Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Coach LeClaire (Game Changers), Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Connors (Heated Rivalry), Ryan Carmichael, Victor St. Simon, Rose Landry, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Hayden Pike, J, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais

Additional Tags:

Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Near Death Experiences, Airplane Crashes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Supportive Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Relationship Reveal, Love Confessions, Coming Out, Humor

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-27 Completed: 2026-10-04 Words: 8,509 Chapters: 2/2

Five-Minute Major

Summary

“Hello? What is going on? Did you mean to call me?” Ilya asked nervously, glancing around at his team to make sure they weren’t focused on him, confirming that most of them were either undressing and checking their own phones or teasing St. Simone about the new tattoo he had gotten the other day.

“I—I think—” Shane stuttered, and Ilya frowned when he heard another scream from Shane’s end of the line that didn’t sound like a gleeful hockey celebration. Was there something beeping loudly, too?

“I think the plane is crashing.”

And Ilya’s world came crumbling down.

-

After the tuna melt incident, Shane calls Ilya from a plane that is going down.

Notes

NOTE: plane does not crash. Plane is fine. Don't worry

This fic is very much not what I usually write. It's just one short little scene. Very much a one-shot. I just thought it would be fun to try it

It is also very much inspired by this Tumblr post which I'm sure lots of you have seen. I can’t wait to see how other authors take on this prompt.

This is also the Tumblr user's ao3 page (angel-mistake's ao3), and I believe she is planning her own version as well, so go subscribe to her.

Note that I did not look at the prompt once while writing so it is rather different in terms of dialogue.

Btw, I literally wrote this in a couple of hours, and it is way too late for me to be awake, so I am just posting this and going to bed.

Chapter 1: The minor fall

Chapter Notes

“Yo, Roz, were you trying to kill Grant out there?” Connors called to him as they marched into the locker room after soundly beating Tampa three to one, with Ilya scoring two goals and assisting on the other.

“Yeah, man. I thought he was going to piss himself when you checked him in the third. What did he do? Steal your girlfriend?” Carmichael added, throwing his helmet carelessly into the locker next to Ilya’s.

Ilya took off his own helmet, tucking it under his arm while he ripped off his gloves. “He looked at me funny,” he muttered, earning a handful of laughs from the room that Ilya didn't return. Actually, Grant had retweeted a post about a certain Canadian hockey player going to dinner with his certain movie star girlfriend. And Ilya couldn’t stand hockey players who didn’t know what to repost and what not to repost. No one needed to see the one-hundredth image of Shane and Rose. Especially not one where Shane was facing away from the camera.

Shane leaving him that day had felt a lot like grief. At first he had been in denial, telling himself that he didn’t care and deciding to fuck anything that moved because that’s what someone who didn’t care would do. But then he realized that someone who didn’t care wouldn’t specifically flirt with girls who had freckles and black hair. Or who looked like their friends had dragged them to the club and didn’t want to actually be there.

Now he was in the anger phase of grief. Every flinch, every comment could be the one that set him off for the day. He almost felt bad for the rest of his teammates who were still walking on eggshells around him, but then he remembered how loudly Marleau had eaten his pre-game bag of chips or Hammersmith’s tendency to stand in the middle of the doorframe, chatting instead of moving to the side, and then he felt a little more justified in snapping at them or implying less than tasteful (and worse, less than clever) things about their mothers.

He wondered what the bargaining phase would look like. Maybe he would get drunk and call Shane like heartbroken girlfriends or boyfriends always did and beg him to take him back, promising him more carefully cooked meals like grilled chicken and soggy steamed spinach or whatever the fuck Shane ate. Not that Ilya had been Shane’s boyfriend. Not that he was heartbroken.

Fuck, maybe he was still in denial.

“You good?” Marleau said under his breath as Ilya ripped off the rest of his gear and shoved it into his stall, still riled up from the game, Grant’s bland social media presence, and Carmichael’s questions.

“Fuck off, Marly,” Ilya responded, and Marleau put his arms up in surrender.

Ilya’s phone buzzed, the vibrations sounding loudly against his locker. He pulled it out, expecting to see Alexei’s name, but almost dropped it when he read ‘Jane’ instead. He stared at it for a moment, then automatically covered it with his hand so his teammates couldn’t see the name and then tease him about it or ask him to put the phone on speaker. 

He gawked at the little white letters. Why the fuck was Shane calling him? Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was calling to ask Ilya to take him back.

But Shane never got drunk. And Shane never called.

Ilya’s heart sank as his brain started to concoct a more realistic, more horrifying image. He saw that photo of Shane and Rose that Grant had reposted. The one of them going into a nice restaurant with entrees that cost at least one hundred dollars, which Ilya knew because he had googled the location and left a review even though he had never been. He remembered seeing the review Amber had left, saying her boyfriend had proposed to her at the restaurant and that the staff had been so lovely and accommodating. She mentioned a free dessert.

And so Ilya saw Rose Landry in his head, delicately placing a spoonful of free chocolate cake into her mouth before convincing Shane to let her do the same to him. He saw her flashing the ring that Shane would have given her, the empty box still lying open on the table.

Shane never called. In seven years, they had never called. So it must be that Shane was calling to tell Ilya that he was getting married. He would want to tell Ilya over the phone instead of over text because that’s what respectable Canadians would do to men who had been not-so-casually seeing each other.

And Ilya, being an idiot, tapped Accept Call and lifted the phone to his ear, his hands shaking, because he didn’t want Shane to have to text it to him. Or worse, leave a voicemail. He didn’t want to be able to look back at the evidence on his phone, a reminder that Shane had called him to tell him he was in love with someone else.

That, and Ilya imagined he would always answer when Shane called. Maybe this was acceptance.

