms to try and free himself. He feels his nails dig in; if there had been skin there, he knows he’d be leaving bloodied scratches behind. But as it is, his fingers sink down into nothing. 

Ilya stands there; he doesn’t turn around. He hasn’t responded at all, hasn’t acknowledged that Shane has called out his name, clearly panicked… for all of the hovering he’s done today, all of the checking in… he does not move. He just stands, staring at the sunset, his back to Shane. 

“Please, no, please–” Shane’s eyes are wet as he begs, tears streaking down his cheeks. As he’s dragged closer and closer to the front door, he can’t take his eyes off of Ilya’s back, at the way he glows like an angel, the setting sun making it look like his curls are on fire. “Ilya! Please!” Why won’t Ilya turn? Why is he not helping him?

“ILYA!”

He hears the sound of the front door slam open behind him, wind whipping in through the door and swirling around his body. The curtains in the living room thrash against the breeze. There’s a sudden, intense pressure against his body like he’s being sucked into a vacuum, a sound like a roaring freight train as he’s pulled backwards, kicking and screaming, heels dragging against the floor as he’s yanked towards the door of the cottage, and–

BEEP.

Shane blinks, the world coming into hazy focus around him. Instead of the sunset glow of the cottage, everything looks bright and clinical, almost sterile. His body feels so heavy – it’s like there’s something sitting on his chest, weighing him down and pinning him to the ground no matter how hard he pushes against it. He flexes his fingers, feeling scratchy linen beneath them. 

Why is breathing so hard? Why is moving so hard? Where is he?

“It’s okay, honey, we’re getting the doctors–”

“M-mom?” The word comes out scratchy, hoarse, barely audible. She shouldn’t be here. Shane’s parents were on a trip; they were supposed to be celebrating their anniversary in Vancouver, on an all-expenses-paid-for trip courtesy of Shane and Ilya. They definitely were not at their cottage; he knows this for sure, because he and Ilya had been eating their own leftovers for the last week instead of driving them up the road to share with Yuna and David. The leftovers had gone into the stew that Ilya had made, stew that Shane can still taste the echoes of in his mouth.

Ilya. Where is Ilya?

“Shane, it’s okay.” His dad’s voice, now. “Easy, son. We’re here.” He feels a gentle hand on his face, fingers brushing his cheeks.

He blinks – he wishes he could see clearly. It feels like someone has coated his eyeballs with vaseline; no matter how much he blinks they won’t clear up. 

“Where’s Ilya?” The words drag their way from his throat, thick like molasses.

There’s a light in one eye suddenly, so bright that he flinches back. It lasts a moment, then it’s in his other eye. It’s bright enough that it hurts, and Shane squeezes his eyes shut tightly, turning his head away.

“Shane, open your eyes for me.” He doesn’t recognize the voice speaking, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes, not if that light is going to be back. A hand grips his face and turns it to face forwards, then two fingers spread his eyelids open with practiced ease, so that the light can shine in again.

“Wha– what’s going on–” Shane lifts a hand to bat away the person who’s decided that they want to play with his face, frowning when he feels some resistance. The light disappears, and he blinks until the bright spots fade from his vision, then looks down at his hand.

His vision is still murky, but he can very clearly see that there are wires and tubes connected to his arm, taped to the back of his hand, his wrist, the inside of his elbow. What the fuck.

“Where–?” The word comes out in a croak, his throat dry and scratchy.

“He can have some water,” the stranger says, ignoring him. “Nice and slowly, okay? Take it away from him if he tries to drink too much too fast.”

Shane feels something at his lips and he lets them part – cool water slips in between them, wetting his mouth. He swallows, wincing as the water slides down, but the relief is almost instant. Almost.

“Hi Shane,” the stranger says, “can you look at me? Good, that’s good – do you remember what happened?” His voice is gentle but firm.

What happened? What does he mean, what happened? Shane doesn’t remember focusing on the man hovering over him, but he blinks a few more times and the man’s features finally come into focus. He’s got dark hair and glasses, a neatly trimmed beard, and he’s wearing a white coat. A… doctor, it seems.

Did he collapse, and Ilya brought him to the hospital? He remembers the noise, that fucking beeping in his ears, that– he can hear it even now. The beeping. Whatever’s wrong with him, it’s even worse, because the sound is nearly constant now. 

Shane rolls his head to the left, focusing on the source. There’s a machine there, beeping steadily, in time with the heartbeat he can feel pounding in his chest.

“Shane?” The doctor’s insistence draws Shane’s attention again, and he looks back up at him. “Do you remember what happened?” he repeats.

“No–” he slurs. His mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, even with the water.

“You were hit,” Yuna says from the other side of the bed, answering the question for him. Her voice sounds thick, and she sniffles as though she’s been crying. “You weren’t looking, and you took a hit, and your head hit the ice, and–”

“Not too much all at once,” the doctor says, not unkindly, looking up at Yuna. “Give him some time, it took him a few days to get to where we are now, and sometimes it takes even longer for coma patients to regain full consciousness.” He focuses back down on Shane. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

Coma patient? Shane’s mouth feels dry again, all of a sudden.

“Um.” He shuts his eyes, doing the math. He’s been married to Ilya for almost a full year now, their anniversary is coming up so, so soon. Shane has his present already, tucked away in his half of their shared closet, somewhere where Ilya won’t think to check. “2022.”

The room is silent. 

“Okay,” the doctor says. “I–”

“Can we tell him?” His mother speaks up from where she sits, wiping her eyes.

The doctor nods. “Someone will come back in a little while and check in. His vitals look good, I’m not concerned with any of the readouts here, so… take your time.” 

Once the doctor leaves the room, Shane turns his head, making eye contact with his dad. “Dad? Can I have some more water?” Or at least, that’s what he thinks he says.

“Of course, Shane, of course.” David lifts the cup to Shane’s lips again, and Shane takes a long drink, swallowing the cool liquid. It feels good.

His mom opens her mouth to speak, but Shane beats her to it. “Where’s Ilya?”

The room is silent except for the soft beeping of the machines next to Shane. Yuna and David glance between each other, confusion on their faces.

“Ilya… Rozanov?” Yuna says, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Yeah. Didn’t he… didn’t he bring me in here?”

“No, honey, you were… no. You were playing a hockey game against Boston, and one of their players, Cliff Marlow, hit you from behind and knocked you down. Your helmet came off, and your head…” Yuna’s voice gets caught in her throat, and she looks away, one hand covering her mouth.

Shane watches as his father reaches out to take his mom’s hand. He takes a deep breath, as though to steady himself, and then picks up where she left off.

“You hit your head on the ice,” David says, voice tight, as though recounting the story causes him physical pain. “It caused a seizure, and you had a brain bleed. You’ve been in a coma for nearly a month.” 

