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He gets a few blows in and busts open Marlow’s lip before the refs separate them. The crack of cartilage and bone beneath his hand does nothing to settle the growing pit in his stomach. Hayden isn’t eighteen and stupid anymore; he can name the exact heart-stopping feeling that surged in his throat when Shane went down and stayed down - terror.
Shane is Shane, he’s his best friend, and right now he’s crumpled on the ice, not moving, not even a twitch. Fuck.
He skates over, hovering a few feet back as the medics begin the process of putting him on a spinal board. Shane’s eyes are closed, not even the whites visible, bruising already growing in the form of red, pooling blood beneath his eyes and around his nose. It’s not good, none of this is good, but he’s breathing, his eyes are fluttering slightly. It’s not good, but it’s something. Hayden can work with that.
He keeps hovering, a ref shouting somewhere on the ice as his knuckles burn and the medics pull out a neck brace. His heart drops even further, most times players can at least skate off the ice, clinging to their teammates if they need to. A neck brace is the definition of an oh shit moment. It’s a precaution, sure, but it means the injury could be severe, could be career-ending levels of severe.
If he could never play hockey again for whatever reason, Hayden would survive. It would sting, it would crack something open in him that would never fully heal, but he’d survive. He would have his wife and his kids and another on the way; Hayden would survive.
Shane is not Hayden. Shane is the best player of his time, better than even Rozanov for all the shit he likes to talk. Shane loves hockey like it’s the reason the world turns, and he plays like it’s as easy as breathing. It’s not. His entire life revolves around hockey and the routines that keep him playing and sane at the same time.
Losing hockey, especially like this, would break him. It may scar Hayden, but it would be a lethal blow to Shane. It would upend his world, it would send him spiraling into a constant loop of myfaultmyfaultmyfault so deep that Hayden wouldn’t be able to pull him out. It might actually kill him.
So this can’t be a career-ending injury, and the neck brace is just a precaution because Hayden is not losing his best friend, not like this.
The medics lift Shane up, and Hayden looks around the rink. The team is hovering, glares being thrown at Marlow, who is surrounded by his teammates, a hand pressed to his cheek. Good. He should have done worse, shouldn’t have stopped until the ice was red. He scans the rest of the team, searching for a familiar asshole and -
The medics are lifting Shane up and Rozanov is not with his team. He’s hovering on the other side of them, across from Hayden, staring at the spinal board like it’s holding his heart. His face is, there is no smirk, no telltale grin, or even a blankness that should be there because Rozanov wasn’t horrible enough to take pleasure in Shane’s misery. There’s just raw worry.
Something twists uncomfortably in his stomach, pieces of information distantly shifting and Hayden has a feeling he’s missing something -
There’s something inevitable, important just out of reach and he should grasp it, except Shane groans. Shane finally twitches a little as the medics carry him off the rink and he knows that Yuna and David are in California, meeting with old friends for the first time in years. Shane has no one; he’ll wake up alone because it’ll take at least half a day for his parents to get there.
There’s Lily, Shane’s Boston girl, but Hayden has no idea her number, where she lives, or what she looks like. She’ll have no way of finding Shane, of being there when he wakes up high and afraid, because he never did well with being out of control. Lily won’t be there. His parents won’t be there.
It’s the easiest decision he’s ever made.
Hayden skates off the rink, barely pausing as he starts stripping off his gear. Coach surges forward, lips curled up with some order to get back out there, no doubt. He doesn’t give him the chance, “I’m not leaving him. I go where he goes.”
And that’s that.
The hospital is just as unwelcoming as it was every other time he's been here. The lights are too bright; the doctors can't tell him anything - not that he isn't one of Shane's emergency contacts and has access to his records, because of course Shane thought of that - but because they don't know anything. Shane is still in surgery because his collarbone is severely fucked up, and there won't be any updates for at least an hour.
All he can do is sit in the shitty plastic waiting room seats and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait.
Yuna and David are still eight hours away because this was the one game they chose to miss for a meeting with old friends. They’ll be here by next morning if they can catch a flight, and until then - Until they get here it’s up to Hayden to stand guard, to sit in the shitty plastic hospital seats, waiting to see if he’s going to have to tell them their son has brain damage or paralysis or any number of the life changing injuries you can get from playing Hockey.
