Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Time Loop, Temporary Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ilya suffering front and center while Shane suffers in the background again, Suicidal Thoughts, References to temporary suicide, The usual time loop shenanigans aka clownish deaths and existential despair, Some graphic deaths but they're all temporary!!!

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-31 Words: 15,510 Chapters: 1/1

I love you. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

Summary

Ilya goes through maybe the worst twenty-four hours of his life.

Then he does it again.

Or: instead of Shane's canon injury, there's a time loop.

Notes

Not long after Ilya wakes up, before has time to do anything more than scroll through his phone and then stretch languidly in bed like a cat in a sunbeam, there is the familiar sound of a fist pounding on his hotel room door. He tells himself that he's delusional for thinking it's Shane, because there's no reason for Shane to be here, at his hotel room; they have plans to meet after the game, at Shane's apartment, where Ilya is going to do the right thing and finally break this off, releasing both of them from this endless fucking prison of this painful thing that can never go anywhere. 

And yet he knows it's Shane. He recognizes that tense, angry little knock after hearing it rapped on shitty hotel doors for years now. For a second, bleary-eyed in bed, he imagines that Shane has somehow figured him out and is here to stop Ilya’s breakup plans by seducing him (barging into his hotel room, calling him a fucking asshole, dropping to his knees, and giving the angriest blowjob he's ever given him, which all unfortunately counts as seduction to Ilya's broken brain). And Ilya will probably let himself be seduced, because it's not like he wants to end this thing with Shane. It's just that he knows he should, and he's trying to be the bigger person.

He really isn't, though, is the thing. Ilya is a very small, very needy person who has been pointlessly trying to put off the inevitable since Tampa. Texting Shane and doing facetime calls with Shane and missing Shane when they can’t talk. Watching all of Shane’s games with open pride on his stupid asshole face. He's an idiot to think he’ll ever be able to really break it off, but he keeps torturing himself with the plan of it, anyway.  

He smiles a little as he gets out of bed. Fixes his hair in the mirror. Considers briefly that it might not be Shane (because, really, why would Shane risk coming to his hotel? He hasn't even responded to the text Ilya sent him last night, so it's not like Ilya has slept through a series of insane messages and now Shane is resorting to a house call), schools his face into neutrality, and opens the door, inwardly crowing with delight when it is Shane Hollander at his door.  

His mind cycles through several hopefully funny things to say, but before he can nail one down, Shane takes a step back, instead of coming into the room, and it surprises Ilya enough to render him speechless. Shane is always eager to get out of the hallway. Baffling enough that he would risk coming here at all, and now he's choosing to linger out there where anyone could see him?

“We have to stop doing this,” Shane says. His hands are curled into fists at his sides, and he’s clenching them so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. His eyes are doing that horrifying thing they do where they look twice as big and twice as wet and it’s enough to devastate a person who looks at them too closely. Ilya realizes that his mouth is hanging open, because he'd been ready to greet Shane with something flirty and hopefully sexy, and he snaps it shut so hard he accidentally bites the tip of his tongue. He blinks rapidly, eyes sweeping over Shane again, as if he can find the cause of this, like it will be physically stamped on him, but there’s nothing. Just Shane in a nondescript black hoodie, vibrating with anxiety. His face is pale, his mouth set into a trembling line. He looks fucking awful. 

“What?” Ilya finally asks. “Are you okay? Come in, you look…”

He reaches out to tug Shane into the room, but Shane reels back as if afraid of Ilya’s touch, and that fucking stings. Ilya pulls his hand back towards his chest incredulously. 

“No!” Shane snaps, trying to sound angry. It would work better, probably, if he wasn’t crying. “Didn't you hear me? No! I'm done, this is done. I can’t keep feeling like fucking shit every fucking day for the rest of my life when I, when, when you don’t, when I lo–fuck! This is it. It’s over. Look, I know you know I'm right. It's easier this way. Delete my number, okay?” The last word is so desperate that it makes Ilya feel sick. Like, does someone have a gun to Shane's head or something? Why does he sound like that? 

“Shane,” Ilya tries, but Shane just shakes his head, pulls up his hood, and disappears back down the hallway. 

Again. He’s fucking leaving again, the fucking coward.  

Ilya doesn't even think about following him. He feels like he has been attacked, like Shane physically broke into his hotel room and slammed him into the wall and screamed into his face that Ilya is a terrible lover and an awful friend and not worth risking his career for anymore. Already he can feel those physical signs of Shane’s fear and discomfort evaporating from his mind, leaving behind only false memories of cruel callousness and indifference, like Shane couldn't wait to break his heart. Maybe it will make the whole thing easier to digest, if he can cast himself as someone so easy to abandon. 

He sits on the edge of his bed, staring at the door, waiting for Shane to come and take it back, just like he did when Shane left his house in a panic months ago. It had been a futile hope then, too, of course. 

He knows that he would have folded and caved and come running back, tonight, if Shane hadn’t beaten him to the break-up speech. If Ilya somehow made it all the way to speaking aloud the words to break things off and saw that heartbroken expression on Shane’s face, obviously he would have taken it back. Obviously. He’s not a monster. He would have fixed it immediately. He would have done anything to make that expression go away. 

Maybe Ilya just didn’t look as agonized, as pierced through, as he feels. He has always been very good at hiding those things.

He makes it three hours before heartbreak and devastation turn into fury. Fuck Hollander, anyway. Fuck Hollander for breaking up with him before a game. Fuck Hollander for coming to his hotel room to do it instead of just doing it over text like any other coward. He tries texting Hollander this and finds that he has already been blocked, not only in Hollander’s phone, but also on Hollander’s stupid corporate Instagram and Twitter accounts, which Ilya never would have used to reach out to him anyway, probably. So fuck Hollander for that, too. 

He brings this energy to the rink, and he tells himself that it’s healthy. He amps up his room, tells them to make Hollander go home crying tonight, as if he’s not going to be the one sobbing like a pathetic child in his empty, lonely hotel bed, as if he wasn’t planning on shattering Hollander’s heart tonight anyway. The difference is that he knows he never would have been able to go through with it, at least not permanently. Of course Hollander has to be better at this, too. Breaking hearts.  

The game is brutal. Ilya knows he sets the tone for his team, and his team is certainly picking up on his energy tonight. Montreal wouldn’t stand a chance at all, except Hollander has the fucking audacity to be playing like a machine, like he has expanded his stupid hockey genius talents into mind-reading now. He’s all over the ice, everywhere, inescapable. He reads plays before they happen. He keeps his eyes on the puck, always knows exactly where it will be. The rest of his team may as well not even be on the ice. 

Ilya boards him and slams into him and openly trips him and skates off to the penalty box grinning up at the jeering Montreal fans, and he stops trying to make eye contact with Hollander halfway through the first period, but that just makes him more desperate to force his presence to be felt. Hollander doesn’t speak to him once, not even to tell him to fuck off, and Ilya can feel himself growing uglier and uglier and uglier. 

Midway through the second period, Ilya is scrambling for the puck, and he looks up in time to see a Metros jersey barreling towards him from one side and Marleau closing in to intercept. Ilya reads the angle, knows they’re probably both going to slam into him instead of each other, and starts to get out of the way, but someone else hits him hard from behind, on the left side, and he falls gracelessly to the ice just as multiple people collide behind him. 

The crowd goes loud for a second, but then suddenly quiet, a hush falling over them. It was not such a hard collision, but maybe it looked worse than it was, or maybe the hush is not for him. Ilya sits up, and he looks around, and then he understands; Hollander is down, too. 

Hollander is also sitting up, but he looks strange, his legs splayed oddly, like a dropped marionette during a puppet show. His eyes are wide, and he’s ripping off his gloves. Marleau and Pike and another Metro are busy untangling from each other with the help of one of the refs nearby, but another Metro is hovering over Hollander, trying to talk to him. Hollander gets his gloves off, and then he rips off his helmet, and he looks pale and frightened. Ilya doesn’t understand, and then he sees the blood. 

It’s spreading under Hollander so quickly, a pool of it inching out from under one of Hollander’s thighs. Ilya has seen blood on the ice before, obviously, but something about the speed of it looks wrong, and he’s terrified. 

He moves before anyone else registers what has happened, scrambling to Shane's side. Pike spots the blood finally and calls for the medics in a high, panicked voice. Marleau is not far behind him, bellowing for them to hurry up. Ilya reaches Shane just as Shane starts to fall back, and he lunges just in time to catch Shane’s head in the crook of his elbow, so he doesn’t brain himself on the ice. 

“What the fuck,” Shane is saying. “What the fuck.” 

“Where is it?” Ilya asks. He’s ripping off his own gloves, fumbling his hands down Shane’s leg, trying to find the source. He didn’t see what happened. A skate to the thigh, probably? Was it his skate? Was it his fucking skate? “Pike! What happened, Pike?” 

But Pike isn’t listening to him, or maybe can’t listen to him, because someone in the crowd has screamed and has set off everyone else, and Ilya’s knees are in the pool of blood, now, and it’s continuing to spread, and Shane’s face is getting very, very white. 