Shane stares up at his father. The words he wants to say won’t come out, as though he’s forgotten how to speak entirely. That’s not how it happened. Cliff Marlow hit him, yes, and he hit his head on the ice, yes, but it just gave him a concussion and a broken collarbone, not… not this. 

Unless…

“What year is it?” he chokes out, his voice barely more than a whisper, afraid to find out the answer.

His mom takes his hand, holding it like she’s scared he’ll break. “It’s 2018, honey,” she says, her voice gentle.

Shane’s entire world falls out from beneath him.

—

Shane feels… well, he’s not really sure how he feels. He’s thought about it for days now, struggling to give a voice to the swirling storm of emotions in his head. 

He doesn’t understand how he can have lived four entire years, some of the best times of his life (and some of the worst, admittedly), and then wake up to them being nothing more than a figment of his imagination. He feels older, like he’s not 26 – how is that possible, when he can shut his eyes and still taste the frosting on the birthday cake Ilya had forced him to eat. He can still feel Ilya’s arm around his shoulder as they’d looked down at the lit candles on the cake. He can still hear Ilya’s laughter, saying “You only turn thirty once, moya lyubov” as he’d gestured for Shane to blow out the flickering candles. 

He can still feel the ghost of Ilya’s lips on his, can still remember the way that Ilya’s kiss had tasted sweet like buttercream.

But here he is, laying in a hospital bed staring down at a contact in his phone labeled Lily, with the last text message being from Shane just before the game against Boston, sharing the code to his front door. It had gone unanswered, the tiny read receipt burning a hole in Shane’s heart.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard, and before he can stop himself, he types:

Jane     >     hi

He watches as the message sends, sitting on delivered. Ilya isn’t playing a game now, he knows. He shouldn’t be at practice either, despite the Bears making an impressive last minute playoff push according to the newscaster on the comically small television hanging up on the wall (muted when he knows a nurse will be coming to check on him, or when he knows his parents are on their way, volume on low otherwise).

Montreal sits lower in the standings, all but mathematically eliminated from playoffs at this point. Shane had checked their stats, had seen the way they’d lost nearly every game since his injury. He feels guilty, almost oppressively so, despite the knowledge that the success of his team shouldn’t be on just him. Hockey is a team sport, after all.

Regardless, Shane can’t help but feel responsible, and the unanswered text message isn’t helping much. He stares at his phone, willing the read receipt to switch over, and furrows his brow as he tries to think back.

When he tries to recall the details of the game where he’d been injured and the days leading up to it, his brain throbs warningly.

He remembers the hit, in the other life he’d lived. He’d gone down, and had been taken to the hospital, but it had just been a concussion and a broken collarbone. Ilya had come to see him in the hospital, Shane had invited him to the cottage, and then once Scott Hunter had kissed his boyfriend on the ice after winning the cup, Ilya had taken Shane up on his invitation. Their relationship had cemented on that trip, they’d said that they loved each other for the first time, and Shane had come out to his parents.

In this reality, though… Shane isn’t sure about a goddamn thing.

He shuts his eyes, trying to sort the real memories from the fake ones. 

He remembers going to Ilya’s house in Boston; he’s sure that that happened in this timeline. He knows that they had had sex, Ilya had made him a tuna melt, and then… and then Ilya had called him Shane for the first time, and Shane had freaked out and walked out. He remembers the cab ride back to his hotel, and the way his hands had shook where he’d clasped them tightly in his lap. He remembers walking into the hotel room and avoiding Hayden’s gaze.

Did he date Rose Landry in this world, too? He finds paparazzi pictures of them when he googles their names together, and she’s saved in his phone, so it seems like they did. Was the All-Star Game in Tampa, or was that just in his head? It was, he looks it up to be sure. Did he play on the same team as Ilya? Yes, he finds the team roster.

But did Shane go to Ilya’s hotel room after? Did they have that conversation, where they stopped calling each other Hollander and Rozanov? Did Ilya still call him after his father had died, speaking to him in Russian because he couldn’t find the English words to tell Shane what was on his mind?

Shane doesn’t know if those memories are real, or if they’re just ones that his brain had made up while he’d lain unconscious. He can’t separate one set from the other, because for the last four years (no, the last month, he reminds himself bitterly) he’s been living his life like he only had one and not two.

The text still sits unanswered, unread.

Shane feels a pit in his stomach.

Jane     >     if we left things badly between us I’m sorry
Jane     >     but I can’t really remember
Jane     >     I don’t know if you heard but I was in a coma
Jane     >     I just want to talk to you

It’s like his fingers move on autopilot, typing out the messages. He hits send on each one of them before he can let his mind catch up to what he’s doing, because at this point he doesn’t care about double (or quadruple) texting Ilya. He just needs to know.

The messages flip to read, and as Shane watches, the three dots appear showing that Ilya is typing. They sit like that for a few moments, then disappear. Then reappear. Then disappear. Shane grips his phone tighter.

If Ilya doesn’t want to talk to him, fine. Whatever. Shane just wants to know. If he knows, then he can move on, he can focus the rest of his life on getting over someone who he loves way more than he should. The Ilya he just texted is not his husband. The Ilya he just texted doesn’t have the same four years of imagined memories that Shane does.

The dots show up again, for a long time, then disappear.

Shane exhales. Boston plays Montreal in two weeks.

Jane     >     I’m at Montreal General in room 410

The dots appear again, and then:

Lily     >     i will come

That’s it. Nothing else, just three words, but Shane feels like whatever had been sitting on his chest has finally climbed off, and he can breathe for the first time in days. He’d gone from living with his husband, seeing him every single day, getting to wake up next to him in bed and hold him close, to… to nothing. In this life, he doesn’t have the ability to just roll over and find Ilya laying next to him. Ilya isn’t going to cook dinners for him every night, he’s not going to be there lounging on the couch with Anya–

Oh, Anya…

For some reason, the thought of Anya is what finally breaks Shane. He thinks about her sweet little face, the way she looks up at Ilya with adoring eyes, all the times she’s tried (and succeeded) to climb up on the bed and spend the night there tucked into the space between Shane and Ilya’s legs. He remembers how she always knows when one of them is feeling sad and how she curls herself up next to them offering silent comfort, how she loves to play fetch in the backyard with her favorite balls (the yellow and blue ones, never the red ones), how she makes Shane sit down on the floor in the entry of the house when he returns from having been gone for too long, weaseling her way into his lap with her tail spinning in a circle like a helicopter. It’s the only time he’ll let her kiss his face, allowing her these moments of excitement as she showers him with kisses, happy whines pulled from her throat, her body wriggling in unbridled joy.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels dampness on his hands, dripping down his cheeks. He misses Ilya, he misses their dog, he misses their life. Everything hits him at once, a wave crashing over him, and Shane shatters, sobbing into his palms. His body curls in on itself, and he rolls onto his side, knees pulling up so he’s basically in the fetal position as he weeps. His shoulders shake, sobs coming in shuddering gasps that physically hurt as they’re pulled out of him.