“Hello?” Ilya said, trying to steady his voice, the locker room noise still loud behind him.

He couldn’t make out any talking through the clamor, and he waved uselessly at his teammates as if to dampen it, but most of it was coming from the other end. Ilya thought he heard screaming. He hadn’t thought the Metros had had a game today, but perhaps he had gotten the days wrong. Maybe Shane was also standing in a locker room, phone held to his cheek, as his teammates clapped him on the back.

“Hi,” a voice whispered from the other end, and Ilya froze at the pained tone.

“Hello? What is going on? Did you mean to call me?” Ilya asked nervously, glancing around at his team to make sure they weren’t focused on him, confirming that most of them were either undressing and checking their own phones or teasing St. Simone about the new tattoo he had gotten the other day.

“I—I think—” Shane stuttered, and Ilya frowned when he heard another scream from Shane’s end of the line that didn’t sound like a gleeful hockey celebration. Was there something beeping loudly, too?

“I think the plane is crashing.”

And Ilya’s world came crumbling down.

“Plane? What plane?” he asked weakly. Shane couldn’t be on a plane. He was at a hockey game. Ilya had gotten the dates wrong.

“Ilya,” Shane whispered, and Ilya felt his knees buckle slightly, forcing him to reach out and grab the edge of his locker to stay upright. Shane was crying. “I’m probably going to lose wifi soon. I need you to tell my parents—”

“No. What are you talking about? What wifi?” Ilya said with a gasp, drawing the attention of Marleau next to him, whose eyes went wide. 

“Roz, what—”

Ilya waved a hand, cutting him off, then pulled his phone closer to his face with both hands, the edges pressing painfully into his cheek. 

“I need—I need you—My mom—” Shane cried harder, and Ilya could hear his breathing shorten. Or maybe that was Ilya’s own breathing.

“Yo, Cap, who are you on the phone with?” Connors called.

Ilya ignored him, focusing on the man on the other end of the line who was somehow on a plane that was maybe going through some bad turbulence. What had he done with Ryan Price when he had been anxious about flying? Why couldn’t he remember now? All he knew was that he needed Shane to keep talking so that he could keep hearing his voice.

“Your mom,” Ilya prompted, but his voice cracked as a sob escaped him. The entire locker room fell silent, and the players slowly turned to him. Ilya furiously wiped away the tears that had found their way onto his cheeks. He knew he needed to move somewhere more secluded, but his feet wouldn’t budge. Somehow, it felt like if he even shifted a bit, the call would disconnect, and Shane would disappear. Because Shane was here. Right here. With him.

“Damn. He might actually be talking to your mom,” Carmichael whispered, and St. Simone smacked his arm. 

Ilya disregarded all of them because he could hear Shane take a deep breath before speaking. “Can—Can you tell my mom and dad—that I love them, and I’m sorry—”

“Why can you not tell them yourself? I do not understand.”

Shane let out a breathy, exasperated laugh. “Because the plane is crashing.”

“No, it is not. Stop it—”

“Ilya. I need you to listen to me.”

“No, I will not listen. Why are you telling me this—” Ilya felt Marleau reach out to touch his shoulder, and Ilya shoved his hand away. Nobody in the locker room moved, but every player stared at him or at each other, trying to figure out what to do. Ilya wished he could tell them.

“Ilya,” Shane repeated. “The plane is crashing.”

Ilya let out another sob and fell to his knees, his body no longer able to support him. His chest shook with each staggered breath.

“Please.” Ilya didn’t know what he was begging for. “Please don’t—Hollander—”

“Can you call me Shane?”

Suddenly, Ilya saw the image of Shane in front of him, standing in the hallway of Ilya’s Boston house, ready to bolt for the door. He saw his own hand outstretched, trying to pull Shane back to him, begging him to stay. He saw Shane turn and walk out, leaving Ilya sitting by himself staring at two plates with tuna melt crumbs and a half-drunk can of ginger ale that he later stuck in the fridge just in case its owner returned. He hadn’t.

“Do you promise you will not leave me again if I do?”

He heard a shaky inhale on the other end of the call. “Okay. I promise,” Shane whispered.

“Shane,” Ilya said, just as softly. He heard a couple of gasps around him. It was over now. They all knew. There might have been other Hollanders in the world. There was only one Shane. “Please don’t leave me.”

Shane whined. “I’m so sorry I left you—”

“I will never forgive you if you leave me again, Shane, please—”

“I shouldn’t have gone. I wanted to stay. I just couldn’t. I—”

“You can stay. You can stay for me, please—”

Coach LeClaire had come out of his office and was surveying the scene with a slack jaw. “What—” he started, but broke off when Ilya let out another pained sound that broke even his own heart. He hadn’t realized he could sound like that.

“I’m sorry,” Shane whispered.

Ilya felt like he was going to throw up. He even leaned forward, curling his arms around his knees in case he needed to do just that. “I’m sorry too.”

Ilya could hear others crying in the background, and for the first time, he realized Shane was on a plane with all his teammates. He realized the Metros were falling out of the sky. Oh God, Shane was on that plane. Shane was falling. He was going to—it was going—Shane was—Shane—

Shane let out a little laugh, muddled by his own tears. “We were pretty stupid, weren’t we?”

“Shane,” Ilya could only whimper in response.

“I wish we had more time. I—I know it’s not—” Something rattled loudly in the background, and Shane paused. “—It’s not enough. But I wanted to have these minutes.”

“Minutes?” Ilya repeated quietly. Carmichael crouched down beside him, not touching, just sitting there.

“Yeah,” Shane breathed. “I think—I think maybe—minutes. I—I wanted to call you. I wanted to hear your voice—” Shane broke off again, and Ilya could hear his muffled cries.