“This has never happened before,” Shane whispers, eyes open wide, glazed with shock, meeting Ilya's eyes easily, in a way he rarely does, and certainly never does when they’re in public. He’s going to start rattling off fucking statistics about dying on the ice, isn’t he? Holy fuck. But then he continues, “you live, and I die. I think this is what’s supposed to happen.” He’s crying now, his face all screwed up in a way that Ilya has never seen, because Shane usually works so hard to hide his emotions. “Oh fuck, Ilya. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything I said this morning. I was just trying to save you.”

”What? Shane, what? Shh, be quiet, medics are coming.” Ilya is just pawing desperately at Shane’s pants now, uselessly, but Shane’s blood is everywhere, soaked into his skin. Ilya finally finds a slice in his uniform, and he squeezes his hands to the spot, applying pressure, but the blood wells up between his fingers. 

“Why is this the thing that worked?” Shane asks weakly. “It’s not fair. Please remember I, fuck, I love you.”

Ilya feels it happen. He feels Shane die. He can tell the difference immediately between a body that has life in it and one that doesn’t. Shane’s head goes limp against Ilya’s arm, his eyes still open, still maintaining eye contact, because apparently Ilya’s face was the last thing he wanted to see before he went. The medics finally make it out to him, and they gently pry Ilya’s hands away from Shane’s leg. His hands are red, gloved in blood, his jersey soaked in it. It’s only when the medics start the process of removing Shane from the ice that he registers the cold, and then he can’t stop shaking. 

He doesn’t know what the crowd is doing. He doesn’t know what his coach is saying, or what the refs want from him when they speak to him in their too-gentle voices. Pike is weeping openly, kneeling on the ice, staring at the ceiling. Someone is vomiting loudly on the bench, someone crying, someone praying in French. Marleau puts one meaty arm around Ilya’s shoulders and leads him off the ice, and Ilya follows, because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

He knows that Marleau helps him strip down, helps him shower, gently cleans the blood from between his fingers. It is maybe the kindest thing that anyone has ever done for Ilya in his life, but he doesn’t have the brainpower to register it yet. He can only see Shane’s face, his freckles growing darker as his skin grew more bloodlessly pale. He can only see Shane’s eyes, terrified. 

I didn’t mean anything I said this morning. 

I was just trying to save you. 

I love you. 

And Ilya had been too in shock to say it back, and now Shane is fucking dead, and he died with Ilya staring down at him like a useless fucking asshole after spending all game trying to bruise him, trying to hurt him, trying to make him flinch. Shane died with love on his lips, and Ilya gave him nothing, as always, which must be why Shane wanted to end this thing between them so badly, because Ilya has nothing to offer anyone, and never has. 

“Come on, man, we gotta go,” Marleau says, and Ilya blinks, and he realizes that he’s dressed in too-large, comfortable clothes—Marleau’s. He fumbles for his bag, his fingers failing to cooperate, and he lets Marleau lead him out some side door he’s never used before, straight into a waiting car. Marleau keeps his hand on Ilya’s shoulder, and then he takes Ilya’s constantly-vibrating phone from his shaking hands, and he uses Ilya’s numb thumb to open it, even, and Ilya doesn’t bother to stop him. All he can think about is that blood on the ice, and the look in Shane’s eyes as he died. 

“Yeah, I have him,” Marleau is saying. “I think that would be good. I’m taking him back to the hotel. Yeah, I won’t leave him alone, I promise.” 

Svetlana, Ilya thinks. She must have seen. She must know, somehow, how terrible this is going to be for him. Maybe it was obvious from the look on his face during the broadcast. Maybe fucking NESN showed a ghoulish closeup of his and Shane’s lives ending together on the ice. Had Shane’s last words been picked up, maybe? Does everyone know now? Not that it matters. 

Were Shane’s parents at the game? He remembers Shane saying that they tried to come to as many as possible. Had they been two of those voices screaming out in the crowd? Had Ilya heard them, and just not realized? He heaves a watery sigh, and then suddenly he’s sobbing into his hands, and Marleau is pulling him into a one-armed hug in silent solidarity, having at least enough emotional intelligence to not say anything as he does. 

Back in the hotel room, Marleau pushes him towards the bathroom and then goes to call Svetlana again, presumably. Ilya wakes up enough to lock the door and dig through his shit until he finds his razor. He removes the blades carefully, wraps them up in toilet paper, hides them in his sweatpants pocket, and he buries the empty razor under some tissues in the trash can so that if anyone asks, he can say that he forgot to pack it. He’s not really thinking, as he does these things. He’s not planning. He just knows that Svetlana will remember to tell Marly to remove any pills and sharp objects from the room soon enough, and then his options will be more limited. It’s not like he’s thinking about it yet, necessarily, but maybe he is. He doesn’t know. He wants to have an option. He doesn’t want…

He doesn’t want to fucking face this. A whole life without Shane to look forward to. The funeral, seeing clips from that game on ESPN for the rest of his fucking life, the callously bloodthirsty promise of entertainment with titles like “5 Worst On-Ice Hockey Injuries of All Time” popping up on his social media newsfeeds every couple of years to re-traumatize him again and again and again. He tried to save Shane's life, and he will be remembered for that ‘sportsmanlike’ gesture, Shane's name a ghost hovering just behind his, forever, and no one will have any idea that his heart died, too. If people did hear what Shane said to him, then that will be even worse to deal with, because he will either have to admit to it or deny it, and either way will tear a fucking hole in his heart, because he will have to do it alone. He can’t do it alone. He fucking can’t. 

He comes out of the bathroom and ignores the worried way Marleau hovers over him. Marleau is shit at this, but he’s trying, and Ilya feels guilty. He doesn’t want to kill himself if it means Marleau or Svetlana will find him, but he knows he can’t live like this for long.

He gets into bed, and he buries his face under the covers so that he can’t see how much Marleau cares about him. Maybe he can smother himself, cut off all his air, die slowly under the weight of this shitty hotel room comforter. Maybe he can close his eyes and his body will take care of the rest, his heart stopping because it knows instinctively that its other half is no longer beating. 

“Hey, man, you’re gonna be all right,” Marleau says, and Ilya snorts at that, almost a laugh. 

“No,” he says. “I will not.” 

The wadded up ball of tissue and razors is a comforting weight in his pocket. He hugs a pillow to his chest and squeezes his eyes shut and he sees Shane’s eyes dimming again and again and again. 

When he wakes up, he’s furious with himself. Why couldn’t he have just died in the night? Stupid fucking human bodies, not working like he wants them to. 

He reaches his hand down and finds that not only are the razors gone, but the sweatpants are gone, too. He’s only in his boxers, and he opens his eyes and looks around the room, expecting to see a triumphantly sad Svetlana sitting in the cuck chair, watching him, the razors held aloft in her hand, like, looking for these? 

But he appears to be alone, which is a shock. She left him alone? Doesn’t she know how easily he’s going to slip away the second she lets her guard down? He fumbles on his bedside table and finds his phone, plugged into his charger, expecting to see some message of explanation, but he only has one unread message from her, and he’s pretty sure it’s the same one he woke up to yesterday, before Shane knocked. 

He ignores that message for now, confused that there aren’t four million notifications waiting for him. Shane Hollander died on the ice last night, and people have suddenly decided to be respectful? They’re not frying Ilya’s phone with their incessant hounding for comment? 

He googles Shane Hollander dead, like a masochist, and is even more lost when he gets not the expected results, but various headlines like Shane Hollander and Rose Landry dead in the water? or Rivalry Dead? Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Dominate on Same Line at All-Stars Game. 

And then there is a fist, pounding on Ilya’s hotel room door. 

He drops his phone. He stares at the door as if Hollander’s ghost is going to pop through it. The knock comes again. Now Ilya is tripping over himself, literally falling as he gets tangled up in the bedsheets, and then he’s scrambling to the door, and flinging it open, and it fucking is Shane on the other side, just as he had known it would be. 

Shane opens his mouth to say something, takes a step back from the door, but Ilya doesn’t let him, this time. He grabs him by the back of the neck and yanks him into the room, and then he shoves the door closed, and he pulls Shane into a desperate hug. He can feel his own heart beating rabbit-fast against the wall of his chest. 

“You’re alive,” he says desperately. “Holy shit, you’re alive. I had the worst fucking dream, Hollander. You came here exactly like this, and you fucking dumped me, and then you fucking died.” 

He’s expecting Shane to either laugh or go Rozanov, did you hit your head falling out of bed just now? or maybe get that cute, concerned look he gets sometimes, but instead Shane groans as if he has been shot.

“No!” he exclaims. “I died? Fuck! Fuck, Ilya. I’ve been reliving this same day for months, and you’re the one who fucking dies, and I’m the one who has to remember! Oh my god, I was right. Breaking up broke my fucking loop. What the fuck? This is so fucked up. I died? I died? Fuck! Now you’re fucking stuck! This is unbelievable.”  

Ilya stares at him with the same lack of comprehension he’d felt yesterday, on the ice, listening to Shane whisper his last words. 

“Uh,” he says. “Okay. So maybe we sit down and you tell me what the fuck is going on.” 

Shane sighs, and he starts to lean into Ilya’s embrace, like he wants to press his forehead to Ilya’s chest the way he has started doing sometimes when he’s worked up about something and Ilya has managed to talk him down. Ilya’s arms are open, ready to receive him, but Shane jerks back at the last second, folds into himself, and draws his arms tight across his chest, frowning at nothing as he paces into the room, seating himself in the cuck chair instead of on the bed. Ilya tries not to be hurt, but, well, he watched this man bleed out on the ice yesterday, and he wants to keep touching him, and he’s a bit miffed that he’s not.