It feels like Ilya is dead. Which is dumb, because Ilya has just texted him. But his Ilya… the Ilya he has spent the last four years building a life with… he doesn’t exist. He was only in Shane’s mind, a manifestation of the life he wants with Ilya. 

He doesn’t even know if Ilya wants that with him.

Grief for the life he lost pulls him underneath the water again, and Shane tugs his blankets up and over his head so he can cry in peace.

—

Rehab fucking sucks.

Shane is used to putting his body through the paces, physically and mentally, when it comes to rehabilitating for hockey. He’s spent hours on stationary bikes, performed countless yoga routines, sat in ice baths that chilled him to his core… but in all cases, whatever injuries he’d sustained felt good when they’d begun to heal. He enjoys pushing through hip tightness, relishes the feeling of stiff joints easing the more he stretches…

This, though… this is different. He shouldn’t need to lean on two people in order to walk from his bed to the small bathroom attached to his hospital room, and yet… his legs shake as though he’s never stood on them before, muscles weak and atrophied. He stares down at himself and wonders how he’s worked his whole life to achieve the physique he had had before the injury, and yet all that work has seemingly flown out the window the second he’s sidelined.

The doctors say he’s lucky that he’s still able to walk, despite the weakness. They tell him that when he’d come in after his injury, he’d already been unconscious – he’d never woken up after the seizure on the ice. They’d drilled a hole in his head to monitor the pressure in his brain, and had ventilated him right away. He’d improved steadily, and they’d been able to remove the ventilator after a couple of weeks when he’d started to breathe easily on his own, but it had taken a little longer for them to be comfortable with the bleeding in his brain. They’d almost expected him to not remember how to talk, or to need a wheelchair to get around.

According to his mom, it had taken him a few days to come out of the coma fully. There had been times when he’d had his eyes open and had been watching her, but he was unresponsive. She said that one time she’d been watching something on television and trimming his nails for him when he’d laughed out loud, scaring her half to death. He’d make sounds every once in a while, half-formed words, and would sometimes react to noises in the room, but it was like he’d been looking through everyone that tried to catch his attention.

His body is trying desperately to catch up, to return to normal. His doctors are pleased that he’s moving around, that he has only experienced a little aphasia, that he’s just weak and shaky and unsteady. The first time he had tried to walk his father had said that he looked like a newborn baby deer trying to cross a frozen pond. It was enough to send Shane into hyperfocus, pushing himself more and more to try and get himself to be functional again. 

He tells himself that this is just how it’s going to be from now on. Once he’s out of the ICU, he has physical therapy in the mornings, occupational therapy in the afternoons. He sees a speech-language pathologist every other day, alternating with begrudging meetings with a therapist. He’s kept busy, his body exhausted by the end of the day.

He needs help to stand, he needs help to walk, he needs help to use the bathroom, he needs help to do anything that involves getting up from the bed. Sometimes he struggles to find words, words that should be on the tip of his tongue and yet are completely missing from his brain. His head still hurts sometimes, an ache in the spot where they’d had to drill into his skull to monitor the pressure on his brain.

But he’s doing it, and that’s what matters.  

—

He doesn’t hear from Ilya at all, not even as it gets closer to game day. Realistically, Shane knows he can’t be upset – it’s not like they text conversationally, their only communication usually dedicated to flirting or hooking up when they’re in the same city. That doesn’t stop him from staring down at his phone, waiting for a notification to pop up.

In the other world, as Shane has taken to calling it in his head, they had texted constantly. It wasn’t always conversation – sometimes it was just Ilya sending him a photo of something he’d seen while out and about. Sometimes Shane would share a news article, or Ilya would send a screenshot of something dumb someone was saying on Twitter. Or it would be conversation, flirty banter or something a bit more introspective. 

Whatever it was, there were always messages from Ilya waiting for him on his phone. It’s weird now that it sits, screen blank and empty. 

Shane isn’t the type to search himself on the internet, but he does give in to it this one time. He checks Twitter first, scrolling through his mentions – most of it is full of positivity and hopes that he’ll get better soon, but he does see some tweets from people speculating. The theories are dumb: that he’s faking the coma so he can have time to travel the world, that he’s actually dead and nobody has said anything yet, and the wildest ones (at least to him) that his long-term girlfriend has had a baby and he’s using the coma as an excuse to take paternity leave. But it’s few and far between, enough that he closes the app without worry.

He hops on Instagram next, but just by the nature of the app, there’s less there to stress over. He scrolls back a month or so, seeing the pictures of him posted by his parents updating on his status, the selfies with him posted by Hayden and JJ and Rose all showing their love for him, and the official post from the Voyageurs announcing his injury.

He can’t help but click deeper into the post from the Voyageurs, eyes scanning the comments. He recognizes names from around the league, guys he’s met a few times at various award ceremonies and guys he’s only heard of in passing – Scott Hunter, Cliff Marlow, Wyatt Hayes, Ryan Price… they all leave comments wishing him well. He’s surprised to see the amount of athletes that he’s either briefly interacted with or who he’s never even met show their support.

He closes the app shortly after, trying not to think about the lack of comments from his teammates. Outside of Hayden and JJ… he doesn’t see any comments from any names that he shares the ice with. It should concern him, should make him even a little upset… but it doesn’t. All it takes is for him to shut his eyes for him to remember exactly how he’d been treated by his team when he’d come out in the other world. And then when they’d found out that he was with Ilya… even though technically it’s not real, it’s still seared into his mind, and so he’s not at all surprised when it’s radio silence. Especially with the way they’ve been playing lately.

He should post something, probably – he sends a text message to his agent about it. Farah texts back almost immediately, a long message that is mostly about how happy she is to hear that he’s doing okay and that he’s awake, that she’s grateful to have him as a client… a lot of it is fluff, filler, but he appreciates it nonetheless. 

After a few messages back and forth, he settles on making a tweet from his account, since Farah says that it will drive engagement, whatever that means (he knows what it means, technically, but in the context of social media he’s mostly lost). She’s already notified the team and the league, although they’ve been put on an embargo from posting about him until he makes the first move. 

So he opens Twitter back up and stares at the blank text box for a long time before settling on a waving emoji, followed by ‘appreciate all the kind words’. It’s impersonal enough for his liking, and also acknowledges the support he’s received across the internet. He hits ‘send tweet’ and then locks his phone again after making sure it’s on silent and that his notifications are off. That’s enough of that.

—

Shane watches the Montreal-Boston game from his hospital bed.