Oh, Ilya thought. Shane is scared. And he wanted to crawl through the phone and hold him, even if it meant that he crashed too. It felt like he was anyway. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. He needed to be here for Shane so that Shane could have all of his minutes.

Ilya shifted so that he could sit instead of kneel, his legs spread out next to Carmichael's. Slowly the rest of the room either sat with him or leaned against the walls, settling into their positions. They were here for the long haul. “I am here.”

“Okay,” Shane whispered.

“Are you bracing?”

“I’m bracing.”

“Good. Do you know where your life jacket is?”

“I’m not going to need a fucking life jacket. We’re not even over an ocean.”

“Ah, so it will all be okay. No need to panic.”

“Okay.”

They were speaking more smoothly, but both were still obviously crying. They hadn’t managed to stop that. Ilya couldn’t help but see images of Shane’s life flash before his eyes: Shane folding his clothes before climbing into bed with him, Shane leaning over a faceoff dot, Shane shaking his hand outside an arena in Saskatchewan. Which was funny because he thought it was usually the other way around. But maybe he was dying too.

Oh God, why was this happening to him? Why the fuck was Shane on a plane? This couldn’t be real, this couldn’t—

The rattling on Shane’s end was getting louder.

“Ilya, I need you to know that—”

“Shane, don’t—”

“—you’re my favorite person. I’m sorry I left you. And I’m sorry I’m going to do it again—”

“You are not going to leave. You are going to be okay. It is all okay—”

“And I need you to know that I love you. Just a little bit.”

Ilya’s voice caught in his throat, and his jaw hung open. 

Oh God. Shane loved him. Fuck. No. Please, no. He thought of his mother telling him she loved him before he left for hockey practice. He hadn’t known it would be the last thing she ever said to him. He’d been too busy adjusting his bag strap to notice her voice wobble.

“I love you too, Shane,” he sobbed, closing his eyes so that he couldn’t see anyone else in the room. Just him and Shane together in darkness like always. It was such a pity he had never truly been able to see Shane in the sun. He thought about how Shane’s freckles would probably have darkened, and his hair would have gotten lighter. And he wouldn’t get to see it.

“Oh,” Shane whispered. “Just a little bit?”

Ilya shook his head even though Shane couldn’t see it. “No. I—I think I have loved you for years.”

“Oh.”

They sat there for a moment, breathing together. Ilya wondered how many breaths together they had left. He wondered how many of those breaths they had wasted on hurried gasps and moans and sighs when they could have used them to call each other and tell the other how their days were. Or laugh. Or say “I love you” a little earlier. Before one of them was on a plane.

He pictured a hockey clock, slowly ticking towards zero.

“I would have loved you for years,” he said, tears shining on his neck, dripping beneath his clothes.

Shane let out an ugly chuckle, almost indistinguishable from a tortured cry. “Me too. I would have loved you for years. And for a couple of minutes.”

Something sounded like a buzzer in the background, and the line went dead.

Ilya gasped, and for a moment, nothing moved. His mouth was open, but no other sound came out, even though he felt pressure on his vocal cords as if something was trying to. Like that moment right when you can see the bomb has hit and that the world has ended, but you haven’t heard the boom.

And then there was the boom.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, oh God, please no,” Ilya cried, pulling his phone away from his face for the first time and staring at the empty lock screen. He slid it open and tapped Shane’s contact, calling ‘Jane’ again. It went straight to voicemail.

“No. NO. SHANE!” Ilya screamed, tapping it again and again. And again. 

He looked up at his teammates, holding the phone toward them as if they could do something. His coach had tears streaming down his face. Sebbin was staring at the ground, his face pale. None of them reached toward his phone.

His face crumpled, and he collapsed, his body falling against Carmichael, who immediately wrapped his arms around him. Ilya would have shrugged them off if he could have moved his own arms.

He inhaled, then groaned loudly. If Ilya hadn’t been the one making the noise, he would have assumed that someone had been shot and was bleeding out onto the locker room floor.

His cries got louder and more hysterical, and Carmichael just hugged tighter, as if he were trying to hold him together. Over the sound of his own sobs, he could hear the locker room commotion picking back up.

“St. Simone. Get someone from the Metros on the phone.”

“I’m fucking trying, Marleau. Fuck!”

“Regan, are you grabbing his stuff? Good.”

“This is fucking crazy.”

“Shut the fuck up, man.”

“No one is picking up.”

“Coach, can you—”

“On it.”

“A couple of news outlets have picked it up.”

“Well, what the fuck are they saying?”

“No information at this time.”

“Fuck. FUCK!”

Ilya let the Raiders’ voices crowd him out. He let Carmichael run a hand up and down his back. Wrangling his arm out from under him, Ilya pulled out his phone again and went to the call log to see if he had somehow missed a call.

Four minutes and sixteen seconds.

That was how long he and Shane had had together. Less time than a major penalty.

“I’ve got Jackie Pike on the phone,” Connors called out.

“Does she have any news?” Marleau said urgently, walking over to meet him and leaning in closer to the phone to try to hear.

Connors shook his head. “No, but she says someone told her they made an emergency landing near New York.”

“Good,” Marleau said, grabbing some of Ilya’s things from Regan along with his own. “Cadyn, can you buy me and Roz plane tickets to New York?”

Cadyn made a small noise of acknowledgment and pulled out his phone. “For when?”

“As soon as fucking possible.”

Ilya felt himself lifted off the ground by both Carmichael and Marleau, who supported his weight.

“I’ve got them!” Cadyn said triumphantly, holding the phone up as proof.

“Great. Send them to me,” Marleau said before pointing at the rest of the room. “No one says a fucking word. Got it?”

They all nodded seriously. Ilya felt a spark of gratitude emerge for a brief moment before everything else inside him drowned it out. And then he almost wanted them to tell people. He almost wanted them to tell everyone how Ilya Rozanov had died in the Boston Raiders’ locker room at the same time that Shane Hollander had fallen out of the sky.