“The first time was, I don’t know, months ago. I kept track at first, but then I stopped, because it seemed fucking pointless.” Apparently Shane is just launching into this, then. All right. Ilya sits down on the end of his bed. Again he sees Shane bleeding out. Would it be too pathetic to ask Shane to sit next to him? Or to just walk across the room and plop himself into Shane’s lap? Probably. He still considers it, except Shane looks so tense and distant now, and Ilya maybe has not gotten over the whole of yesterday, which included Shane declaring that they had to stop seeing each other because Ilya is making him miserable. Now that there's other context, okay, sure, maybe Shane didn't mean it, but it still stings. “It was during the game. It, you, you took a really bad hit, and your helmet came off, and your head hit the ice hard. You made it to the hospital, but you died before I could even get there. I was in the waiting room, and I…uh, I don’t know. Kind of shut down, or whatever. I think they had to, uh, it doesn’t matter. You died. And then I woke up in my own bed, and I was confused, and then I checked my phone, and you sent me a text, last night, for you, and it was still unread, even though I remembered responding to it that morning. This morning. Whatever. So I figured it out pretty quick. I think I called you, just to be sure, and you made fun of me. I told you to check the strap on your helmet, and you told me I was a fucking weirdo.” His eyes flick up through his lashes, meeting Ilya’s gaze. Ilya holds it, because he has been watching Shane’s face this entire time, afraid to look away. 

“That does sound like me,” Ilya forces himself to say, though the joke feels dry, like sawdust in his throat. Shane smiles only a little, a wooden, reflexive thing, like an acknowledgement that Ilya tried. 

“So, uh. During the game, the same hit happened, but your helmet stayed on this time, and I was like, oh, cool, I had a prophetic dream, and I prevented it. Except then like two plays later, Drapeau fell and cut your throat with a skate. You died right away that time, obviously. I, uh, freaked out. I woke up in my room.” 

“Groundhog Day,” Ilya says, because he hates the dead, numb way Shane is talking about this. It’s a relief when Shane frowns at him in open confusion for the comment. 

“What?” 

“Like the movie. Or Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise one? They both have loops in that one, I think, so I think maybe we are more in an Edge of Tomorrow situation than a Groundhog Day one.” 

Shane only stares at him, baffled, as if Ilya is speaking in Russian. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. 

“Oh my god, even fucking Rose Landry was in a time loop movie, Hollander. That stupid romcom where she keeps trying to get her ex-boyfriend back until she realizes her best friend has been right there all along!” 

Shane’s face transforms into this shitty, smug half-smile that Ilya usually hates, but considering it’s not fear or death, he’s unfortunately glad to see it now. 

“You watch a lot of Rose’s movies, huh?” 

“More than you, apparently! Groundhog Day is the most famous one. We will watch that first. Let’s go back to your fucking sex condo. No one will find us there.” 

“We have a game,” Shane points out. 

“Yeah, and apparently you will fucking die during it again, and I don’t want to see that, so let’s go to the sex condo and do some fucking research.” 

Again that smile, but a little more disbelieving this time, and a little less shitty. Affectionate, even, maybe, though also sad. 

“Watch movies, you mean.” 

“Yeah. Research. Not like there are science articles about this.” 

“There aren’t,” Shane confirms. 

“You looked up science articles but you didn’t bother with movies? Ugh, Hollander!” 

Shane laughs a little now, disbelieving and tired. 

“Fucking, whatever,” he says. “Fine. We’ll go to my investment property and watch some movies. I guess that’s better than dying during a game tonight or watching you die for, like, the thousandth time.” 

He says it lightly enough, but yes, that must not have been very fun. Ilya has only done it once, and his heart is racing just thinking about having to experience it again. Maybe that's why Shane is avoiding his touch. 

“Shane,” he says gently, standing up and trying to go to him, but Shane surprises him by flinching away, just like he did yesterday. 

“No, uh, please don’t…let’s just, not, okay? The break-up seemed to work, so clearly the universe, like…” 

“What, hates gay sex?” Ilya asks incredulously. 

“Yeah? Maybe? I don’t know. Or agrees that we need to break up, or whatever.” 

Ilya wants to argue. Ilya wants to point out that he has been very pathetically missing Shane for weeks, and that he watched Shane die yesterday and needs to maybe hug about it some more. Then again, Shane watched Ilya die a bunch of times, a bunch of yesterdays, and he's apparently just fine acting like they've never touched before, so whatever. 

“Fine. We will watch movie five feet apart on your stupid sex couch,” he grumbles, and he diligently does not touch Shane for the entire time they’re sneaking out of the hotel, hoping that his obedience will make Shane realize how stupid it is that they're not touching. Pretending, also, that it doesn't leave him feeling bereft. 

They go in Shane's car together, and Shane doesn’t bother him about putting on a seatbelt, or hiding his face, or anything. He's preoccupied, chewing on his bottom lip in this aggressive way that looks painful. Ilya wants to reach over and pull it gently from between Shane's teeth, but he won't, because he's supposed to be acting like he believes the universe wants them to stop touching, and it's fucking annoying. He never was going to be able to break things off with Shane. He knows that now. He probably would have tried, probably would have fucked it up, probably would have made them both cry like stupid morons, but he doesn't think he would have been able to commit to it. Not if it meant not getting to touch Shane like this ever again. What kind of fucking idiot would want that? 

They get to the sex condo, and Shane even lets him in the front entrance, which is even more fucked up. Maybe it's just hard for Shane to care about these things now that he has lived the same day over and over again. He probably assumes that he's going to have to wake up tomorrow and do the whole thing again anyway, so what's the point in caring if his no neighbors see his fuckbuddy he can't even make eye contact with in his lobby? 

Ilya feels better when they’re inside, the front door locked. No one knows they're here, and even when people realize they have both disappeared mysteriously at the same time, they won't be able to do anything about it, and maybe Shane won't die. They can figure out what to do tomorrow, if tomorrow comes, if it turns out that the universe does really just want them to stop fucking, and then Ilya can begin the important work of trying to prove the universe wrong by fucking Shane even more, or something. 

Shane flops down on the couch, frowning aggressively at his TV. Ilya didn't even remember him having a TV in this place, and he's suddenly struck with an image of Shane staying here after their past hookups, long after Ilya has snuck out, cuddled up on this couch, watching ESPN alone, still blissed-out and happy. Was he lonely, when he did those things? Did he ever wish that Ilya would stay a little longer so they could watch together? Why had he never asked?

Shane begins trying to sign into multiple streaming services to find all three movies, muttering the entire time he does about how they should have just done this at his real apartment. Ilya mocks him for not just buying the movies digitally, as a millionaire whose bank account is probably going to refresh tomorrow, and Shane flushes with annoyance and finally gives up and buys all three. 

Ilya orders them some food while all of this is going on, and Shane is surprised when the delivery driver buzzes in, but then looks adorably pleased when Ilya starts laying out the meal. It's from a restaurant that Shane has mentioned liking before, and Ilya had known what to order for him the moment he scanned the menu. It doesn't have to be a big deal, except maybe it is. Maybe it's like an audition or something. 

“This is so stupid,” Shane says suddenly, putting his face in his hands. “We're not going to learn anything from fucking movies.”

“You haven't even seen them!” Ilya protests, already stuffing his face. “Come on. Groundhog Day first. Put it on.”

Ilya remembers seeing Groundhog Day before, dubbed in Russian, but he can't remember why. He thinks it was possibly a bootleg tape his father brought home. He used to do that sometimes, when Ilya was very young. He remembers his mother laughing at a joke so hard they had to pause the movie, and even his father was chuckling, mostly at Irina’s delight. He can't remember which part caused it, and he doesn't find the movie all that funny, now. There are some okay bits, maybe. He's more engrossed in the way Shane looks, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He looks like he's watching game tape. 

At one point, he turns and looks at Ilya. 

“This is like basically exactly what's been happening to me,” he says, very serious. Ilya smiles indulgently at him, trying not to look as fond as he feels. 

“Yes, my little idiot,” he says. “That's why I suggested this.”

Shane rolls his eyes and tosses a pillow at him. He doesn't move any closer. Ilya eyes the space between them distastefully. 

When the movie’s over, Shane jots down some notes in a little notebook that is definitely the same notebook he uses when he watches tape. Does he leave extra notebooks here just in case he has some time for homework after Ilya leaves? He's the most boring person alive. How is this the man Ilya has been so tied up in knots about? 

He leaves Shane to his very serious note-taking and boxes up their scant leftovers like there's a chance they'll make it to tomorrow. He cleans up their trash, occasionally glancing at Shane to make sure that Shane notices. Shane does, of course. Ilya catches him more than once with the cap of his pen in his mouth, gnawing on it while he watches Ilya move around, a completely vacant expression on his face. So at least it isn't a completely lost cause. 

Ilya likes Edge of Tomorrow better, naturally, because of all the explosions. It seems more relevant to their situation too, if you don’t count all the alien stuff. Sometimes, he will look at the time and will note that they should be at the rink, or that warm-ups will have finished, or that they would have been playing the game. They both turned off their phones, so neither have received the worried calls or texts, but he knows they're there. He finds himself wondering when, in the game, Shane died, exactly. Have they passed that point yet? Have they passed it now?