It’s not a good game. Montreal is playing awfully, like they’re gunning for the first round draft pick. On the other hand, Boston is playing like they’ve got the game on lock (which, to be fair to them, they do). Ilya skates circles around Montreal’s best players, weaving in between them like they’ve got cement attached to their skates. It’s like the Montreal team he’s watching on television isn’t the same one he’d left behind on the ice a few weeks ago.

Despite being in the hospital room, Shane is all over the broadcast. The announcers talk about him more than they probably should, saying things like ‘Hollander would have been able to sink that into the net’ and ‘Wow, you can tell that Montreal is really wishing Hollander was back on the ice with them’, things that he knows will be echoed by the media when they interview whatever Montreal player they choose to pile on after the game ends. He shows up in-between periods as well, a screenshot of his tweet flashing on the screen followed by a slideshow of the absolutely explosive reaction to his return to the world of the living. He’s glad he muted his notifications, because the response, if he’d seen it when it was happening, would have completely overwhelmed him.

Just before play resumes in the third period, the broadcast cameras show a wide shot of the arena. Shane’s face is on the jumbotron, a highlight reel of his best goals flashing along to a song that he only vaguely recognizes. The crowd erupts, and as the camera pans through the crowd, Shane sees fans with signs showing their support for him cheering in earnest. The amount of Hollander jerseys is staggering.

Before cutting away to the game, the cameras show a close-up of Ilya as he stares up at the jumbotron. To anyone else, he’s just watching the compilation. But Shane knows Ilya, and he knows that look well. It’s the way that Ilya looks at him when he thinks Shane isn’t looking, and Shane feels his heart twist tightly behind his ribcage.

The game ends in an embarrassing score of 4-0 in Boston’s favor, but Shane can’t bring himself to be angry about it. 

—

There is a soft knock on the door that pulls Shane from the light rest that he’d fallen into. It’s late, the sky darkening outside. He’s on a high up enough floor that he can see as the lights in the surrounding buildings come on, illuminating the night with a soft glow. He still has the television on but it’s muted, some other game on the west coast on now; he’s not paying attention to it at all.

He’s expecting to see his mom, or maybe his dad, or even a nurse coming to check on him… he’s not expecting Ilya to be standing there in the doorway, looking absolutely destroyed. Ilya had said he was coming, and Shane had hoped that was still true, but as the evening had gone on and there had been no sign of him, well. He couldn’t help but feel sad.

He’d considered texting Ilya, to see if he was still going to be stopping by, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The thought of sending another message and having it sit on read, unanswered, was almost too much to bear. So instead he had shut his eyes and let himself doze off... until the knock wakes him, and he stares up from his bed into Ilya’s eyes.

Ilya steps forward, breathing hard. “Shane…” His voice wavers.

Shane doesn’t hesitate – he lifts a hand out, reaching, and Ilya strides forward and takes it, folding it between his own tightly. He sinks down to sit in the chair next to the bed, scooting it forward so that he can be closer, his thumb brushing over the back of Shane’s hand. After a moment, he ducks his head, his lips pressed against Shane’s fingers. Shane can feel him shaking.

“You came,” Shane whispers into the dim room. “I thought… maybe you decided not to…”

Ilya exhales. “No,” he says. “I am sorry I am late. I had to… make excuses, get away from the team, call a cab. I was…” He trails off, shaking his head as he composes himself. “I was terrified to come, and so I had one too many drinks, probably. But I am here.”

“Ilya…”

Ilya doesn’t give Shane a chance to speak. “When you texted me two weeks ago, I– I was out with the team at a bar. I had to go home because I could not hide it. Marly asked me what was wrong with my face, and I did not want them to figure it out. So I left. I cried in the cab, and then tipped the driver so he would not tell anyone.”

Shane squeezes Ilya’s hand. 

“You said you do not remember…?” Ilya meets Shane’s gaze, eyes anguished.

“Sort of.” Shane lifts his free hand to touch his temple. “I remember some things, but not others. I had… I had this really, really vivid dream while I was out, and it’s hard to separate it from reality, so. I guess I’m just trying to figure things out.” He lets the words hang in the air as he takes a breath. “I remember up until…” His cheeks flush pink. “I remember until I walked out of your house. In Boston. After that, everything is all just kind of blurry. I remember bits and pieces but it feels all jumbled up with… with the dream.” It feels weird to reduce the false memories he has of the last four years to just a dream.

Ilya nods, looking down at their joined hands. The look on his face fades, just a little. “So… so you did not forget us, then?” 

It makes sense, all of a sudden.

“I could never,” Shane breathes, shaking his head almost frantically. “Ilya, I could never forget you, I–” He feels panicky, nerves jumping beneath his skin, and with a sudden urge to have Ilya closer to him, he scoots over in the bed with a wince, pulling the covers back. His hand taps the mattress next to him.

Ilya stares at him, uncomprehending.

“Get in,” Shane says, trying to keep himself from begging too much. “Please.”

Ilya hesitates, glancing over at the door. “If somebody comes in–”

“I don’t care.” Shane sets his jaw. “It’s late. My parents are both home, so the only people who would come in would be nurses just doing their rounds. If they’re decent people they won’t say anything. And if they do, we fucking sue them, I don’t know–” He doesn’t care what he has to do, he wants Ilya in the bed with him right now. 

Ilya looks very, very nervous, but stands up. He shucks off his jacket, setting it on the chair, then toes off his sneakers and climbs into bed next to Shane. “I will not hurt you–?”

Shane shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No wires or anything. Just me.”

The second Ilya is in position, legs stretched out and head resting on the pillow, Shane folds himself into the spot where he knows he fits perfectly. He buries his face against Ilya’s chest, trying and failing to swallow the pitiful sound that comes out of him almost involuntarily when Ilya’s arm wraps around him to hold him close. He hasn’t felt this in so long, not since the other world, when he’d wake up to this every morning. He can feel his entire body trembling.

It’s silent between them as Ilya holds Shane, his hand rubbing up and down on his back. When he finally speaks, it’s in almost a whisper. “I was scared you were dead,” he says. “My father’s grave was not yet covered in grass, and I was scared I had lost you too. I could hardly bear it.”

Shane squeezes his eyes shut, tendrils of guilt threading through him. He’d spent the last month, technically, with Ilya, with Anya… but Ilya had been here, alone. It must have been hell, and Shane tightens his arms around Ilya.

Softly, Ilya speaks again. “Was it… was it a good dream?”

Shane’s lips quiver; he presses them together tightly to keep himself from crying. He’s done far too much of that in the last week. “It was,” he mumbles against Ilya’s shirt, sniffling despite his best efforts. It was so much more than a good dream.

“Will you tell me about it?” Longing twines through Ilya’s voice, as though he wishes he had been there.

Shane closes his eyes, and over the next two hours, does his best to tell Ilya everything. He means to just give bullet points, nothing too detailed… but he finds that everything just spills from his mouth almost uncontrollably. It’s like he can’t stop talking, as though the words have been cooped up inside of him for too long and have been just waiting for one crack in the shell around his heart so that they can rush forward, bursting from him in a froth of turbulence. 