“Come on, Ilya,” Marleau said softly. “Let’s go get your boy.”

“I’ll drive you,” Connors yelled, following them out.

The three of them navigated him down the hallway of TD Garden until they reached the parking lot. Carmichael helped Ilya into the passenger seat, then leaned over the door. “You got him, Marly?”

“I’ve got him,” Marleau confirmed, leaning forward from the back seat to pat Ilya’s back as Connors started the car.

Carmichael nodded firmly, then gave Ilya’s shoulder one last squeeze. “He’s going to be okay. He’s a stubborn motherfucker. If anyone could survive a plane crash, it’s Hollander.”

“Shane,” Ilya corrected automatically, his voice breaking.

Carmichael smiled sadly. “Shane. Tell him we’re rooting for him.”

Ilya felt barely conscious as they drove to the airport. Marleau kept reading off headlines from the back seat, but they didn’t say anything. Ilya wasn’t sure he wanted them to. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the one announcing casualties. The one that counted them. The one that listed them. The one that could have Shane’s name written in sans serif font somewhere in the middle of a column of alphabetized names.

He leaned his head against the window, the night air soaking into his skin, freezing his still-falling tears. He couldn’t even cry anymore, but water kept leaking out of his eyes as if trying to expel something poisonous from them.

Connors pulled up to the curb and gave Ilya a firm hug before letting Marleau march into the airport departures area, dragging Ilya behind him. They checked in. They went through security. They sat and waited to board. Marleau checked his phone. They boarded the plane. The plane took off.

Marleau put Ilya in the window seat so he could act as a barrier between Ilya and anyone who walked past, and Ilya used the opportunity to watch the city lights grow farther and farther away. The flight attendant came by and asked if they wanted anything. Ilya ordered a ginger ale and drank half of it before setting it down on his tray. 

Only then did it occur to him that he was on a plane that could also crash, and he couldn’t tell if he was afraid. He wondered what he would do if it did. 

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and connected to the airplane wifi. Thumbing through his texts, he stared at the few he had refused to delete from Shane over the years. He tapped the contact information and hit call, holding it to his ear.

The phone rang.

It rang again.

It rang a third time.

“Oh my God, I just got my phone back, and I was about to call you, but then you called me first. I’m so sorry. The wifi cut out at some point, and I was trying to figure out how to call you after, but I couldn’t find my phone, and I don’t have your number memorized and—”

“Shane?” Ilya whispered, barely able to make the sound. Next to him, Marleau gasped.

“Yes, it’s me. I kept trying to get a phone, but—”

“You are okay?” Ilya whimpered, and a long pause followed over the phone.

“I’m okay, Ilya. Well, I have a couple of bruises, but we landed in one piece. We’re all okay.”

Ilya burst into new tears, which he hadn’t thought was possible, and he slumped back into his seat. “Okay. This is good.”

Shane laughed. “I thought so too. Holy fuck, Ilya—”

“Yes. Holy fuck.”

“I was in a plane crash.”

“No. You said the plane did not crash.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No,” Ilya said firmly, just to remind himself. “The plane did not crash.”

There was another pause. “You’re right. The plane didn’t crash,” Shane said softly.

“Good. Where are you?”

“The hospital,” Shane replied. “They wanted to just check everyone over.”

Ilya mouthed the word hospital to Marleau, who nodded and started using his own in-flight wifi to look up which hospital the Metros would have gone to. “Stay there. I am going to come find you.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that. I’m fine, really. You don’t—”

“I am already on a plane.”

“Oh,” Shane said, slightly awed. “You’re on a plane right now?”

Ilya could tell Shane was nervous now. “Yes, but this one will not crash. But just in case, I wanted to call you so you could be with me if it did. I did not think you would pick up.”

Shane huffed out a laugh. “I’m glad I did. How much longer is the flight?”

Ilya glanced at the screen in front of him. “About thirty-five minutes.”

“Okay,” Shane said softly. Ilya pressed the phone closer to his face and could almost imagine Shane kissing the spot on his cheek where it touched. “So we have a couple of minutes.”

Now it was Ilya’s turn to laugh. He wiped at his face, brushing off the stray tears. “Yes, we have a couple of minutes.”

Chapter End Notes

Welp! I hope you enjoyed. Ish. I kept the "your mom" joke, which is exciting because I wasn't sure I would. You all thought I was joking about that on Twitter, but I fear I was deadly serious.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me in this little scene. It is a relationship reveal for all my people who are still as invested as I am in alternative ways people might have found out.

I might regret posting this as quickly as I am because it probably needed way more editing lol. I'll probably want to delete it in the morning but c'est la vie. Again, this isn't really my normal storytelling style, but I just liked the scene so much. You'd be shocked by how many little scenes I have written down that I'm just trying to find a chance to shove into a fic.

Kids, don’t post fics at 4 am

Okay that's all I think
<3 Ivy

Chapter 2: And the major lift

Chapter Summary

The hospital reunion :)

Chapter Notes

Happy Kinktober (I cannot offer you smut, but I can offer you this)

Ilya had never liked airplanes. They made him uneasy because they always meant something was beginning or ending, and he often wasn't sure which. He remembered boarding the flight from Moscow to Boston for the first time, leaving behind the family he didn’t like and a home that struggled to keep the cold out, and wondering if he hadn’t made some big mistake. Clutching a plastic cup of melted ice and watered-down Coke, he hadn’t been able to tell whether his life was over or just starting. Everyone liked to pretend it was all so dichotomous, sorted nicely into departures and arrivals, but every arrival was just a departure that hadn’t happened yet.