Near the end of the movie, he scoots a bit closer to Shane, eyeballing him. Shane looks back at him with the same narrow glare that he has deployed in the past when he sees Ilya approaching in public and doesn’t know what Ilya is going to say or do and is rightfully wary about it. 

“We can at least cuddle,” Ilya says, but Shane frowns. 

“What? No. Why would we? Do you cuddle with your friends when you watch movies?”

“Some of them, yes.” 

“Really? Who?” 

“…Svetlana,” Ilya admits. Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, exactly, fuckface. That’s not something you do with, like, guy friends.” 

“I don’t tend to fuck guy friends in the ass until they cry, either, so maybe you admit we are working with something a little different here?” 

“Jesus,” Shane mutters. “Shut up. Watch the movie. Stay on your cushion.” 

Ilya grabs the remote from the coffee table and pauses the movie instead. 

“No, okay, we need to talk about this,” he says. “Because maybe you have gotten used to watching me die over and over again for a million days.” 

“Uh, no,” Shane mutters. 

“But I saw you die yesterday for the first time and it was fucked up, okay? So can you just…” He gestures vaguely to his lap. Shane scowls at him. “I mean lay your head down, pervert.” 

“I’m not lying in your lap. Fuck off.” 

“Why not? You won’t even remember it tomorrow!” 

“Okay, well, I’ll remember it for the rest of the day.” 

“Yes? And?” 

“I…” Shane bites his lip again, shakes his head. “Whatever. I have to go to the bathroom.” 

When he comes back, he’s sitting even further away, tucked against the opposite arm of the couch as if Ilya is radioactive. Ilya lets it pass, too annoyed and maybe also a bit too hurt to push. 

“Okay,” Shane finally says, when the movie is over, after taking some notes. “This one…You don’t think this is because of aliens, do you?” 

“Makes more sense than it being because of gay sex,” Ilya points out bitterly. Shane hums thoughtfully and writes something down. Hopefully not homophobic aliens, but who knows? 

“Okay,” Shane says. “Rose’s movie next?” 

“Ugh, I guess.” 

“You’re the one who brought it up! We don’t have to watch it.” 

“No, put it on. Whatever. Might as well watch your girlfriend’s shitty movie if bigot aliens are trying to make you stop liking dick.” 

Shane gives him an exasperated look that also looks fond for a second before he remembers to go blank. There is this sense like Ilya has missed something, and it makes him nervous, and he hates that. 

He frowns at the TV through most of the movie. Shane takes a lot of notes during the first half, but then he just makes fun of it during the second, and Ilya joins in. It’s fun, watching movies with Shane. Maybe they should do it more often. Shane keeps asking stupid questions and then getting earnestly offended when the script does something illogical, as if the scriptwriter has personally popped up on screen and said I think you, Shane Hollander, second best player in the world, are a fucking moron. Ilya gets the impression that Shane doesn’t watch very many movies like this, with his full focus, which makes sense, for him. He is probably always thinking about hockey a little bit, even when he’s doing something else. 

Ilya watched this movie once in the middle of the night when he was trying to pretend to himself that he wasn’t brokenhearted over Shane leaving him and then immediately getting together with a fucking movie star. He cringes at some scenes, remembering how angry he’d been, thinking about how fucking Rose Landry got to see Hollander sleepy and sated. How Rose Landry got to hold his hand in public and spend weekends with him and probably meet his fucking parents, and no one’s country and no one’s career would have a problem with that, and it wasn’t fair. 

It doesn’t feel fair now, sitting so far away from Shane, watching Shane’s ex woo some fucking loser actor who definitely isn’t hot enough for her. 

When the movie is over, Shane stands up and stretches, his hoodie rising up temptingly, and Ilya isn’t even allowed to touch him, apparently, which feels unfair as well. He tries something by reaching beneath the waistband of his own pants, one eyebrow arched, but Shane just frowns at him in rejection and then walks towards the kitchen. 

“No,” he says, impatient. “We can’t do that, Ilya. I’m so serious.” 

“Why not? Jerk off next to each other? That’s not gay.” 

“I’m the least horny I’ve ever been in my life,” Shane calls back, and then there is this odd squeak, and then a heavy thud, and Ilya turns around to see what happened. He can only see the top of Shane’s head, on the floor, the rest of him hidden behind the kitchen island, a dark ring of blood already starting to spread across the tile. Just like yesterday. 

Ilya falls over the back of the couch in his attempt to vault it, and then he nearly slips on the same wet patch of tile that probably did Shane in. Looks like the kitchen sink is leaking. They'd both used it earlier, but neither of them had noticed any issues, and now there’s this giant fucking puddle around it, and Shane slipped and fell, and now his eyes are open, shocked, trained on the ceiling. Ilya assumes he’s dead, at first, but then Shane blinks sluggishly at him, one eyelid closing more slowly than the other, and opening even slower, in a grotesque false wink. 

“Fuck, hold on,” Ilya says, and he scrambles for his phone and turns it on and waits impatiently for his notifications to stop harassing him for missing the game before he can call 911. He has to put his free hand down on Shane’s shoulder to keep him from trying to get up on his own. The woman on the phone is impatient, bored, and asks him too many times to repeat things, seeming irritated by his accent and by his frantic fear. Shane is trying to say something, trying to reach up to him, and Ilya finally shouts the address into the speaker and hangs up. He takes Shane's seeking hand in his own. He presses a kiss to Shane's palm. “It’s okay, Shane, it’s okay. They’re coming.” 

Shane tries to say something else, looking frustrated when none of it comes out sounding like actual words, and then he just fucking dies there, again. 

Ilya stays kneeling in Shane’s blood for far too long. He registers that he should leave. He doesn't want to end this night in a police holding cell or whatever the fuck, because obviously that's where this is headed. Hollander's biggest rival found huddled over his dead body. Head injury. Secret liaison. They both missed the game. Of course they're going to think this is some sordid sex murder thing. He considers just fucking jumping out the window to end this day faster, but he doesn’t think he can handle that, especially now that he knows it will repeat. He was ready to use those razors yesterday, when he thought there was no point in staying alive, but knowing that it's temporary makes the thought of suicide more scary, for some reason. Like he'll try it and like the thought too much. Like it will be too easy. Like it will become an addiction, like smoking, that he will have to fear from then on. He doesn’t want to risk it. 

He kisses Shane’s forehead, his lips, just in case there’s anything left of Shane in there to feel it, maybe, and then he leaves, running down the back stairs. He’s three blocks away before he comes back to himself and realizes that his gray sweatpants are stained with blood, and he's only wearing a t-shirt, and it’s colder than he thought it was. He's sure by now that everyone is looking for him and Shane, the entire city befuddled by their mutual disappearances. He has to stay out of sight somewhere until he can fall asleep and reset. 

He can't go back to his hotel. He isn't in a good enough state to check into a new one, and his wallet and phone are both back at the sex condo anyway. He has no good options. He walks for a bit longer, until he finds a bridge that goes over some train tracks, and he creeps down under it, finds a little nook in which he can huddle, freezing, until he finally falls asleep or dies of stress and heartache. Either way. 

The next morning, when he opens the door and pulls Shane into his room, his hands are already shaking. 

“I’ve done it twice now,” he says, before Shane can try breaking up with him, because he might fucking throw up if he has to hear it again. “You died on the ice, first time. Died in sex condo the second.” 

“I died in the sex condo?” Shane asks, so startled that he has accidentally admitted that it’s a sex condo. 

“We skipped the game and watched some movies.” 

“We skipped the game? What did you do, fucking tie me up?” 

“You did this for months and you never thought to skip the game where I died?” Ilya asks, amused despite himself. Shane just frowns at him, looking maybe a little embarrassed. “Okay. We watched time loop movies. Like what is happening to us. Three of them. You took notes. I probably should have read them before I ran out of the sex condo after you died, but…” 

He doesn’t feel like finishing the thought. But I was upset. But it fucked me up too much so I crawled away to die under a bridge like a cautionary tale in some old folklore story. 

Maybe Shane can sense his melancholy mood, or maybe he just understands it, having been through this before, because he doesn't get annoyed with Ilya for wasting the research. He just nods, looks almost encouraging. 

“Do you remember what I said at all? Did we learn anything?” 

“No, not really. At one point I think you wrote down that it was maybe caused by homophobic aliens.” Another deep frown from Shane. “I don’t know. Sorry.” 

He wants to prove he's not a complete fuck-up, so he goes over the plots of the movies as quickly as he can, because Shane looks like he’s vibrating out of his skin. At least it’s easy to explain things to Shane, because Shane has spent months doing this. He might not remember the last two days, but at least he doesn’t look at Ilya like Ilya is insane when Ilya talks about it. It was probably worse for Shane, who was completely alone. 

“We can watch them again, if you want,” he suggests, though he doesn’t actually want to, especially since Shane will probably continue to act weird and distant if they do it again. Maybe, if they do, he can at least negotiate that Shane has to lie his head in Ilya’s lap during the movies if he’s going to be forced to watch a Rose Landry film two days in a row. 

“No,” Shane says, lost in thought. “Okay, so not playing the game doesn’t help us.” 

“Breaking up doesn’t help either,” Ilya points out, maybe a little quicker than he should. “In case you were thinking it did.” 

“It ended my loop, dickhead.” 