It takes about thirty minutes for him to start spiraling, fingers digging into the meat of his thighs because with every tick of the surprisingly loud clock, he hears the crack of Shane's helmet hitting the ice. Tick-crack, tick-crack, tick-crack, tick-
"Hayden!" His head snaps towards the doors, Jackie, clad in one of his jerseys with a matching look of fear on her face. Thank God. He's not sure when he moves, only that he's sitting down one second and holding his wife in the next. Hayden buries his face in her hair, breathing in the smell of the same shampoo she's used since they were eighteen in a crappy club with Shane hiding in a corner nearby. God, he loves her, he'll love her until the world ends.
She pulls back first, hands framing his face as she scans his eyes. She doesn't like whatever she finds because her face falls, "No news?"
He shakes his head, "His collarbone is in pieces, he's in surgery to get it fixed, but - No news."
Jackie's shaking a little in his arms, or maybe he's shaking, maybe they're both just trembling in the face of their worst nightmare - sitting in the goddamn waiting room with no news. He leads her back to the chairs, cushioning it with his jacket because she's five months pregnant and Shane is going to be Four’s godfather, he will be. "Yuna and David are with old friends, right? Somewhere down by the coast?"
"California, it's David's college friends, Sanders maybe? I don't know. Yuna's already called me twice; they're trying to find a flight but she's not sure they'll manage one tonight." Jackie's lips are pursed, fingers tracing their way from his pulse to his black wedding band, up and down, up and down.
He loves her for that, he loves her for everything, he loves her because she's here and Shane might be broken so he has to focus on something else. "She'll be a mess by the time she gets here. She never likes not being there when Shane's hurt, especially not when it's this bad. If we don't have an update for her, she'll lose her mind."
"If we have an update! The doctors won't give me anything and I have no goddamn idea how long collarbone fixing surgery takes!" Hayden should know. He should know everything down to the details of what it takes to set someone's collarbone back into place, because Shane is hurting, and he's supposed to be the one who has it together. Hayden is supposed to be the one who isn't afraid, isn't nervous, isn't falling to pieces. But right now, he's just useless, utterly useless.
"Hayd - this isn't on you." Jackie tilts his head towards her, "It was a clean hit, just a shitty, painful one. Shane got hurt, but he'll be okay, he will be." There's a similar desperation in her voice, like she could make it true just by saying it. Her stubbornness has always been one of the reasons he loves her, and right now he clings to it because if anyone could make something true just by willing it, it would be his wife.
“We don’t know that, we don’t know anything.” Shane had been utterly limp on the ice, like one of Ruby’s dolls discarded on the floor because Jade’s was somehow better. “Jackie,” his voice breaks, and Hayden doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.
She does though, because her face scrunches up with love-fear-worry. Jackie wraps her arms around him, pressing his face into her shoulder. She strokes his hair, a soothing back and forth motion that’s enough to break him. Shane is in surgery, Shane is gone, and Hayden can’t do anything but wait.
He’s not sure when the tears come, only that they do, only that he’s ruining Jackie’s favorite jersey with his snot and tears. Half his teammates would call him a pussy, and Hayden would break their noses because Shane is worth his tears, Shane is worth so much more. “Jackie, Jackie, Jackie,” He’s mumbling her name like a desperate, last resort Hail Mary, and she’s just holding him together.
Shane is their family, Shane is theirs, and they’ll wait until they know he’s okay.
“Hayden, I don’t need another pack of trail mix. I’m eating for two, not twenty.” He stares down at his feet and not the four trail mix packs in Jackie’s purse. He couldn’t fix Shane, but he could get his pregnant wife food; it’s all he could do.
Jackie sighs, tangling their hands together for the thousandth time, “Hey, I get it. It’s been an hour, an hour and a half since he’s been in surgery. They’ll be out soon enough, and Shane will be higher than a fucking kite. Breathe.”
“I hate you.”