He'd had to end his call with Shane after the flight attendant, shooting him frankly terrifying glares, threatened to ban him from the airline if he didn’t. So they'd really had only about four minutes to talk, which was ironic. Ilya would have told her to go ahead and ban him and kept talking, except someone on the other end needed Shane for something, so he had to go anyway. Apparently people still needed things from you after getting in a plane crash. That, and this was the only airline that served the little butter pretzel snacks, and Ilya still hadn't managed to convince their supplier to send him a Costco family-sized amount.

Hanging up on Shane also had the disadvantage of giving Marleau space to open and close his mouth repeatedly, trying to decide how many questions he was allowed to ask and when. When was it appropriate to ask someone about their secret male hookup who had just survived a near-death experience? Especially when said someone was apparently also in love with him.

Marleau decided it was about two minutes after you find out they’re alive.

“So…Hollander,” he began nervously, staring up at the seatbelt icon as if he was totally nonchalant about the whole thing and didn’t even need to look at Ilya.

“Captain of the Metros, yes,” Ilya responded, shoving a few more pretzels into his mouth.

“You and him are…”

“Rivals, yes,” Ilya said seriously with a firm nod.

Marleau sighed. “Roz, don’t fuck with me now—”

“Like how I am fucking Hollander? Captain of the Metros?”

Marleau sputtered, choking a bit, and Ilya patted him firmly on the back. 

“I thought you wanted to know,” Ilya muttered as Marleau guzzled some water, trying to stop coughing as he glared at Ilya.

“I did, but have a little class, man,” Marleau finally responded.

Ilya gave him a look. “Last week you told me you titty fucked a girl from the bar.”

“Yeah, but—” Marleau blushed. “That was just some random girl, not Shane Hollander.”

Ilya thought about it for a moment. “I think this is sexist.”

Marleau paused. “Shit, I think you’re right.” He swore again and fiddled with his tray table, opening and closing the latch over and over. “So do you want to tell me about fucking Hollander, or…”

“No, I do not want to fucking tell you that, you fucking idiot.”

“Okay, cool,” he said with a relieved sigh, then suddenly looked over, panicked. “I mean—not because of like…the gay thing or whatever—”

“I hope this plane crashes,” Ilya muttered under his breath.

“Hey, don’t joke about things like that. My best friend’s gay lover almost died in a plane crash,” Marleau said with a grin.

Ilya scoffed, but his lips quirked up in a smirk. He thought it was funny how quickly people could make jokes about terrible things. The day after his mother died, he had told Svetlana that she had to be nice to him now that he had a dead mom. A week later, he had told Sasha he would rather kill himself than turn in his homework. He had still been crying silently to himself most nights, holding a teddy bear his mother had given him a few years prior. It had a hole in its left leg that she had promised to sew up for him and never had. It didn’t stop him from making the jokes. It didn’t stop Svetlana and Sasha from laughing at them before frowning and looking around guiltily.

“How long has it been going on?” Marleau asked.

Ilya shrugged. “A long time.”

“How long is a long time?”

Ilya turned the phone over in his hand, thinking about messaging Shane again just to make sure he was still there. “Years,” he whispered.

Marleau whistled. “Fuck, man.”

“Yes.” Ilya nodded. “Fuck.”

Neither of them spoke for a little bit, both imagining years of Shane Hollander, although Ilya was pretty sure he was the only one of the two of them thinking about soft smiles and shushed laughter in hidden hotel rooms. Marleau was probably thinking about the logistics of who went where and how. 

“And you’re like…in love with him?”

“Yes, probably.”

“Huh,” Marleau said, then lifted the pretzel bag to his mouth and tilted it back, getting crumbs on his shirt that he didn’t bother to wipe off. “Well, that’s gotta be nice, right?”

Ilya hummed, then said a simple, “Yes.” Although he wasn’t sure it was. It mostly felt horrible, like he was constantly mourning someone he hadn’t lost. What was love if not the potential for grief? He stared briefly out the window at the scattered lights and roads and dark patches of land below. It mostly felt awful to love someone more than the lights and roads and dark patches.

“So would you, like…I don’t know, like marry him one day?” Marleau asked, and Ilya had to roll his eyes at that.

“Probably I have to now,” he said with a sigh. He looked over at Marleau, his eyes wide. “Have to make an honest man out of him.”

Marleau frowned. “What do you—”

“Shane is pregnant.”

Marleau’s jaw dropped. He stared at Ilya, blinking rapidly. Ilya sighed and nodded seriously.

“Holy shit. How far along is he?”

Ilya laughed, shaking his head. “You are such a fucking idiot, Marly.” Marleau smacked him, and Ilya snickered, pulling out his phone and opening his text thread with Shane. He needed to tell him that Marleau had thought he was pregnant. He probably also needed to tell him he loved him again and ask if he thought they were at the beginning or end of something. And remind him to take his prenatal vitamins.

* * * * *

People walked so fucking slowly these days, Ilya thought, as he squeezed past a mother and son determined to take up both spaces on the moving sidewalk. He thought New York was supposed to be better than this. 

He hadn’t realized how much urgency was still coursing through his body until he stepped off the plane and started walking toward the baggage claim signs. Apparently, knowing Shane was alive and well didn’t stop him from wanting to sprint through the terminal, but he imagined that would draw the attention of anyone who might recognize a Boston captain.

He tugged his ball cap a little lower and watched two women exit the gate next to him and start running. They had the right idea. He wondered what connection they were close to missing.

“Jackie, can you send me the address again?” the blonde one called, turning to look behind her briefly.

“It should be in the group chat,” Jackie yelled back.

“Holy shit, I think that’s Comeau’s wife,” Marleau muttered, lifting his hoodie over his head.