“Yeah, and passed it on to me, and now I get to watch you die a million times instead. Fucking great, Shane.” 

“Whatever,” Shane mutters. “Let’s just go to the investment property again. I don’t feel like playing today. I’ve played like eighty games in a row and it’s fucking boring, knowing everything that’s happening.” 

“Oh my God,” Ilya realizes as they start to head out of the room. “That’s why you were so fucking good in that game!” 

“Shut up, I’m always good,” Shane hisses back at him. 

“You were cheating!”

”Fuck you, it’s not cheating!” 

At the sex condo, Shane sits at the kitchen island while Ilya checks the plumbing of the sink before remembering that he knows nothing about plumbing. 

“Okay, it isn’t leaking now, so we just do not use the sink, maybe.”

“Can I at least take a look?”

“No! Stay there.”

“Rozanov, there's no puddle. You've checked twice. I can fix it if you…”

“Just stay out of the kitchen!” Ilya demands. “I will handle everything in the kitchen, okay? This is my kitchen now. Fuck.”

“Look, I know it sucks to watch,” Shane says. He sounds so stupidly practical when he says it. If Ilya didn't know any better, he'd say Shane was full of shit, and that he hasn't watched Ilya die a million times, because how can he be so calm? Ilya has only seen it twice and he wants to wrap Shane up in bubble wrap and carry him strapped to his chest in a giant Babybjorn. 

“It fucking does,” he grumbles. 

“But until we fix this, it's probably going to happen again.”

Ilya meets his eyes, then, because he can hear what Shane is clearly trying to hide: fear.

“Okay, yes,” Ilya says slowly. He feels like kind of an asshole. He hasn't considered how scary it must be for Shane, knowing that something horrible is going to happen to him today unless they fix it. 

Ilya moves around the kitchen island, and this time Shane doesn't flinch or back away when Ilya pulls him into a gentle hug. He sinks into it, one hand coming up and gripping tight to the front of Ilya's shirt. “Sorry. This is scary for you, probably?”

“Yeah,” Shane admits. “I watched you die so many times, and sometimes it was so…” He heaves a watery sigh, lapses into silence, and finally thuds his forehead against Ilya's chest, the way Ilya had been hoping he would yesterday. Ilya stands and holds him for a long time, until Shane finally pulls away, looking completely unruffled except for the way his eyes are all red-rimmed and sad. 

They sit on the couch, and again Shane insists on acting like a fucking Mormon or whatever, very far away. He grabs his little notebook again, and he starts writing stuff down. Ilya makes sure to pay attention this time when Shane starts working through theories, knowing that he's the only one who's going to remember this tomorrow. 

“Okay, so, let me tell you what doesn't work,” Shane starts off.

“Breaking up,” Ilya interrupts. “Write that down.”

Shane rolls his eyes and doesn't write anything.

“We don't know that yet. We only tried it twice so far. We still spent the day together yesterday, right? My first suggestion is going to be that at the end of this conversation, you leave, go play the game without me, and we see what happens. If you wake up and it's today again, text me immediately and tell me not to go to your room, explain what happened, and then you skip the game while I play it. I want to see what happens if we don't see each other the whole day.”

“Okay, and so you die alone?” Ilya asks incredulously. Shane flinches. “Sorry. Sorry. Fuck.”

“The point is maybe I won't,” Shane answers quietly. 

“Okay, fine. And if that doesn't work? If the universe doesn't hate gay sex?”

“Well, I can tell you that playing the game to the end doesn't work. I thought that was the solution at first. Like I just had to get you through the game, and then you'd be fine. Definitely not the case. Um. Telling you the truth doesn't work, but I guess you knew that already, because you've been telling me the truth from the start of your loop. Telling everyone we've been fucking for years also doesn't work.” At Ilya's startled laugh, Shane flushes and meets his eyes for a second before darting away. “Yeah, uhh, I was starting to get desperate.”

“Not desperate enough to skip a game.”

“Man, fuck you.”

“No, no, it's very cute of you,” Ilya says, and Shane frowns and shakes his head, looks back at his notes. It annoyingly makes Ilya feel like a dog being scolded for reasons he can't comprehend because he's a good fucking boy who hasn't done anything wrong. Whatever, Hollander. 

“Uh, what else? One time I managed to keep you from bleeding out on the ice, but when we got to the hospital, you got an embolism from an improper IV placement or something? Another time, I stopped you from getting hit by Drapeau and a fucking puck ricocheted off the glass and hit you in the neck. So, like, if you intervene, it won't matter. Something else will get me. Probably don't even bother, because it's really, like, emotionally draining, or whatever. Plus I think I'd rather just bleed out quick, you know?”

“Okay,” Ilya says, silently thinking that he's not going to stop trying to intervene, because obviously he's not going to stop. What if the time he stops is the time the loop ends?

“Um. That's really all I've tried, I guess. Sex doesn't really change anything. I've tried a few different things.”

“Pervert,” Ilya says fondly, and Shane laughs a little despite himself, blushing. 

“Yeah, I guess so. Um. I mean that's really it. I don't know. There didn't seem to be much…oh, well, dying yourself also doesn't work.”

Ilya looks at him with confusion. 

“Dying doesn't work for what? You said I died every time.”

“No, I mean, like, killing yourself to end the loop just resets it. Like, I…it doesn't really...I don't want to…but yeah.”

“What?” Ilya asks, genuinely not understanding. 

“Like, hypothetically, if you were fucking sick of living the same day over and over again and watching the- the person you- watching someone die forever, and you just sort of, uh, figured you might as well try also dying? Don't bother, because it doesn't work.”

Ilya understands, then, and he tries not to overreact, but he can't help it. He lunges across Shane's very puritan distance between them, and he grabs him by the hands. 

“Shane,” he says. 

“It was just a couple of times,” Shane says, mildly exasperated, like he's been caught cheating on his fucking diet by his nutritionist. Ilya can feel his hands shaking, and he's shaking his head, too. 

“No, no,” Ilya says. “That's not, you can't do that.”

“I'm out of the loop, now,” Shane reassures him, looking a little baffled by the reaction. But he's still so politely distant. Even Ilya's terror isn't enough to wake much more than friendly concern. Where is the boy who climbed into Ilya's lap and held him so sweetly in Tampa? Has he become so used to losing Ilya that he has cut him out of his heart completely? Has he decided that Ilya is too much work? Too much work to save, too much work to keep alive, too much work to love? 

“Just, don't do it again,” Ilya says, and he moves back across the couch, feeling stung. Because he knows Shane won't remember this in the morning, he says, “my mother, she did the same thing, okay? Don't do it again. Please.”

Shane's face melts briefly into tenderness.

“Okay,” he says. “I'm sorry, Ilya. I won't.” So polite. So empty. 

Shane seems even more distant as he shows Ilya to the door. He's determined to ride this out alone, apparently. He's pale with his fear, but he's got that little jut of his jaw that means he's going to see it through anyway. 

“If this doesn't work, see you tomorrow,” he says, and then he closes the door in Ilya's face before Ilya can reply. 

Ilya finds a motel only a few blocks away, the sort of place that accepts cash. The guy behind the reception desk barely looks at him as he hands the money over, and the room has heavy blackout curtains that Ilya pulls closed as soon as the door is shut. He lies on top of the covers in the center of the bed, and he waits. He doesn't turn off his phone this time, so the calls and notifications come rolling in as the game starts. He expects an angry text from Shane, asking why he's not playing, but he doesn't get anything. Maybe Shane is trying to do the clean break thing for real, or maybe he's already dead. Ilya can't stop himself from wondering how it happened this time. Fucking idiot probably tried to fix the sink and brained himself on a pipe because he couldn't leave well enough alone. Maybe he's not even dead yet, but injured badly, alone, in pain, wishing he hadn't sent Ilya away so at least someone could be with him at the end. Does anyone even know about the fucking sex condo? How long will it take someone to find his body, if the day doesn't reset? What will happen to his parents? 

Ilya has to leave the bed to throw up, and then he curls up like a baby on the floor of the bathroom and tries not to think about Shane killing himself. He wishes he was the one who would forget that entire conversation, but he knows he never will. Now he knows that Shane is capable of leaving the world on purpose, more than once. Is Ilya ever not going to be worried about him? Ever? 

He considers buying sleeping pills to knock himself out, but he can't even think about it too hard before he's throwing up again. In the end, he only lies for hours in his bed spending thousands of his temporarily fake dollars on some fucking phone game, and then he must fall asleep, because he wakes up back in his much nicer room at the much nicer hotel. 

Like he wants to prove to Shane that he can be good and listen to directions, even though Shane will not remember having given them, he texts Shane everything and tells him to turn around and go home because this is what they have decided to try, today. Shane doesn't text back, but he also doesn't knock on Ilya's door, so apparently he's listening. 

Ilya leaves his hotel with his hood pulled up and his hair hidden beneath a hat. He considers getting a car, but he decides to walk, instead. He walks for a long time, that day, meandering his way gradually out of the city and into some kind of suburb. When he knows the game has started, he checks his phone and sees that Shane is playing, of course. He looks pale but determined when Ilya sits down on a stone wall to watch a live stream. Halfway through the first period, Shane takes a skate to the neck and dies alone on the ice. Ilya assumes, anyway. The stream goes black as soon as they realize what's happening, and Ilya throws his phone into a retention pond. 

