Chapter Text
Twenty five seconds on the clock.
That's all they made it to.
Ilya can't even remember who he was before that twenty five second mark hit.
A whole other person surely. Someone that could stand to be parted from Shane's side for a single moment. Someone that spent years turning over and analysing and suppressing his feelings. Feelings that Ilya hid and grew deep within his chest, like a pearl in an oyster
Twenty five seconds of the Boston vs Montreal game pass before Shane is off his feet, his body cutting through the crisp air. First shocked, then braced for impact.
Before the contact, Shane's eyes were on Ilya. The corner of his mouth turned up in amusement. His freckled cheeks flushed pink.
Shane didn’t see Cliff coming. Now Ilya has to watch in horror as his paramour's body slams chest first into the ice, head ricocheting against the surface as his momentum carries him further away from Ilya.
When Shane stops finally, his back rises with one heaving inhale, collapses with a rattling exhale, then falls into complete stillness.
Ilya stops moving the second he sees the impact sweep Shane away. the abrupt loss of eye contact feels like a winding punch to the stomach.
It’s the strangest moment. Sudden, absolute silence. It feels fundamentally wrong—like pushing on a pull door or gasping for air underwater. He's stricken into a stupor as the screams, the shouts and the skates against the ice fall silent in his ears. At first, the absence of noise makes his ears ring a deafening pitch. And, when the ringing fades, he's left with the overwhelming sensation of his own blood thumping rhythmically in his ears with a swooshing and throbbing sound.
Hayden is the first to move, his eyes falling on Marlow immediately. It’s what he’s trained to do. If your captain, your franchise player goes down, you throw fists first and ask questions later. Pike's gloves fly off his hands as he lunges forward to clutch at Marlow’s jersey. He drags him down to the ground with a brutal tug, and Cliff doesn't fight back.
The few Boston fans that travelled for the away match jeer and cheer on Cliff. Montreal fans stomp their feet as they encourage Pike in his show of defence.
It’s a short lived fight. A Referee pulls Hayden off of Cliff’s back and drags him away as a number of the benched Voyagers pool onto the ice, their eyes on the Bears, ready to start a full brawl. They don't. The Bears are too busy watching Shane's limp body.
Like sheep, the ref herds them away from the motionless form. They tap their sticks on the ice, encouraging Shane to get up as they skate themselves back and out of the way. Not Ilya, though. He stays in place.
The medics pass Ilya in a blur.
For the first few seconds, he tells himself it’s nothing. That it's just another hard hit. Just another moment where the crowd holds its breath, and then cheers when the player gets back up. Hollander always gets back up. He’s built for this. He’s sure as hell survived worse than this.
Before anyone says it, though, Ilya knows something is very wrong.
After the first couple of seconds with no movement from Shane, Ilya's body fills with a deathly sense of dread. A dread he hasn't felt in a very long time. Not since he was twelve years old, looking into the unmoving eyes of his mother, while calling out “Мама… Ты спишь? Мама… Пожалуйста, проснись." Mama… Are you sleeping? Mama … Please wake up.
Just like his mother in the bathroom of his old Moscow home all those years ago, Shane does not move.
The Metro’s medical team jumps into action. Three of them pushed a stretcher along the ice over to Shane’s body. Next to him, they kneel and focus.
He watches as they flip Shane onto his back and press two fingers against his neck.
Ilya is frozen in silence—his face pale as though his body had been drained of blood—his feet locked in place, unable to move closer yet unable to move away.
A whistle, shrill and endless, screams from behind him. It brings a swift end to the hooting and hollering of the crowd. His fellow players drift towards each other in silence. Helpless, like they’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to do with themselves.
Rozanov inches himself closer to Hollander. He needs to be closer. An official steps into his path, gripping firm hold on his arm restricting him from moving on. Ilya distantly registers that the man is speaking to him, but he cant make out the words meaning. He blinks away, shrugging off the linesman's grip and pushes closer, stopping just six strides away from the love of his life.
Hollander’s helmet is off. His eyes are closed.
Ilya drops his gloves to the ice, his stick already abandoned somewhere behind him. Then unclips his helmet, pushing it back carelessly off from his head. He doesn't want a visor between his eyes and Shane’s face.
His heart pounds so hard it drowns out the crowd.
No. No. His bottom lip juts out, his chin wobbling with emotion.