Ilya paled and glanced back at the screen next to the gate, which read ‘Montreal.’ He hunched his shoulders, trying to hide a bit better. He hadn’t even considered that other partners might be on other planes, hurriedly trying to reach their loved ones. 

Although Ilya wasn’t a partner. Not really.

And for the first time since he had picked up that first phone call, he thought about Rose Landry and froze in his tracks, causing Marleau to crash into him.

“Jesus, Roz. What is it?”

“Rose Landry,” Ilya muttered.

Marleau glanced around them. “Where?”

“No, I mean—he is still dating Rose Landry.”

“Oh,” Marleau said, hauling his backpack further up on his shoulder. “I mean…I seriously doubt that’s going to be a problem.”

But all Ilya could see was Jackie Pike (who he now recognized from Pike’s Instagram posts, which often included Shane) growing smaller as she ran. Because she could be someone who ran through airports for the people she loved. Maybe Rose Landry would beat him to the hospital because she had run too.

They kept walking until they reached the exit, the brisk New York air cutting into Ilya’s face, and Marleau hailed a taxi. He gave the driver the hospital name, and they sat in silence as the car navigated the heavy nighttime traffic.

“So, what’s the plan when we get there?” Marleau asked, leaning over and glancing nervously between Ilya and the driver.

Ilya frowned. “Plan?”

“Yeah, for when we get there. We can’t just stroll in through the front doors.”

Ilya winced. He hadn’t thought about that. He pulled out his phone and called Shane to ask, swearing when it went to voicemail. Shane was probably still busy with the doctors or with his teammates. Or with Rose Landry, who had probably taken a private jet, unlike Ilya, who had flown commercial like an idiot. Why hadn’t he had the foresight to purchase a private plane?

“Well,” Marleau said as he watched Ilya’s phone go to voicemail a second time, “I guess we’re just winging it. We can just say we were in town for something and thought we’d stop by.”

Ilya gave him a look. “What the fuck would we be in town for?”

Marleau shrugged and took out his phone, typing quickly before tilting the screen toward Ilya. “Maroon 5 has a concert today. Maybe we're here to see that.” Ilya gave him a flat look, and Marleau gave him a light shove. “Fine. Then you think of something on your own. See if I ever try to help you again.”

Ilya rolled his eyes, but he thought it was a good idea to practice what he might say, trying not to be too worried about the missed calls. He was going to be professional about this. Just one captain visiting another captain. Nothing to see here. Once he had settled on a script, he started repeating it over and over again in his head.

I was in town, and I heard about the plane. I thought I would come and check in. I was in town, and I heard about the plane. I thought I would come and check in. I was in town, and I heard about the plane. I thought I would come and check in. 

The car pulled up to the hospital, and suddenly Ilya felt frozen to his seat. He couldn’t go in there. He thought about how they wouldn’t let him see his mother again after they took her away, her body cold, her hand limp. He thought about how they had never lifted the lid, so he had never known if she had truly been in there. He thought about how, when he joked with Svetlana and Sasha, none of it had felt completely real. Like maybe he would make another joke, and he would hear her laugh because she always laughed at his jokes even when she could hardly smile at anything else.

Maybe Shane wasn’t picking up his phone because something awful had happened. And Ilya didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know if Shane was really in there. He didn’t want to open the coffin.

Marleau handed the driver some cash and got out of the car, looking back at him expectantly. “Well?”

“I cannot do it, Marleau. I cannot see him. I think I will just stay here. I think—”

“Ilya,” Marleau said firmly, holding out his hand. “It’s time to go.”

Ilya stared at the hand. He remembered another hand outstretched to him, made slightly red by the Saskatchewan cold. Sighing, he leaned forward, grabbed Marleau’s hand, and let himself be pulled out of the car.

They neared the doors, and Ilya muttered his script under his breath. If Shane was in there, he wasn’t going to fuck up. He was going to be collected and calm, and he wasn’t going to betray Shane by breaking down in front of his team, revealing their years-long secret. It was fine. Just a captain meeting another captain. It was all going to be—

The automatic doors slid open, and Ilya was immediately met with a large crowd of people. To his right, Jackie Pike was wrapped up in Hayden Pike’s arms, both of them crying and laughing softly. Theriault was barking orders at some poor assistant holding multiple bags of takeout. Several players were chatting loudly on the phone.

And in the middle of it all was Shane, phone stuck between his ear and shoulder, talking rapidly while trying to fill out forms on a clipboard he had propped up with his knee. Ilya almost smiled as the clipboard clattered to the ground when Shane lost hold of it, making Shane swear.

“What the fuck?” J.J. exclaimed beside Shane, gawking at Ilya. Shane looked up to see what he meant, and his eyes landed on Ilya too. 

The room went silent as every pair of eyes fell on the two Raiders just inside the doors. Ilya barely noticed them as he looked at Shane, his arms shaking as he fought the urge to rush forward and grab Shane, just to prove to himself that Shane was really here. That he wasn’t cold and his hands weren’t limp.

“I…I just…” he began nervously. “I was in town, and I heard about the plane—”

He trailed off as Shane Hollander, captain of the Metros, broke into a run.

* * * * *

This is fucking stupid, Shane thought as he sprinted across the linoleum hospital floor, his shoes squeaking with each step. He wasn’t sure what had come over him. He just knew that one moment he was trying to remember Laine’s birthday and the next Ilya Rozanov was standing on the other side of the room with slightly bloodshot eyes and a puffy face. 

No one talked enough about what it was like to almost get in a plane crash. In Shane’s opinion, there was a real gap in the standard school curriculum because why had he been taught what to do when pulled under by quicksand, but not how to feel when on a plane plummeting toward the earth? He went on planes almost weekly and had yet to have a single experience with quicksand. 