Ilya, to his credit, takes it all in, laying in silence and listening. At certain points, like where Shane describes how they’d fought worse than they’d ever fought before, and then Ilya had gotten on a plane and almost died, it’s like he’s a statue in the bed next to Shane. Shane can’t even feel him breathe.

And then Shane tells him about how he proposed to Ilya, and all the air comes out of Ilya’s lips in a woosh, his next inhale shaky. His hand tightens around Shane’s, as though the idea of them being able to get married one day is enough to send his emotions spinning out of control. 

Shane skims over a lot of what happens after they get engaged. He touches on the important things: on how they’re outed, on how Shane leaves Montreal, on how they finally get to play with each other instead of against each other. He tells Ilya about their wedding, their honeymoon, and what it was like to be married to each other for a whole year.

“It was… I’ve never been happier in my life,” he confesses to the quiet room. “And I know It’s unfair of me to expect you to be him, but it’s so fucking hard for me not to.” Shane feels selfish as he says the words out loud. “I know it’s stupid, I–”

“I want to be him. I want…”

Shane looks up, startled.

“I want you.” Ilya says. “I want this. I want to do whatever I have to do to get it.” He lifts a hand, cupping Shane’s cheek gently. His thumb brushes across Shane’s freckles as though he’s tracing them.

It’s past visiting hours now, but nobody comes to check in on them or to kick Ilya out. It’s the perks of being who he is, Shane supposes – Canada’s Golden Boy means his visitors can stay long past when they’re supposed to leave. Normally he’d feel bad about it, that he’s the only one who’s able to take advantage of this, but right now, in Ilya’s arms, he finds that he doesn’t care.

They fall into a comfortable silence, Shane’s head pillowed on Ilya’s chest. The steady rise and fall is soothing, familiar, and he feels as his heartbeat slows and syncs up with Ilya’s breaths. 

“We didn’t get to come out on our own terms in the other world,” Shane says into the darkness after a long time. The room is near silent, sounds from the hospital filtering in through the almost fully closed door, and so his words come out a little louder than he means them to. 

“Hmm?” Ilya’s voice is thick, as though he’d almost been asleep. He probably had, Shane realizes, and speaking had woken him up. 

“That choice was taken from us. And I don’t want that here, with you. It’s like… it’s like we have a second chance to do it right this time.”

“What do you mean, do it right?” Ilya clears his throat, shifting to brush his nose against the top of Shane’s head.

“I mean, do it right for us. We don’t have to wait for Scott Hunter to come out on television, or for Hayden to out us in the background of his dumb video. We can come out in the way that we want to, whenever we want to. Nothing is stopping us.”

Ilya lifts a hand to rub at his eyes, pulling back a little to look down at Shane. He looks at least a little bit more awake now. “I–” He shakes his head. “I cannot, not yet. Not while I have a Russian passport.”

Shane nods, more to himself. “Okay. Um. Do you care if I do it first, then? I don’t want to wait.”

“No,” Ilya says almost immediately. “No, this– if you want to come out now, then you come out now. I will figure out what I am going to do, and then it will be my turn. And then we can…” He threads their fingers together tightly.

Shane nods again. “And then we can.” A beat, then: “After I come out, I’m going to go to the cottage up north. Get away from everything, pretend the world doesn’t exist... you should come, instead of going back to Russia. It would be… it would be nice to spend some time with you. And we can talk more. Figure everything out. What we’re going to do next.”

Ilya doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes.” The words leave his mouth on an exhale, his lips pressed to Shane’s in a kiss.

I think I might love you, Shane wants to say against Ilya’s mouth. I think that you’re it for me. But the words don’t come out.

—

He hits ‘post’ on the Farah-approved statement a week later. He’s been sitting on it for days, staring at his phone like it’s a time bomb about to go off if he touches it wrong. 

The statement that he’d written, and Farah had edited, is short and to the point. He’d wanted to wait to post it until he told his parents, and until he told Hayden and JJ. 

His parents had taken the news just fine, like he’d expected. He thought he’d be nervous to tell them, and maybe before his injury he would have been. But after knowing what’s waiting for him on the other side, he finds he’s not scared at all. 

Staying at his own apartment is out of the question, and so instead he comes back with them to Ottawa. His mom has the guest bedroom on the first floor prepared for him so he doesn’t even have to worry about pulling himself up the stairs. He has to rely on a walker to get around on bad days and a cane on good days, so being able to exist all on one level of the house just makes sense.

David makes panko crusted chicken cutlets for dinner on Shane’s first night home, and as they sit together and eat, as casually as if he was sharing the latest weather forecast or what he did at practice that day, he comes out. His parents are a bit surprised, but Shane thinks that maybe that’s because they weren’t expecting it to happen over dinner, or for him to just come out and say it. But he does, the words coming out easily, pouring out of him, and then– then that’s it. They know, and they don’t freak out, and his mom takes his hand and holds it tightly, and his dad claps him on the shoulder, and… 

And Shane feels like nothing is different, because for him, for the last four years his parents have known already. He’s not worried about their reaction because he knows what it will be like, he knows what to expect. He should probably be nervous to be proven wrong, but his parents are just as okay with it as they had been the last time he’d told them.

He’s more nervous to tell Hayden and JJ.

He wants to get it right this time, and so he invites them over to his parents’ house. To their credit, they both make the drive down from Montreal gladly, arriving in one car together. They say it’s because they’ve missed him, and he doesn’t doubt that they have. They hug him tightly at the front door, then spend the afternoon in the living room, sprawled out on the couch as they catch up. Hayden shares stories about his kids, letting Shane know what he’s missed since he’s been in the hospital. JJ talks about the team, about how it’s been abysmal in the locker room and how Coach has been on a warpath, making the whole team do bag skates at what feels like every practice.

It feels good to be with his friends – he’s missed them, and the sense of almost-normalcy that talking with them brings feels good. 

The conversation reaches a natural pause, and Shane takes a breath – it’s now or never.

“I need to tell you guys something,” he says carefully. When he feels two sets of eyes on him, he continues. “I’m gay.”

The words tumble out, just like they had with his parents. But this time, once he starts talking he can’t seem to stop. “It’s not new, it’s been… my whole life, I think. And I’m going to come out in a couple of days. I just… wanted to tell you both first, before I posted my statement. I didn’t want either of you to find out that way because you’re my best friends and I wanted you to hear it right from me.” 

Shane stares down at his lap, where his hands are clasped together tightly. He’s almost afraid to look up and see their reactions, but he feels Hayden bump his shoulder against his gently and the tiniest sense of relief washes over him.

“Thanks for telling us,” Hayden says. “I can’t imagine that was easy to do.”