He buys some cigarettes from a little market. The woman behind the counter barely even looks at him, eyes glued with horror to the nightly news segment playing on the little TV mounted on the wall, where they're recapping Ilya's devastation in cruel, salacious tones, that faux-respectful, hushed voice newscasters use. Shane's stupid MLH headshot is on the screen. His dorky little smile. Ilya stands outside the store and smokes until he can't stand the taste, and then he creeps behind the building and falls asleep in a pile of trash, unable to stop crying, for some reason.

The next morning, he pulls Shane into the room and wraps him in a hug. 

“Here is what doesn't work,” he says, into Shane's ear. 

Breaking up. 

Not playing the game. 

Leaving Shane alone.

Not seeing Shane at all, all day. 

Shane listens with his typical, intense focus, with no idea that he died alone only hours ago, bleeding out on the ice with no Ilya to hold him. Ilya sits down on the end of his bed with a loud groan, because Shane wriggled out of his embrace halfway through the list, and Ilya is too upset about it to act like he's not. 

“Okay,” Shane says thoughtfully, not noticing or maybe not caring that this insistence on physical distance is killing Ilya. “We gotta come up with some new ideas.”

They retreat to the sex condo again. Shane is yet again banned from the kitchen. Ilya orders the same food as the first time, because Shane had liked it so much, and Ilya wants to see that look of pleased surprise again. Wants to know that he's capable of making Shane happy even if Shane still won't let Ilya touch him. 

Shane does look pleased. He eats his food happily, and Ilya doesn't bother trying to hold a conversation, this time. He feels stupid and weak for being so upset when he knows that Shane was stuck in this loop for much longer, but he can't help himself. He can't stop thinking of Shane, dying alone. Twice, now. It's not like he wants to see it, but isn't it better to be there?

“Okay,” he says, because Shane is still enjoying his meal, but Ilya still feels vaguely sick, and can't force himself to eat. “For the record, I am not leaving you alone again. It didn't work.”

“Yeah, okay,” Shane admits around a mouthful of food. “That's probably not the solution. But we…”

“We should fuck,” Ilya decides, and Shane laughs, chokes on something, fucking dies.

“No food,” Ilya tells him the next day, as they get into Shane's car. Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Dude, trust me. It's never the same thing twice.”

“No food,” Ilya tells him the next day, as they get into Shane's car, more firmly this time. “Sometimes it is the same thing twice, and it is a fucking disgusting way to go, choking to death on salmon.”

“Alright, Jesus. Noted,” Shane says, putting the Jeep into drive. 

At the sex condo, Shane paces while Ilya watches the floor through a narrow glare for sudden puddles or venomous snakes or cracks or fucking lava, whatever. The universe is apparently determined to steal Shane away, and Ilya must now watch over him like the world's worst guardian angel. He remembers a conversation with Alexei’s wife, one time, about raising a toddler. Katya had been tired, amused. She is always looking for ways to hurt herself. You turn your back and she has discovered the most dangerous thing in reach, every time. 

“Please sit down,” he says, gesturing to his lap. Shane takes the other side of the couch, and Ilya groans, leans back. “Hollander! You're killing me.”

“Sorry I don't feel like choking to death on your fucking dick,” Shane snaps. 

“Lay your head down in my lap and rest! Fucking idiot!” 

Shane huffs, shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. 

“It isn't the gay sex thing, okay? Or the gay thing at all, sex or no sex, whatever. Gay thoughts. So I don't know why you act like I am poison.”

“I'm not,” Shane says, but even in that he sounds scandalized, hushed, like he's afraid the homophobic aliens will hear him. Ilya groans again, flops on his back, kicks his foot out and hits Shane's hip, trying to sound playful even though he doesn't feel it. 

“I understand. Is very unsexy of me to die on you a thousand times.”

“Well,” Shane admits. “A little.”

“What was the last one for you? Was it very embarrassing? I shit myself to death or something?”

“No, not anything like that.” When Ilya makes an impatient gesture at him, Shane sighs. “It wasn't a bad one, I guess. I got you through the game for the first time in a while, but you were hurt. I followed you to the hospital. I made sure everything was going well. I thought maybe it was going to work. You were sleeping, and you seemed…I don't know. Peaceful, I guess. You woke up, we talked a little. I got…it doesn't matter. You asked me to leave, so I did. Woke up back at my place, so clearly something happened to you. I probably shouldn't have left, but.” A weary sigh. 

“I asked you to leave?”

“Yeah. Whatever. It wasn't a big deal.”

But that's obviously a lie, based on the way Shane won't meet his eyes. Keeps looking down at his hands. 

“Shane,” Ilya says. “Why did I ask you to leave?”

“Whatever, dude. I don't know. It's not...I have to, uh, bathroom.” 

Shane storms out, frantic and panicked. Slips on a fucking puddle that has magically appeared in the middle of the floor and smashes his skull on the edge of his kitchen island countertop. Dies. 

Ilya sits through Shane's little breakup speech, the next day. A kindness, maybe. Now Shane won't have to know what's coming. 

Shane leaves, and Ilya goes to the game. He plays as rough and angry as he did the first time, but he avoids Shane as much as he can, afraid that he's going to be the one to accidentally kill him. Even if it's temporary, he doesn't think he could handle that. Shane avoids him just as hard, which is probably good. They make it to the third period, this time. One of Montreal's defensemen gets into a scrap with Marleau, who doesn't notice Shane approaching to help break it up. Ilya skates over, tries to keep Shane from entering the fray, clocking correctly that this is a great time to accidentally get fucking murdered, and then Marleau slams his elbow back into Shane's face hard enough to break bones, and Shane drops. 

They cart Shane off to the hospital, but not before Ilya gets down next to him on the ice to hold his hand. Ilya whispers to him that it's going to be all right. Shane keeps trying to talk, probably trying to say the same sorts of things he said during the first run. I love you, he'd said. Ilya can't believe he had forgotten it until now. 

“I'll see you tomorrow,” he promises. He can't tell if Shane understands him, or if he's already on his way out. His face is so damaged by the strength of the hit. Ilya can hardly look at him. He squeezes Shane's fingers, and Shane squeezes back weakly, and then they take him away. Ilya supposes he could go to the hospital and get confirmation, but he knows Shane probably won't even make it there. He settles for sitting with Marleau as Marleau has a sobbing, guilty breakdown in an empty office that a surprisingly gentle Metros staff member lets them use, to keep him from prying eyes. 

Back in the hotel, alone, hours later, Ilya watches the video again and again, watches the video of himself holding Shane's hand as Shane stares up at him, his shattered nose and eye socket painful to look at. He starts reading the comments about how sportsmanlike he is, because people are fucking stupid and can't correctly read the look on his face. He flings his phone into the wastebasket and considers the window, but buries himself in his blankets instead. He feels like a coward for not being able to kill himself the way Shane apparently had no issues doing. The hours until he falls asleep feel endless. At one point, his phone blows up with notifications, the metal wastebasket rattling horribly as the phone vibrates itself crazy inside it. A leak from the hospital about Shane's death, probably. 

He doesn't bother opening his hotel room door, the next day. He listens to Shane hiss his name like an angry kitten from the other side of it, and then he ignores the five buzzes representing text messages that come for him like ten minutes later. He feels bizarrely proud of Shane for actually going through with it over text, and not insisting on waiting until they see each other in person. When he's sure Shane is gone and won't be hiding around the corner to ambush him, he goes up to the roof and imagines jumping, but lays down on the ground instead and stares at the sky. When he's had enough, he goes back downstairs and gets ready for the game. He leaves his phone on the bed without reading Shane's texts.

Shane watches him nervously, but Ilya avoids looking at him. He still kneels down beside him in the ice when Shane inevitably takes a late-game puck to the back of the head. Shane's big brown eyes are so pathetically grateful for his kindness as he's dying, and Ilya struggles, suddenly, with the urge to cry. 

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I don't know how to help you. I am fucking this up, I think.”

Skate to the thigh, again. 

Skate to the throat, again. 

He shoves Ilya out of the way of a hard hit from one of his defensemen, and then he's the one who goes limp and dead and broken-necked. 

Ilya doesn't open his door. 

Ilya opens his door and lets Shane break his heart again again again. 

Ilya opens his door and tries to draw Shane in, tries to put him off his plan, without telling him why. Kisses him, drops to his knees to try and blow him. Is pushed away again again again. 

He should tell Shane the truth, try again, because if there's anyone on the planet who is close to an expert in whatever the fuck is happening to them, it's Shane, and he deserves to know. But Ilya doesn't want him to know. Ilya doesn't want him to be afraid. 

“I'm sorry,” Shane whispers. 

“I'm scared,” Shane says. 

“This has never happened before.”

“You live and I die.”

“Maybe this is what's supposed to happen.”

“It isn't fair.”

Ilya waits for I love you again, but there's never time. Shane always dies before he can say it.

“Thirty-eight,” Ilya says, whipping open the door. Shane, fist raised to knock, frowns at him. 

“What?” 

“Thirty eight times I have listened to you make this little speech. It doesn't work.”