Perhaps it was because there really wasn’t anything you could do when on a crashing plane but wait for the impact and think about why you had spent so long trying to make sure you packed the exact right amount of underwear or whether the in-flight movie you had watched was the right one to go out on. For the record, Shane had been watching Moneyball, which he thought was a pretty good one as far as last-movies-watched go. 

Somewhere between the first jolt toward the ground and the moment he tapped call on Ilya’s contact, he had stopped caring about a lot of things. He stopped caring about his pre-flight checklists that demanded exactly six pairs of underwear. He stopped caring about Brad Pitt and baseball even though he had never really cared much about either before. He stopped caring about the intersection near his house with the mistimed lights that didn’t give cars turning left enough time to go. He stopped caring about whether his teammates knew Rose Landry had broken up with him because he was gay. He stopped caring about whether someone saw Ilya Rozanov going up the stairs and through the door of his apartment.

All he knew was that he wanted to hear Ilya’s voice one last time. And then when the plane landed, he knew he wanted to hear Ilya’s voice for the rest of his life. It was funny how selfish he had become the second he had realized he wasn’t going to die that day. Give a man a minute, and he’ll want a lifetime.

And there Ilya Rozanov was, as if the universe had decided to indulge Shane by placing Ilya on his doorstep once more, still wearing his compression shirt and the look of someone close to falling apart.

So Shane ran because he wanted to be the one to hold him together. 

He crashed into Ilya, wrapping his arms around him tightly, their chests colliding roughly. As he did, he felt an overwhelming sense of joy and astonishment, like he had just hit a baseball out of the park. It felt like running home.

How could you not be romantic about baseball?

“Oh my God, Ilya,” he said breathlessly.

“Shane. Your team—” Ilya began, panicked.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

After another moment, Ilya relaxed into the embrace, eventually bringing his arms up around Shane as well, clutching at him desperately now that he was allowed to. 

“I was so worried, Shane.”

“I know. I’m so sorry, it was probably selfish of me to call—”

“No. Please call me. Please call me every time.”

Shane smiled and pulled back for a moment. Tears had slowly started to fall onto Ilya’s cheeks, and Shane wiped them away. “You’re crying.”

Ilya shook his head, sniffling. “It is only because the taxi ride here was so slow. You know how I hate slow drivers.”

Shane let out a breathy laugh. “I’m sure you would have driven much faster.”

“I would drive so fast, Shane. Just for you.”

Shane could hear the loud mutterings of the Metros around him, but he paid them no mind. He wiped another tear away, cupped the side of Ilya’s face, and leaned forward to kiss him. Because Ilya, who always drove over the speed limit anyway, would drive fast for Shane. And wasn’t that something.

Ilya kissed him back firmly, but just chastely enough to be acceptable in public, which was too bad because Shane would have devoured him if Ilya had let him. But maybe, he thought as he felt Ilya’s hands shake as they moved to Shane’s neck, pressing lightly on his pulse point, Ilya had already let him, years ago.

“What the actual fuck?” J.J. all but screamed behind them while the rest of his teammates started yelling as well, some saying words but others just letting out a series of disbelieving noises.

Shane sighed and turned to face the masses, stepping slightly in front of Ilya. They stared at him wide-eyed and open-jawed, faces ranging from shock to disgust.

“This is Ilya Rozanov,” he began nervously, glancing at Ilya, who just shrugged. “But you already knew that…”

“Cap. Seriously, what is going on?” Wilson asked from where he sat next to Berkes, who held an ice pack to his slightly swollen forehead. 

“Oh. Well…” Shane tried to finish the sentence, but honestly, he wasn’t sure he knew what was going on either.

Ilya sighed and patted his shoulder, giving him a reassuring smile that in no way reassured him. “I heard about the plane and wanted to give you all hugs and kisses from the Raiders, so—” He looked around the room, his eyes landing on Taylor. “Who is next?”

Taylor audibly gulped, and Shane whacked Ilya’s arm. “Asshole.”

Someone across the room let out a small giggle, and Shane looked to see Jackie smiling at the two of them. “How long have you been together?” she asked softly.

Shane shrugged, glancing toward Ilya, who shrugged back. He wasn’t sure what counted as being together. Did she want to know how long they’d known they loved each other? Maybe an hour or two. Or maybe she wanted to know how long they had actually been in love with each other? Because that was much, much longer.

“Since our rookie season,” he decided, receiving another loud round of gasps and cursing. 

For a moment, Shane thought Ilya might correct him, but then Ilya broke into a wide smile and whispered, “Since the summer before."

Shane reached out and grabbed Ilya’s hand, squeezing it twice: once for luck and once just because he could.

Amid all the noise from his outraged teammates and the busy hospital, Hayden’s voice cut through as he burst out laughing.

Shane looked over at him in shock, as did the rest of the Metros, their shouting slowly dying off as they watched Hayden bend over from how hard he was laughing. Hayden tried to catch his breath, then looked up again, saw Shane and Ilya’s linked hands, and started again. Jackie patted his back supportively, shaking her head in amusement.

“Oh my God,” Hayden heaved.

“What the fuck are you laughing about, Pike?” Comeau hissed. “It’s not fucking funny.”

Hayden wiped away tears and tried to calm himself. “Dude. We almost died, and Shane is fucking kissing Ilya Rozanov.” He paused to giggle. “I mean, we were literally in a plane crash, and now—” he gestured toward Shane. “Cap’s dating Rozanov, like what the fuck.”

A couple of the Metros chuckled, and J.J.’s mouth twitched upwards.

“I thought you were dating Rose,” one of the rookies said tentatively.

Shane felt Ilya stiffen next to him, but he quickly shook his head. “No, we broke up because I’m gay.”

Comeau scoffed, and someone else let out a little, “No shit." Most of the team just kind of nodded like they couldn’t really believe what they were seeing, but at least they had some more of the pieces to put together. 