Shane shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It wasn’t.”

“So that’s why you never took me up on my offers to set you up with Jackie’s friends, then?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. That’s… I shouldn’t have–”

“You didn’t know.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and then JJ finally speaks.

“So… Boston Lily…?”

“Not really Lily.” Shane looks over at his friend, giving him an apologetic smile and a shrug.

“Damn, Capitaine,” JJ breathes, shaking his head. “All this time…?”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls over them again, until JJ speaks up. “Why did you wait so long to tell us?” 

Shane isn’t trying to over-analyze his friend’s reaction, but he thinks if he concentrates hard enough he might hear some hurt threading through JJ’s voice. Maybe he thinks that Shane felt like he couldn’t trust them, or something, he’s not sure – which is categorically wrong, to be clear. Sure, it took him almost ten years to tell them, but it’s not because he doesn’t trust them. In fact, he thinks he can trust these two with his fucking life. But this… this is different.

“I only just told my parents like two days ago,” Shane says with a sigh. “I wasn’t just keeping this from you two, I was keeping it from everyone.”

“Except Boston Lily. Or… is there another name we should use…?”

“No. Lily is good.” Shane presses his lips together. “Obviously not from him. But that’s different. We were… we were in this together. He’s not… he doesn’t count, because he has the same secret as I do.”

Shane glances over to see the two of them lock eyes, as though silently asking, then confirming, something between them. 

“Look,” he says, before either of them can speak, “I just… I wanted you guys to know, okay? I have a feeling shit is going to get bad in the locker room, and…”

And he’s going to leave. He knows that this won’t go down exactly the way it had in the coma dream, because here he’s changing the narrative. He’s doing things in a different order, and so he can’t expect everything to play out the same. But the people on his team are the same. Shane has heard the comments that spill from their mouths as easily as breathing, the way they don’t hesitate to chirp opponents and teammates alike with casual homophobia and act as though they’ve said nothing wrong. 

But he’s not going to put up with it like he had then. He’s not going to suffer in silence, with half his team ignoring him and the other half pretending like they’re fine with everything when they’re actually not. He spent months waiting at his stall for everyone to be finished showering before he goes in just so that they won’t leave en masse when he walks in, months of knowing there’s another team group chat without him in it, months of pretending like he doesn’t hear the conversations about him in the locker room that are had just loudly enough for him to hear. He spent months wearing the C on his jersey in title only, speaking to a room of people who wouldn’t look him in the eye, who would allow his words to filter in one ear and out the other. They did it because they had to, not because they wanted to anymore.

And then the blow-up when his relationship had been revealed… that’s not something he wants to go through again. He doesn’t know if it would be exactly the same, but he does know that the Montreal locker room carries a deep-seated loathing for Ilya Rozanov, and that not a single person there, not even Hayden or JJ, would be happy for him if that news came out.

So he has to leave before it does. It’s the only decision that makes sense.  

When he walks the two of them out a little while later, they both give him tight hugs at the front door, like they know that their time playing on the same team as him is done. He’s sure they’ll talk about it in depth on the drive home, wondering who Boston Lily is or what team he’ll land with, but with the way Hayden says something about how he’ll have to come and visit the kids soon and the sniffle from JJ in Shane’s ear as their hug ends, well. He knows that they know that not only was the conversation an admission… it was also a goodbye, of sorts.

He watches as Hayden’s car disappears down the street before he goes back inside, shutting the door. He takes a minute to breathe, enjoying the break from carrying a weight that he hadn’t realized was as heavy as it had been. 

His parents know. His best friends know. Now it’s time to tell the rest of the world. No big deal.

He makes his way back to the living room, sinking down onto the couch again, and pulls out his phone. He rereads the statement a few times, as though he hasn’t already committed it to memory… and then hits post.

Very deliberately, Shane turns off his phone.

—

Over the course of my recovery, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things, and I want to be honest with you all. I’m gay. It’s something I’ve known about for a while, but I wasn’t ready to say it publicly. But after the last few weeks, I am now. I don’t want to wait until it’s too late. This is just something that’s a fact about me, it doesn’t change how I live my life or how I approach my career. I’m still the same Shane Hollander as I’ve always been, but now I’ll be able to be open about who I love instead of feeling like I have to hide it.

Thank you all for the continued support I’ve received during my recovery. I’m continuing to take things one step at a time, and am looking forward to getting back on the ice as soon as I can.

—

He expects the reaction to be similar to when he shared that he was awake. Instead, it’s so much louder.

He hands his phone to his mother when she gets home later, and lets her turn it on for him. She steps into her manager role easily, filtering through the comments, reading out the good ones and ignoring the bad ones, blocking and deleting the negativity as she goes. It’s easy enough to let himself fall into the delusion of pretending the bad parts don’t even exist.  He stretches out on the couch, resting his eyes while she reads out loud some of the tweets, pausing every once in a while to go through his texts. 

He dictates responses for her to send back, having to pause to collect himself when she reads out what might be the nicest message he’s ever received. 

“Who’s that from?” he asks a few minutes later, wiping dampness from his cheeks.

“Scott Hunter.”

Shane sniffles. Their roles are reversed, now – where before he and Ilya had texted Scott after Scott had come out, now it’s Scott’s turn to text Shane, it seems. 

Yuna keeps reading, checking in on his socials, making sure to get his approval before posting anything. She shares some supportive posts from other players to his story, keeping the conversation going online, 

“Who’s Lily? They’ve tried to FaceTime you like four times, and I just got a text that says ‘Answer my call Hollander, I need to book my flight’?”

Shane freezes, and he feels his cheeks flush. “Um.” With the urgency of posting, he’d forgotten to tell his parents about Lily, and who exactly he is. And with a name like that, after having just told his parents he’s gay, well… the explanation of this won’t make sense to them at all.

Yuna turns to look at Shane, one brow lifted.

“That’s, um. My, um.” Are they dating? No, not really. Shane makes a mental note that they’ll need to figure that out while they’re at the cottage. “My… friend. Lily.”

“Uh huh.” Yuna doesn’t sound convinced. 

“He– um. They’re coming to stay at the cottage with me when I go in a couple of days, I–” And oh, everything hits him all at once. Because Shane can’t drive up there, Ilya would have to do it. He’d need to fly out to Ottawa, rent a car, and then pick Shane up from his parents’ house. They’d need to load in Shane’s walker into the car, and his suitcase, and his giant tote full of physical therapy items so he can continue his regimen at home, and… and Ilya would need to help with that, because Shane currently can’t lift much more weight in his arms than a cell phone without his hands shaking a worrisome amount. 

He really should have thought all of this through.

“You can’t freak out.”