Ilya is patient as Shane goes through his usual five stages of grief with the whole time loop transference thing. When Shane has finished spiraling and has taken to aggressively distancing himself from Ilya in the cuck chair, Ilya suggests watching the time loop movies at the sex condo, because he hasn't watched them since the second day, and he has to start trying something new, or he's going to lose his fucking mind. He has played the game the last twenty days in a row, falling into the same fucking trap Shane told him he fell into, thinking that if he got Shane through the game, it would be enough. Except he got Shane through the game without any injuries, and then Shane got hit by a fucking bus outside the stadium and died alone, and Ilya is fucking sick of it. 

He woke up this morning thinking that he can't watch the man he loves die on the ice again, and it has been echoing through his mind ever since. The man I love. The man I love. Dead. It's a nightmare he can't wake up from. 

He feels like he's dragging as he follows Shane into the sex condo. Shane is the same as always, yammering on about different things they can try. Ilya has tried them already, of course, but he lets Shane talk, anyway. He's just glad he's not going to have to see Shane bleed out on the ice today. He'll have to see something else horrible, but still. 

“Shane,” he says, interrupting a stream of conversation. “Please can we just lie down in your stupid sex bed and take a nap? Maybe you will die in your sleep, maybe not. Either way, I will have to do it again tomorrow anyway.”

Shane seems startled at first, and then he softens. 

“Oh, yeah, okay. I know how you feel. Sure, we can do that, I guess.”

Ilya must look really pathetic, because Shane decides to stop being a monk. He strips down to his boxers and crawls under the covers with Ilya, and he even lets Ilya manhandle him close. Rests his head on Ilya's chest, though he gives Ilya several skeptical little looks before he does so, like he’s making sure that he’s doing the right thing. He is doing the right thing, so Ilya holds him closer and breathes him in, and he feels every muscle in his body relax when Shane presses a tentative kiss to the underside of his jaw. 

“Fuck,” Ilya breathes, and then suddenly his face is screwing up in an effort to ward off tears, and it’s just like Tampa all over again. He fucking hates that he has let Shane see him cry twice now—more if you count all the crying he has done some of the times when Shane’s deaths are too much to take. 

“Oh, Ilya, I know,” Shane says, because of course he notices the tears as soon as they start falling. He sits up a little bit, brushes his thumbs under Ilya’s eyes with a gentleness that only makes more tears appear. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says. 

“It’s okay, don’t be sorry. I know it fucking sucks. I know.” 

“How did you do this alone for so long? Fuck.” 

“I don’t know. I guess I just had to do it, so I did. I couldn’t, like, let you die for real.” 

“So now you die instead.”

”I guess so,” Shane says apologetically. He gets that frightened look on his face again, only briefly, before he smoothes it back out again. Ilya sometimes forgets, in all the loops, that Shane doesn’t remember any of them. This is the same Shane he was back during the first loop. The same Shane he has met every single day for a month now. Maybe Ilya is a little grateful for that today, even though the realization usually makes him feel lonely. Shane would probably be more afraid if he could remember everything. Maybe he would never want to play hockey again. Apparently it's the most dangerous sport on the fucking planet. 

He pulls Shane into his arms again, wraps him up tight, presses kisses to his freckled cheeks. Shane smiles a little, laughs a little under his breath, but then pushes away again, gently, like he’s trying not to hurt him. Ilya understands, suddenly, that all of this has been pity. Maybe not pity, which can be a dirty word, sometimes, to men like Ilya, who are too proud for pity, but empathy, at least. He’s letting Ilya use him. Letting Ilya touch him even though he still doesn't want to. 

“Sorry,” Ilya says, sitting up. “Sorry. Fuck. This is stupid. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Shane argues softly, though he sits up too, looking confused now, and wary. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what…I’m trying to…” 

“I know what you are trying to do,” Ilya answers gravely, heaving a sigh. “And you are being very kind about it, I think, but I don’t want…you look like I have a gun to your head.” 

“What? No I don’t,” Shane says, voice even quivering a little bit, exactly like someone who has a gun to his head and has noticed a finger twitching closer to the trigger. Ilya huffs out a disbelieving laugh, but of course he should have known that Shane would not let that go. ”I don’t! Fuck you. I’m just…look, I know, okay? I know.” He’s looking at Ilya significantly, like Ilya should understand what he's saying, but of course Ilya doesn't. Does Shane know how Ilya feels about him? Probably. Ilya is sure that he said some very stupid things while he was dying, the same way Shane did, that first time. 

“You don’t know anything, Hollander,” he says, because he can’t fucking help himself, apparently. Always trying to be dismissive and cold to push away the warmth that is being offered to him, afraid to use up that source of warmth and leave it barren. It's a waste of a person as bright and ridiculous as Shane to be saddled with someone like Ilya, really.

“I know you were going to end this, tonight. I know you were going to say we have to stop. Break up with me, or whatever. I know we’re not, like, dating, but. A break-up sounds nicer than, I don’t know. Rescinding fuck-buddy privileges.” 

“Hollander, what? No,” Ilya says. “I wouldn’t have…no.” 

“Uh, yeah, you were going to. You told me.” 

“When? Which version of me? I will go back and kill him myself.” He’s serious, but Shane just rolls his eyes, and he goes even colder and frostier, like he’s annoyed that Ilya won’t just drop it, or maybe annoyed that Ilya is going to continue to deny it. It does make things make more sense, if Ilya thinks back. Yes, of course Shane was concerned about that, all those times he refused to let Ilya touch him. If only Ilya had known from the beginning, he could have spent his loops properly, starting off each day proving to Shane that he was wrong. 

“He’s already dead, asshole,” Shane says, a little amused behind the hurt. 

“What did I say, exactly?” Ilya presses. Shane looks surprised to be asked.  

“Uh, I don’t know. You were pretty out of it. You told me that you had a plan to break up with me after the game. You said that we couldn’t keep doing this. You told me I shouldn’t be crying next to your bed because we weren’t anything. I don’t know. I was so fucking pissed at you, and I was so fucking tired, and I just sort of freaked out. I don’t want to talk about it. You told me to leave, and I did, and you fucking died, or whatever, because of course you did. And that’s when I figured that maybe the key was breaking up, because you kept getting killed before you could do it. And then it worked.” 

“That was yesterday, for you.” 

Shane nods uncomfortably, toying with the edge of the sheet, rolling the hem of it between his fingers, frowning at nothing. 

“It was,” he agrees quietly. “So it’s got to be something to do with the breakup, because that’s what fixed it the first time.” 

“It wasn’t. It hasn’t fixed it any other time.” 

“Okay, well, we’re clearly doing something wrong, then. Have we tried not talking to each other at all, the whole day? Like you leave your hotel room before I get there and you avoid even looking at me or hearing my voice?” 

“No,” Ilya admits quietly. “But I don’t think that will do it.” 

“Well, we can’t just give up. You’re stuck until we do something.” 

“Shane, I wasn’t going to…I have been thinking about it, yes. But not because I want it. I want too much, okay?” Shane rolls his eyes, so Ilya pushes him back gently against the pillows, runs the back of his knuckles down Shane's arm. Tries to gentle him, a little. Leans over him so Shane has to look up at him, and can't just hide his face away, or try to run off and slip on another fucking puddle. “Whatever I said yesterday, I am sure I was trying to say that I was happy I wasn’t going to get the chance. I have been trying to work myself up to it. I told myself that I would definitely do it this time, but I knew I wasn’t going to. I am terrible at denying myself the things I want. Not like you.” 

“I’m clearly not exactly good at it either,” Shane points out. Ilya laughs a little, bends down to kiss his forehead. Shane sighs and allows it, looking so beautiful when Ilya pulls back again to look down at him. 

And, well, why not say it? Now that he has allowed himself to think it, why not say it aloud? If Shane reacts poorly, runs away again the same way he did when Ilya first said his name, then Ilya will just wait for the day to reset itself. 

“I love you,” he says. It seems a little anticlimactic, to say it like that. Like it’s nothing. If only he could tear open his chest and let Shane see just how big a deal it is for him to admit something like this aloud. 

Maybe it comes across anyway, because Shane’s expression is disbelieving, aghast. 

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” he whispers, marveling up at Ilya. Leaning over him like this, Ilya feels like he’s a shield against the world, though he knows by now that he can't shield Shane from shit. A fucking aneurysm is going to take Shane now, or something. Still. It’s nice to be here like this, and not on the ice. Maybe they can have this one nice day for a little longer. 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. 

“You’re only saying it because you think I won’t remember.” 

“Well, you said it to me when you thought you were dying, once, so it’s only fair.” 

“I did? Jesus. That’s embarrassing.” 

Ilya decides not to tell him about the blood coming off his hands in the shower, and the razorblades snuck into the pocket of his sweatpants, and how the thought of living his life without Shane’s love had been impossible. 

“Very embarrassing," he agrees. “But so, you see, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Break up with you. I would have chickened out. I can’t leave you now. I’m embarrassing too.” 

“At least it’s both of us,” Shane says darkly. He sighs. “I love you too. Though apparently I said it already.” 

“Yes. I will make sure you say it tomorrow, too.” 

Shane smiles a little bit, and he half-shrugs. 

“Okay,” he says. “If it helps.” 

Ilya’s smile fades a little bit. 

“I think it will,” he says quietly, hopefully. “I’m sorry I made you think I wanted it to be over. I think I am scared because I know everything will have to change if it isn’t over, and I don’t want to try and then ruin it anyway. I don’t think I am someone who people stay for.” 