She doesn’t even bother to look over at him, too busy reading another article about broken collar bones, or maybe this one is about spinal breaks. “No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” He stopped crying about forty-five minutes ago, but Hayden can feel the ache in his throat. It’s barely even fear anymore, almost something like grief, except that’s not right - Shane isn’t dead, Shane isn’t close to dead. He’s just hurt, and Hayden needs to get his shit together. “They should have news, right? I mean, there’s already at least fifteen articles about his injuries, including details, so really, the doctors should have fucking something.”
“Breathe,” Jackie finally pockets her phone, her fingers twitching a little as she tosses it into her purse. A visible sign of how close she is to losing. “The doctors will come out once they’re done and not a moment before.”
“You’re right,” Jackie usually is. Shane thinks he’s steady, that he’s got his life together and he’s certain of the path before him - but he has nothing on Jackie. Jackie, who had her life planned out by eighteen. Jackie, who took every change with only a slight breath of hesitation before running with it. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. His lovely wife.
Hayden looks over to tell her that he loves her, that he would have been an utter mess without her, that he would be so unsure without her, when his eyes find another tense, shaking figure. For a moment, the world stutters, it freezes and buffers like a scratched record, because he knows the person standing by the waiting room door. He knows the set of blonde curls, and the stormy blue eyes, even the purse of his lips.
Ilya fucking Rozanov.
Hayden can’t breathe, can’t even think, because there is no world where he witnesses Rozanov storm a hospital looking like a mess. It doesn’t make sense, but then that stops mattering because it was Rozanov’s teammate who put Shane in the surgical room, because it was someone who wore his colors that could have killed his best friend.
Fucking Rozanov. How dare he?! What goddamn right did he have to show up, to brag, to gloat, to spit in the face of his rival? Fuck Rozanov and fuck the raiders and fuck this hospital. Fuck everything. Fuck this. “Goddamn Russian.”
Jackie’s head shoots up at his near growl, “Hayden?” Her eyes follow his gaze to the door - to Rozanov who is - is - is currently arguing with the receptionist, whose shoulders are hunched, whose hair is the same tangled mess as his, like he came straight from the ice.
Something’s not right about that, about any of this, but Shane is his best friend and right now he’s vulnerable - that’s reason enough to throw a punch without a second thought.
Hayden shoots up from his seat, hands curling into fists as Rozanov’s head snaps to the sound and he freezes. He almost seems lost, like he’s somehow both drifting in an ocean of fear and rooted to the spot at the look on Hayden’s face.
This isn’t right, whispers a voice in his head that sounds surprisingly like Shane’s.
Hayden ignores it.
He takes a half-step forward - to punch Rozanov, to shove him against the wall and ask what the fuck Marlow was thinking, to hit him over and over again until even his anger rang hollow because his best friend is in a hospital bed and the world is wrong. Hayden has barely made it another step before Jackie grabs his wrist. It’s enough to make him freeze in place.
He could break her grip with ease, it’s nothing really, little compared to shoving off an enforcer on sheets of ice. Her grip isn’t even tight, just there, Hayden could pull away and be on Rozanov in seconds. But it’s Jackie, it’s his wife, it’s the air in his lungs and the beating of his heart, the day he isn’t gentle with her is the day he swallows a bullet.
“Jackie?”
She’s staring at Rozanov too, eyes sharp and questioning, “Just wait. I think - wait. Sit down and wait.” Then she’s using her grip on his wrist to pull herself up. Before he can even really process her words, she’s already walking towards Rozanov, and - Hayden sits down and waits.
His mind is going a mile a minute, Ilya Rozanov is a fucking mess in the waiting room, and Shane is still in surgery; if his wife tells him to sit and wait, that’s what he’s going to do. He grips the armrests, the plastic creaking just a little bit beneath his hands, and watches as his wife collects Rozanov - because that’s exactly what she’s doing. Jackie barely pauses in front of Rozanov before she places a hand on his arm and gently pulls him towards Hayden’s seat.
Rozanov, despite being able to throw Marlow across the ice during any scrimmage of the week, goes easily. Good, because if he had to fight Rozanov for Shane and Jackie’s sake, he’d end up in a hospital bed. They both would.