“Why would I freak out?” Yuna looks confused, the picture of a parent ready to accept their child’s partner for whoever they are. But Shane knows better – he’s heard her talk about Ilya, has heard her go on multiple rants about him over countless dinners after games where they play each other. While she’s never taken a cheap shot, she’s as laser-focused on Shane’s career as he is, and since he and Ilya had been rookies the same year, their trajectories (at least to her) go hand in hand. One of them is always the foil for the other. If Ilya does something, Shane has to do it better. If Shane does something, and god forbid Ilya does it better, then it’s up to Shane to retake the lead. It’s always competition.

Shane feels his cheeks flush, heat radiating through him as he holds out his hand for his phone. After a second, his mother sets it in his waiting palm, and Shane taps on Ilya’s contact information, pressing his phone to the ear on the other side of his head as though that will stop his mother from possibly hearing Ilya’s voice through the tiny speaker.

“Hi. Sorry, I had my phone off for a few hours.”

“That does not help me.” Ilya sounds like he’s smiling. “Your post was nice. There are a lot of people who are being very kind underneath it. I am keeping an eye on it.”

“I– you are? I mean– of course you are. Sorry.”

“No, Shane, do not apologize to me. Is fun, seeing what everyone is saying. I have had to hold myself back from being mean in the replies to people who are not being nice to you. When we are both out, when everyone knows about us… then I will be mean.”

Shane wishes Ilya was here now, so he could see what he knows is a shit-eating grin on his face, that sly one that he’s seen across from him at the face-off more times than he can count, just before he lets out a chirp that makes even the ref say something in surprise.

“Maybe. We’ll see. Anyways, um, fly in whenever. To Ottawa, if you’re okay with it. I forgot I can’t drive, so you’ll have to rent a car from the airport.”

“Ah. Yes. Okay. I will… pick you up from your parents’ house, then?”

“... yes.”

“Do they know about me?”

“Uh. No. They know about me, but…” Shane flashes a cursory glance at his mom, who’s watching him with one eyebrow raised, waiting. “Not about you. That’s not really my place to tell.”

“I see. Okay. Then it will be a big shock for them when it is me who rings their doorbell tomorrow, yes?”

“... yeah, probably.”

“Okay.” Ilya exhales. “Are they there with you now?”

“My mom is. My dad isn’t home.”

“Put me on speakerphone.” Ilya sounds slightly nervous, but like he’s pushing through it.

“Il– are you sure?”

“Yes. They will not let me in your house otherwise. I do not think either of your parents are fans of Boston.”

Shane pulls the phone away from his ear. “Mom,” he says, trying very hard to keep his voice calm and steady, “I’m going to put him on speakerphone. Remember what I said, I really need you to promise me that you’re not going to freak out, okay?”

Yuna’s other brow lifts.

“Mom.”

“Okay…” She doesn’t sound sure, but Shane can’t keep Ilya waiting for too long.

Shane jabs at his phone, and then sighs. “Okay. You’re on speakerphone.”

“Hello, Mrs. Hollander,” Ilya says, his voice tinny and filtered through the speaker of Shane’s phone, the picture of politeness. “This is Ilya Rozanov. How are you?”

Yuna’s mouth drops open, shock written all over her face. Out of all the people, Shane thinks that this might have been the person she would have least suspected. To her credit, though, she only takes a couple of seconds before she pulls herself together enough to speak. “Um. Good. How are you?”

Shane has never seen his mother speechless, and he thinks that perhaps it would be funny in any other circumstance. But as it is, he just stares at her as he chews on the side of his thumbnail, worrying the skin there with his teeth.

“Good. We have not yet met, I am sorry that this may be a bit… strange for you.”

“Yes, it is. You’re… Lily?”

“Ah– yes. Is a way for Shane and I to talk without people knowing it is me he is talking to.” 

“I see.” Yuna presses her lips together, as she stares at the phone, clearly in her own head. “That’s why you asked for Ilya at the hospital, then.” She speaks as though she’s putting pieces together; while puzzles are normally his father’s thing, this time it’s Yuna who has placed the final piece.

“You asked for me?” Ilya’s voice wavers over the phone. “Oh, kotik–”

Shane is about to open his mouth and speak, because this is too much emotion for right now, but Yuna beats him to it. “If you take an early flight,” she tells Ilya, seemingly oblivious to the way he’s breathing heavily into his phone, “you boys can have lunch here. I’ll make sure David works from home, he’ll want to meet you too. And then you can head up to the cottage.”

“Mom–”

“Lunch sounds very nice, thank you,” Ilya says through the phone, cutting Shane off. “Thank you, Mrs. Hollander. It will be nice to meet you in person.”

“You too,” Yuna says. “We have a lot to talk about. Send Shane your flight details for tomorrow so we can make sure you get in okay. Travel safe.” 

Shane takes the phone off speaker and murmurs a quick goodbye to Ilya before hanging up the call, eyeing his mom hesitantly. “So,” he says after a moment, “that’s Lily.”

“Hmm.” Yuna reaches out to rest a hand over Shane’s, squeezing it gently. “I’m looking forward to meeting him for real tomorrow. Til then, though, you’ve had a long day. You should get some rest.”

—

Lunch with Ilya goes exactly how he expects it to. Yuna and David ask lots of questions, and Ilya is the perfect picture of a saint, answering them all dutifully. Yes, he and Shane have been… seeing each other, as he puts it delicately… for quite some time. No, they’re not actually boyfriends. (This gets a rather stern look from Yuna, but both boys pretend like they don’t see it.) Yes, it’s been since before rookie season. No, the rivalry between them hasn’t been real for a long time. No, Ilya doesn’t plan on staying with Boston after his contract runs out at the end of the season, and yes, he wants to go to a Canadian team so that he can get citizenship and officially stop going back to Russia. No, he doesn’t know which one yet.

(This startles Shane – the way it comes out of Ilya is almost by accident, and Ilya gives him an apologetic glance as though he’d meant to tell it to Shane himself over the course of the next few weeks. Shane wants to laugh, because he was going to tell Ilya the exact same news but about himself. For a brief moment he wonders if perhaps they’ll end up together in Ottawa – he knows in his heart that here, in this world, he’d gladly take a dramatic pay cut if it meant that he’d be able to play alongside Ilya again, if it meant that he’d be able to to feel the rush of playing on the same side.)

Ilya is charming, the best of himself, and by the end of the night he has David and Yuna eating out of the palm of his hands. Yuna even offers to help him out with finding new management that isn’t based in Russia, and while she doesn’t outright say it, Shane knows that it’s her way of offering him her services. He knows Ilya will take her up on it eventually, but is too polite to say so now, when they’ve only just met.

When they’ve finished eating and it’s time to leave for the cottage, David carries out the tote full of Shane’s physical therapy tools to the car, then helps Ilya fold up Shane’s walker and stow it in the trunk, then he stands back and lets Ilya offer support to Shane as he eases himself into the front passenger seat. He waves to his father as Ilya backs the car out of the driveway, then once the house is out of sight he plugs in the address into the car’s GPS, settling in for the long drive.