“Shane,” he says, just a whisper. An instinct. The name slips out the way it always does when it’s just the two of them. When no one is supposed to hear.
The Linesman is back, his grip tighter now on Ilya’s arm. “I’ve told you already! You need to move back, Rozanov! Now!”
Behind him, he registers the echo of his teammate's voice calling to him, “Cap! Over here!”.
Ilya ignores them, but he doesn’t pull away from the ref. Not yet. He doesn't have the capacity to yet.
For a moment, he watches the medics work. A medic has two fingers pressed back to his throat, staring at their watch with a tense grimace. The medic’s eyes snap up to meet the others with sharp concern, shaking their head. The third medic cuts open Shane’s jersey and the straps of his gear.
Fuck.
Fuck.
They begin CPR. Elbows locked, pushing down on Shane's chest in steady compressions. Another medic secures a mask over Shane’s face, careful fingers curling under his jaw, while the third medic bolts off the ice with the order to find a defibrillator.
There's a faint voice somewhere behind him. Ilya doesn't recognise it. It must be a Voyager. A whisper in sharp disbelief to the next man, "Is... Is Hollander fucking dead?"
That’s when Ilya’s world crumbles.
His vision tunnels, and for a moment all he can hear is his own panting—harsh and uneven in his ears. His mind is impossibly loud and impossibly silent at the same time. All moisture in his mouth evaporates. He can barely swallow. A tightness sticks in his throat.
He’s dead. Shane is dead. The heart that Ilya felt race under his lips when he pressed his face against Shane's chest just hours ago. The pulse he felt under his fingertips as he held Shane's wrists, now gone. The thump he felt against his nose as he sniffed against Hollander's neck, ceased. The powerful impact of Marlow's body and subsequent landing stopped his heart.
The man who he's loved for so long - a love that he denied existed. He never even told Shane. Not in a language that Shane would understand. He never allowed himself the liberty of baring his soul.
The gravity and weight of the pure desire, hopes and affection that he has for Shane is paralysing. It is the kind of love that keeps him up at night, that makes his bones ache in anticipation, that gives him goosebumps thinking of the possibilities of a life they could have.
If Shane really is dead—then what will Ilya do? How can he go on living without him? Where will he put this love without someone to receive it—without Shane to receive it.
Ilya is powerless, but he can't help himself. Like a man being puppeted by an outside force, his body surges forward, shoving past the official.
“No,” Ilya says. Louder now. “No! Fuck, Hollander! No!”
Someone grabs him from behind, a set of hands on his shoulders, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t stop staring at Shane’s body, at the unnatural stillness of his face as they pump his chest.
“Shane! please,” Ilya shouts, his voice cracking. “Come on. This is not funny.”
His vision blurs as tears spill over. He doesn’t care who hears him. He doesn’t care about the cameras, the crowd, the league, the rules they spent years obeying. His knees feel weak.
“Please!”
Like one of those tiny wooden toys whose string-legged body collapses when you press against the mainsprings, his legs slacken at the sight of Shane's freckled cheeks. He collapses onto his knees, his hands pulling at his own hair. Tears streak down his face.
“Fucking wake up! Shanya. Моя любовь” My love.
The medic pressing a breathing mask against Shane’s mouth pumps air into his lungs in a steady, cyclic rhythm. Breath. Breath. Pause. Ilya tries to breathe in time, as though his own breath is pushing into Shane's lungs.
The arena is suspended in an alien-like silence, listening to the Russian who's in turn listening to the medics. He takes in the counts of the medics pushing against Hollander’s chest. He can't help the wails that escape him. The only two sounds echoing around the expanse of the ice.
“Please! God! No! Ты, чёртов ублюдок. Очнись.” You fucking bastard. Wake up.
The crowd is shell-shocked, not knowing quite what they're a part of. No one knows how to react to Shane's heart stopping or the pure devastation from the Boston captain.
The officials are wise enough not to go near him. His face is red and a vein is throbbing from his wet sobs. He looks almost rabid.
“I need you,” he says, choking on the words. “You can’t leave me. Please, Shane!”
Teammates behind him start murmuring his name, telling him to breathe. Someone says, “Rozanov,” softly, like he’s a frightened animal. They stand back like they dare not come closer. Their words fall on deaf ears.