“But I’m not going anywhere,” Shane promises intently, and Ilya finally bends down and kisses him on the lips. Shane pulls him down, into his arms, holding him close. Ilya is tempted to push it, point out that it has been so many days now since he and Shane have fucked, but he feels drunk enough only off of kisses and some skin-to-skin cuddling, and he’s a little afraid that he’s going to somehow kill Shane with sex and then his dick will be broken forever, so he valiantly holds off. 

Except then Shane is the one to deepen the kiss, and Shane is the one to start saying, please, come on, Ilya, please, I need you, and who is Ilya to deny him what he needs? 

(He does stick to just languidly jerking Shane off, and he pretends like it's for sexy drawing-things-out reasons when he's too slow and careful, and Shane actually does really seem to like the teasing, and luckily doesn't appear to realize that Ilya is concerned about traumatizing his own cock, but still. It's not a complete denial. He's just being considerate of their future chances to fuck.)

After returning the favor—looking a little amused in a way that implied he probably figured out what Ilya was doing, turning down his initial offer of a blowjob—Shane pulls him even closer, like he can feel that Ilya needs the physical closeness more than he needs anything else. Shane whispers see you tomorrow, and Ilya allows himself to drift. He shouldn’t even be tired yet. It’s still so early. For a while, he doesn’t fall asleep, and he doesn’t think Shane is sleeping, either. They just lay together, listening to each other breathing. They both need it, maybe. Tomorrow, Ilya will be ready to try again.

Ilya is startled awake by someone kneeing him in the kidney. He grunts, rolls over, sees Shane over him, eyes bulged out of his head as he continues ranting about something. Is he choking to death on nothing? Is he having a heart attack? Ilya jolts upward, grabs him by the upper arms. Should he just start doing the fucking Heimlich? He doesn’t know how! 

“Shane, Shane!" he says. 

“…so fucking stupid. Oh my fucking god, Ilya. Oh my god. I’m going to fucking die.” 

“Yeah, no shit. How? What's happening?”

“Ilya, it's tomorrow,” Shane cries, frustration fraying his voice. “It’s tomorrow, and we skipped a game to hide out in my fucking sex condo and jerk each other off!”

Ilya laughs helplessly. Shane shoves him hard in the chest, and Ilya falls back onto the bed, still laughing, covering his eyes. 

“Holy shit,” he finally says. 

“My parents probably think I'm fucking dead. I'm scared to turn on my fucking phone. Oh my god, coach is going to fucking kill me. And how the fuck do we explain we both went missing at the same time? Jesus fucking Christ. I'm gonna pass out.”

Ilya is still laughing. Maybe that's rude. Shane sounds genuinely upset, but there's an undercurrent of laughter to his voice, too. An edge of hysterical disbelief. 

“You know this means the universe supports gay sex,” Ilya says, and finally Shane groans and flops face-first into Ilya's stomach, driving the breath from Ilya's lungs in a way that's weirdly pleasant. 

“This is so fucking stupid,” Shane complains, voice slightly muffled. “Why didn't it work all the other times we fucked?”

“We said we loved each other, maybe? You said it when you were dying, the first time. Maybe all I needed to do was say it back. Probably could have figured that out sooner.”

“But I was already dying when I said it. That makes no sense. Why would I be dying before I said it, if it's the love thing that caused the loop to move to you!”

“Eh, maybe you woke up that loop and thought ‘wow, I love him!’ loudly enough for the universe to hear.”

Shane frowns at him. 

“Well, okay, maybe,” he admits. “I guess I was kind of thinking that, a bit. Mostly I was mad because I thought you wanted to break up with me.”

“Which I did not,” Ilya feels the need to point out. Shane groans again, as if Ilya's entire existence pains him. It makes Ilya smile even wider. 

“We're so fucked.”

“We will figure something out, okay? We did okay with the time loop.”

“It took us both months to admit to ourselves that we love each other.”

“Well, yes. But this won't be so bad. Maybe we say we both got blackmail threats that told us to skip the game or we get shot.”

“Ilya, Jesus. No.”

“Just one idea. I am sure we can think of something better. Watch some movies about it, maybe.”

“It's five in the morning. I give it until seven before my mom finds this place.”

“Okay, so we fuck, we shower, we make fake ransom letters. When mama Hollander gets here, we show her the letters.”

“She's never gonna believe it. There will have to be a whole investigation, and they'll catch us, because we're fucking stupid.”

“We can blame it on my brother, maybe. Not for real, but just, vague. Maybe say he threatened you.”

“We're not throwing your brother under the bus.”

“But he's such an asshole,” Ilya teases. Shane laughs, sounding annoyed with himself for doing it. 

“Fuck. We're pathetic,” he says, but his hand is drifting slowly up and down Ilya's lower abdomen, because he actually is a pervert. 

“I'm going to miss seeing you every day,” Ilya admits quietly. “Even though it was terrible and you died a lot.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees with a sad little smile. Ilya has to kiss it, just to try and make it a little brighter, and is pleased with himself when it works. “It's going to be hard to go back to normal. Uh, look. I was gonna talk to you about this after the game. Which probably would have been really awkward when you broke up with me instead.”

“I wasn't going to do it!”

“I was thinking, uh, maybe you could come up this summer to my cottage? It's so private. There's no one around. We could just hang out for a couple of weeks? If you didn't want to go back to Russia. I don't know.”

Ilya knows Shane's cottage, of course. He has watched that stupid little documentary about it more times than he is probably ever going to be comfortable admitting to Shane. He has imagined himself there, sometimes. If the universe had to start using movie logic magic, he's infinitely glad that it was time loops and not mind reading, because he would probably rather die a thousand more times than have Shane know for a fact what a sap he has been. 

But Shane looks vulnerable now. Ilya is intensely aware of what vulnerability looks like on Shane's face, more so than he was a month ago, or yesterday, depending on how you count these things. So he swallows back his impulse to be dismissive, and he understands that Shane is being brave, asking this, when he still clearly sort of thinks Ilya is trying to find a way out. 

“Yes, okay. How long do you usually stay? I will be there for as long as you want me.”

Shane's smile is small, slow-growing, and Ilya's heart aches with fondness to see it. To know that he put that smile there.

From somewhere in the condo, there is a tense, angry little knock. 

“Oh god,” Shane whispers, shoving away from Ilya, flailing himself into sweats and a t-shirt. Neither are his. He doesn't notice. “Oh god, oh fuck, why is she so fast? Oh my god. Okay.”

“Look, maybe we just tell her the truth? The Groundhog Day thing. Maybe not the fucking thing, if you don't want. We can say the universe wants us to be friends, or something. Universe hates the rivalry. She can help us figure out what to say to everyone else. I think she will agree with me about the ransom note.”

“No she won't, because that's a stupid fucking idea,” Shane says. Another knock, louder. Shane’s eyes are moving over Ilya's face, his expression going tight with determination in that familiar way. “Okay, fuck it. We're telling her everything.”

“Everything?”

“I mean not fucking everything, but we're telling her the truth. Not about fucking. We're not talking about fucking, ever, with my mom, okay? But, like, the love stuff is okay.”

Ilya can feel his smile growing even broader, and Shane flushes and looks away. 

“Okay,” Ilya says. “It's going to be okay, you know?”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees tightly. A third knock, sounding so much like Shane's, and Shane looks even more stressed. Ilya dresses in a spare set of clothes. Shane still doesn't notice. He leads the way to the front door, holding tightly to Ilya's hand. He lets go before they reach the door, but slowly, like he's not sure he wants to. He checks over his shoulder once, makes sure Ilya still looks okay with it. Ilya isn't sure what his face is doing, but he is okay with it. He's okay with anything that Shane wants. 

Shane pulls open the door, and Ilya recognizes Yuna Hollander immediately, of course. She's clearly relieved to see Shane is alive, but it filters quickly into shock to see Ilya over his shoulder. She pulls up her phone, calls someone. 

“I have him,” she says. “He's all right. Okay. I love you too.” When she hangs up, she's frowning, maintaining direct eye contact with Shane as if she's trying to peer into his skull. Ilya wishes he was not half a step behind, wishes he could see Shane's face. He can step in, if Shane needs him to, but what will he say? That he's the one who sent the ransom notes, maybe? “That was your father,” Yuna tells Shane, in a voice that tries to be steady, but shakes. “Who has been an absolute wreck all night because you disappeared before a game. We thought you…we thought…” She swallows back emotion and steps forward to pull Shane into a bruising hug. She uses the opportunity to look Ilya over. Probably she recognizes the t-shirt as Shane's, judging from the way her eyes immediately stick on it. Shane is shaking a little as he hugs her back. Ilya is doing a very good job at pretending not to be jealous about this. About how much she clearly loves Shane and clearly was worried for him even though she's angry. Ilya's father, if he was ever concerned, would still lead with his fist, and only express the worry later, usually through criticism. 

“I'm sorry, mom. I didn't…well, it was…” Shane pulls back and looks over his shoulder for help. Ilya shrugs unhelpfully, because what exactly is he supposed to say? Yuna Hollander will believe this shit much better from her son's mouth than his. But Shane still looks so lost and frightened, and Ilya is unfortunately very soft. He sighs. 

“Have you ever seen Groundhog Day?” he asks her. 

And Shane, though he doesn't look very happy with himself for it, laughs.