“You did not tell me you broke up,” Ilya muttered under his breath, and Shane glanced at him with what he hoped was an apologetic expression. Ilya’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Well,” J.J. said after a minute, sighing. He bent over to pick up the clipboard Shane had dropped and walked toward Shane until he was standing right in front of him. He glanced over at Ilya, squinting at him before slapping Shane on the shoulder. “I’m glad we’re not dead, Hollzy.”

Shane smiled at him. “Me too.”

J.J. looked between the two of them for a moment before shaking his head and blinking a few times. “Cool. Anyway, we still need to figure out when Laine was born,” he said, handing Shane the clipboard.

Shane laughed, took it from him, and wrote down the correct date he had gotten from Laine’s mother moments before Ilya walked in. Somehow the idiot hadn’t written it down on any of his medical info sheets, and no one had managed to catch the mistake.

“Is he okay?” Ilya asked, concerned.

“Oh yeah, he’ll be fine. A bag fell on his head, and he has a concussion. He can’t remember who the president is, but I’m not sure he ever knew,” Shane joked, and Ilya barked out a laugh. 

Shane handed the forms back to J.J., who carried them over to Coach Theriault, who had been shockingly silent since the kiss. Shane imagined they'd be having a long talk tomorrow about “professionalism” and “his commitment to the team,” but that was a problem for later. Fortunately, for now, Theriault seemed sufficiently distracted by hospital forms and his phone, which was ringing with another call from someone in the league. 

Across the lobby, the emergency room doors flew open and a couple of paramedics wheeled in a man who was groaning in pain. Next to the vending machines, a little girl started screaming because her Snickers bar had gotten stuck. Berkes’s phone rang, and he answered it, talking loudly to someone on the other end about how terrifying the plane was, and how he couldn’t believe he was alive, and how he was never ever going to cheat on her ever again. Jackie and Hayden were on a FaceTime call with their kids, and Hayden waved enthusiastically at the camera, promising amusement parks he would probably regret in a week. He briefly looked up and caught Shane’s gaze, giving him a little salute.

And suddenly, it didn’t matter as much that Shane Hollander had just kissed Ilya Rozanov in the middle of a hospital waiting room. The chatter started up again, a few people still shaking their heads in disbelief, but Shane and Ilya dating wasn’t even the most improbable thing that had happened that day. The odds of dying in a commercial plane crash were about 1 in 11 million. The odds of dying in quicksand were near zero. The odds of Shane being in love with Ilya? Well, Shane had basically been in love with him since he was 17. So on any given day of his 25 years of life, he had a 32% chance of being in love with Ilya Rozanov, which wasn’t really that low at all.

Shane leaned closer to Ilya and whispered in his ear. “Do you want to step outside for a minute?”

Ilya nodded and turned toward the exit, patting Marleau on the back. “Do not let the Metros kill you, Marly.”

Marleau scoffed. “Please. Like they even could if they tried.” He nodded at Shane. “Take care of him. Don’t let him smoke out there.”

Ilya let out a loud gasp, clutching at his chest. “Marly, I would never! Where would I even get the cigarettes?” He looked at Shane with large, innocent eyes. “Shane, do not listen to him. I do not even know how to smoke.”

Shane rolled his eyes and reached behind him, shoving a hand in Ilya’s back pants pocket. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tossed it to Marleau, who caught it. 

“If you wanted an excuse to touch my ass, Hollander, you could have just said,” Ilya muttered, but let Shane pull him outside with him.

As they exited, Shane felt like he was leaving a penalty box he hadn’t known he had been sitting in, finally allowed back onto the ice. The sun was slowly peeking over the horizon, casting a light golden glow across the street and gently warming him. Shane smiled at it, at the day he hadn’t known if he would get to see. He had always enjoyed sunrises. They meant something was beginning.

He turned back to Ilya and saw him frozen in the entrance, staring at him, his eyes wide.

“What?” Shane said, frowning and wiping at his mouth. “Is there something on my face?”

Ilya shook his head slowly, then gestured at Shane. “Your cheeks…”

Shane moved his hand over his cheeks, rubbing at them. “Did I get it?”

Ilya stepped closer to him until they were inches apart and lifted his hand to Shane’s face, running a thumb under his eye.

“Your freckles look good in the sun.”

Chapter End Notes

Referenced quote: "How can you not be romantic about baseball?" - Moneyball

Okay, listen, it's cheesy, but I also really didn't want to make the Metros like hellishly homophobic after all of that. So yeah.

Also I SWEAR TO GOD I AM NEVER CAVING AND WRITING ANOTHER SEQUEL AGAIN. I’m joking but I’m also serious
This really is the last chapter, though. This is it. You get no more!

I wish I could say I learned from my mistakes last time, but this one was also written late at night and without much editing. But that's only because I'm trying to stay true to the spirit of the first chapter by doing so. Really, it's an artistic choice to stay up this late to write, and I've always said this. But all this to say, this chapter could also be bad lol. I wouldn't know because I've only read it over once, maybe twice (I should fear posting more, but I just get so sick of looking at my computer screen that I just full send it)

Anyway, I hope you are all happy with this. Sorry for once again ruining your Saturday evenings/Sunday mornings, but I really don't think this chapter should make anyone cry. Although I've learned I'm actually pretty bad at gauging how angsty my stuff is. I think I just grew up reading like Harry Potter fics where literally everyone died all the time, so I am deeply unfazed by most of the angst in this fandom.

Also, I do know that this is really not how hospitals work. And that that's not how probability works...fight me

Thank you so, so much for reading the first chapter!
Thank you for giving me a couple of your minutes <3

"The only person I'd run through an airport for is you" - Fleabag