“Talk, Hollander, please! Скажите, разве мы не потратили все эти годы впустую?” Tell me we haven't wasted all these years. The words bellow, his throat raw as he shouts. Saliva sprays as he spits his words—tears dripping from his chin. “Hollander, wake up!”
Players on both teams meet each other's questioning stares.
Eyes asking… Did you know?
Eyes telling… No, we had no idea.
Ilya’s reaction is almost too painful to witness. They want to look away, but their confusion, curiosity and care for the two men makes it impossible to tear their eyes away.
The distance between Ilya and Shane becomes too much for him to bear. He needs to touch him. He needs to kiss him while there’s still warmth left in him.
He pushes his way close enough for his head to hover above Shane’s.
"You can't leave me now. I don't know how to live without you anymore." He hiccups like a child as he cries. "I didn't get to love you enough."
He laces his fingers through Shane's thick, black hair. It's physically painful. The contact feels like fire on his palms—like someone stuck their hand into his chest and ripped his heart out.
He'd do it himself. He'd rip his own heart out to save Shane.
Tears stream down his face. He wipes the snot running from his nose on the arm of his jersey. “Моя любовь, I give you my heart.”
“Mr. Rozanov, is there something I can do? Do you need medical intervention right now?” the Montreal medic pumping air into Shane's mouth speaks to him. Ilya's bloodshot eyes meet his concerned gaze, and he shakes his head before looking back at his so-called rival's face. That beautiful face. His face crumples as another sob fall from his lips.
Yuna and David Hollander were stuck in the crowd at first, too stunned to move. The shock of Ilya's declarations power them forward. Yuna grabs David's hand, pulling him down to the gate, and as the staff pulls them through, they finally make their way onto the ice. They too fall to their knees just where Ilya had been and cry for their son. David’s hands clasp in prayer to a God he's never believed in before, while Yuna’s tears fall to the ice as she watches her boy—the man that she has dedicated her life to—lie still on the ground.
Three minutes have passed since they started CPR, Ilya hears a medic say to the other.
For three minutes, the others on the ice and in the stands have stood and watched in horror as an untouchable man and two devastated parents fall apart at the seams, as their life falls apart. Twenty thousand people and hundreds of staff are frozen by the most devastating sight they'd ever seen.
Hayden stands limply, arms by his side, his eyes locked onto the face of his Captain and closest companion in the world. Shane has obviously been keeping a few things under lock and key. He wants him back— the uncle of his children, his most trusted confidant. He glances again to Ilya and watches him in his anguish. How did this even happen? How hasn't he noticed?
Ilya's face turns to the heavens, eyes closed as he presses his hands against each side of Shane's face.
“Мама, Боже, пожалуйста, кто-нибудь, помогите мне. Не дайте ему умереть. Заберите меня. Не забирайте мою любовь. Пожалуйста. Пожалуйста. Мы были так близки. Мама, пожалуйста, разбудите его.” Rozanov's voice cracks repeatedly as he calls out in a desperate rage. His chest heaves, desperate for air. Mama, God please somebody help me. Don't let him die. Take me. Don't take my love away. Please. Please. We were so close. Mama, please wake him up.
No one understands the words, but they understand the guttural heartbreak as he sobs.
His voice gives out completely.
He drops his head down, and just for a second, presses his lips to Shane's forehead.
“Please,” he speaks, his voice hoarse. “Please come back to me, I love you, Hollander. I love you. Я люблю тебя всем сердцем. Я люблю тебя всей душой. Я не могу жить без тебя. I love you. I love you. I love you.” I love you with all my heart. I love you with all my soul. I can't live without you.
Six minutes since CPR started. That's how long it takes for the medic to return with the defibrillator.
Six minutes feels like a lifetime.
“About fucking time, Jamie," The lead medic calls.
The returning medic is panting. “They fucking moved the machine. This is from the guest services offices.”
“It’ll do. Everyone, hands off now!”
The compressions stop, and the face mask is removed.
They look to Ilya. “You too, Rozanov! Hands off, now!”
He lets go and pushes himself back using the little remaining strength he has.
They place two large, sticky pads on Shane’s chest. It seems like the medics wait forever, hands no longer making Shane’s heart beat or his lungs breathe.
A medic calls, “Delivering shock. Clear!”
The high-pitched whine of the machine charging. The click of a button. Shane’s body jolts violently. And then.
Hollander gasps cold air into his lungs.
His eyes fly open.
“-lya,” He breathes out.