He only waits a few more minutes before he reaches for Ilya’s free hand, threading their fingers together.

“The last time I was at the cottage was when I was in the coma,” he comments idly, staring at where his thumb brushes across the back of Ilya’s hand. “I don’t know how this will go for me. Like… am I going to walk in there and freak out? Or is it all just… going to be fine? I don’t know.”

“What was it like? To wake up, I mean.” Ilya glances over at him for a moment, then turns back to the road.

“It was… horrible.” Shane shuts his eyes. “We spent the whole day together, but I kept… hearing this awful noise. I thought I was losing it, but it was actually just my body hearing the sound of the machines in my hospital room the closer I was getting to consciousness.”

Ilya makes a soft sound in the back of his throat.

“You made tea, and you were standing at the kitchen window. I can picture it, you were lit by the sun and it was just… I remember looking at you and just feeling so at peace, so happy that this was my life. That I got to have you, and that we had forever in front of us, and…” Shane’s voice breaks, and he lifts a hand to press pinched fingers to one eye, trying to stop himself from tearing up. 

“Then it was like something grabbed me and was dragging me out the front door. It was just this dark shadow, but it was strong and I couldn’t get free. I was calling for you but you wouldn’t answer me… which I guess makes sense, since it wasn’t real, and I was just waking up.” 

“That sounds awful,” Ilya says, shifting his hand so he can squeeze Shane’s tightly.

“It was. It’s… going to be nice to overwrite that memory with you.”

Ilya nods. “I will make you tea, and this time I will hold you tightly and not let you go,” he says seriously. “We will do it over, and this time it will go how it should go. No one will take you from me, not anymore.”

—

They spend the first full day at the cottage doing nothing together. It’s what Shane might have once called a lazy day, but after his injury, it’s simply his new normal. He does have to do some physical therapy, and Ilya helps him through the stretches and exercises, and Shane finds that he doesn’t hate it as much now that he’s doing it with Ilya. 

They spend some time outside too, with Ilya splashing around in the lake while Shane relaxes in a deck chair and reads (though he spends more time watching Ilya than he does actually reading). Ilya grills up some burgers and they have dinner outside, watching the water as the sun paints the sky in hues of oranges and reds.

That evening, they’re relaxing on the couch, Ilya’s legs crossed and stretched out, his ankles on the coffee table. Shane’s head rests in his lap, Ilya’s fingers threading comfortingly through his hair. What could be the final game of the playoffs is on the television, the Admirals playing Los Angeles, up 3-1 in the series. Neither of them really care about the outcome, although Shane is privately rooting for the Admirals. He’s always liked Scott Hunter, always had respect for the guy even though relatively speaking they’re not that close. Scott has always been nice to him whenever they’ve interacted with each other, and he’s a mainstay in the league, and especially after that message that he’d sent Shane, well. He’d be happy if they won this year.

“You think New York will win it?” Ilya asks, rolling his shoulders.

“Mmm…” Shane shrugs, eyes on the television, watching as one of the New York forwards gets checked into the boards. “Probably. LA’s goalie is playing injured, and their backup isn’t good, so if New York can keep capitalizing on that like they have been…” 

Ilya hums in agreement. “Mm, yes. Their defense is not so good either.” A pause, as he considers something, then continues, almost hesitantly. “In your dream…”

Shane’s body tenses automatically under Ilya’s hands; he can tell Ilya notices it when his fingers still their ministrations against his scalp.

“In your dream,” Ilya repeats, then continues, “New York wins this, yes? And Scott Hunter will bring his boyfriend down onto the ice?”

Shane nods.

“Well. We will see if you are psychic.”

Shane laughs weakly, but he’s paying more attention to the television now. He remembers how it had happened before, the end of the game burned into his mind.

They watch the rest of the game in silence, Shane’s hand on Ilya’s knee, thumb tracing circles against the joint. The Admirals score, bringing them into the lead, and Ilya’s hand tightens in Shane’s hair as the clock ticks down towards the end of the third period.

They stare at the television as the Admirals win, the entire team spilling out onto the ice. The carpet is rolled out and the cup is carried out, and as they watch, Scott lifts it high above his head. 

Deja vu rolls through Shane’s body as he stares, lips parted. Scott hands off the cup to Carter Vaughn and looks around, searching the crowd. Shane sits up, back ramrood straight, Ilya’s hand falling from his hair as Scott skates over to the boards, the camera panning up to show–

“Oh my god–” Shane breathes. “That’s him. That’s– oh my god–”

As they watch, Scott Hunter brings Kip Grady down onto the ice and kisses him on national television. Shane knows Kip’s name because he and Ilya, in the other world, had gone out to the Kingfisher with Scott and Kip more times than Shane can count. Scott and Kip were saved in Ilya’s phone as Dinosaur and Dinosaur’s Husband.

Ilya lifts up the remote and mutes the television, exhaling noisily. “Okay. So.” A long pause, as he seemingly considers. “We will go buy a lottery ticket, and you will pick the numbers.”

“Oh fuck off,” Shane bites out, heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. He thinks he might throw up. “How are you not freaking out?”

Ilya laughs, his arm wrapping around Shane’s shoulders. “Is okay, really. Because this means we will get married and have a dog and live the rest of our lives together. This is good.” He leans over and presses a messy kiss to Shane’s cheek. “Relax, Shane. Is a coincidence, it has to be, yes?”

“A pretty fucking specific coincidence, yeah.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay??”

“Yes.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it.”

Shane stares at Ilya, brow furrowed. “God, this is fucking weird.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “Is very weird. But I do not care, because I have you. That is all that matters.”

—

Later that night, while laying in bed next to a snoring Ilya, Shane picks up his phone. He scrolls through his contacts until he finds Scott Hunter’s name, and before he can stop himself, he sends a message. 

Shane     >     Congratulations on the win, and for what came after too. That took a lot of guts.
Shane     >     It was really good to see. I’m sure it meant a lot to a lot of people that you did that. 

He doesn’t expect a reply, but one pops in a few minutes later.

Scott Hunter     >     Thanks man, I appreciate it.
Scott Hunter     >     You paved the way for me. Couldn’t have done it if not for you.
Scott Hunter     >     Glad to hear you’re okay.

There’s a pause, and then Scott is typing again.

Scott Hunter     >     Next time you’re in New York let me know, we can grab coffee sometime.
Shane     >     Sounds like a plan to me. Congrats again to you and Kip.

Shane sets his phone down on the side table, then burrows under the covers, wrapping himself around Ilya’s body. He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow, and so he doesn’t see Scott’s reply.

Scott Hunter     >     Hey, how’d you know his name is Kip?