He follows Jackie like a lost puppy, and he looks like one as he hovers a foot behind her when they end up at the seats. The urge to punch him goes out an instant once he sees his face up close.
He’s not mocking, or smirking, he looks fucking devastated. Maybe if they were eighteen or twenty again, Hayden would think he was bored, would say that his perfectly blank face is a sign of disinterest, but now, after nearly a decade of playing against him, he can read the panic on his face.
Because it is panic, pure, unadulterated, fucking panic. Hayden has no idea what’s happening. He’s not sure he wants to, even though there’s the beginning of an idea forming, and its implications are terrifying. Instead, he manages to spit out, “Rozanov.”
He doesn’t even dignify that with a response, instead focusing his terrified, wide eyes at Jackie, “Is there any news? The websites are saying he’s - it’s bad, is it?”
Jesus, his accent is nearly drenching his words, his voice is actually trembling. What the fuck Shane? What the fuck Shane! What the fuck Shane?!
Jackie must hear it too because she winces, leaning just a little bit on Rozanov as she places a hand on her stomach. Stress and pregnancy are a bad mix on Jackie, which would be worse if it didn’t take a tragedy or a crime to unsettle her. He shoots up from his seat to steady her, except it’s not needed because Rozanov takes some of her weight without a second thought, holding her upright with the same look of panic on his face.
What the fuck is happening?
Out of the three of them, Jackie is the only one who isn’t unhinged or unsettled because she just waves them both off. “People are staring.” There are a few other family members in the waiting room, a limited number because this is a more private room for surgical procedures, but still, Hayden can already see one phone casually pointed at them.
People don’t really care about him unless they’re Voyager fans, but, just like Shane, Ilya Rozanov is in his own league.
Hayden still doesn’t know what’s happening, but he’s not that much of an idiot to not grasp the severity of the situation. This, the panic on Rozanov's face as he waits for an update on Hollander, his rival, him, is not for the public. It feels - it feels almost like a violation.
He doesn’t want to punch Rozanov anymore, but the urge to punch something is still there because if Hayden is right - fucking Lily, Shane’s Boston girl, fucking Lily.
“Okay, here’s what we're going to do. Rozanov and I are going to get water in the nice, private water fountain area that no one ever goes to. I’m pregnant, he’s an asshole on the ice, but no one just lets the pregnant lady struggle. It’s not important enough for anyone to care, let alone look.” Jackie has played the pregnant lady card more times than he can count. It’s hilarious every time, but right now, he almost wants to fall to his knees and kiss the ground at her feet. He’s still struggling to think, and she’s taking charge, protecting Shane and Ilya Rozanov in the same breath.
God, he loves her, he loves her with everything he has.
“Hayd, Hayden, you’re going to stay here and wait for an update. The nurse I talked to the last time you went to get more trail mix said the surgery should only take around an hour or so. Which means there’s been enough time for him to be prepped, the surgery to be done, and for him to be released to a room. Wait and find out what room, and if we can see him. Okay?” Hayden is going to marry Jackie again.
He nods, “Okay. I’ll text you if I hear anything.”
Jackie smiles at him, although her face is still drenched with worry, so it’s mostly a grimace. “Good. Come on, Rozanov.” And -
Ilya Rozanov follows his wife to the water fountains, a hand instinctively hovering over her back like she’ll stumble again. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.
Jackie has known Shane for the better part of a decade.
He was at their wedding, Hayden’s best man, because it only took a year and half for those two to be bonded for life. He was there when she gave birth to the twins and nearly died in the process. He was the third person to ever hold Jade, the fourth to hold Ruby. He was her first call when she was overwhelmed out of her mind, and she needed to speak to another person who wasn’t an infant or her husband.
He was the closest thing she had to a brother. He was - he was Shane Hollander, another member of their tiny and increasingly growing family. Right now, he’s probably just out of surgery, condition unknown, alive but maybe broken. Right now, Ilya Rozanov, who maybe, just maybe is Shane’s Lily, is hovering at her back and on the brink of a panic attack.
She has no idea how this became her life, but Jackie is nothing if not good at adapting and moving forward. “Can you get me a cup of water?”
He nods, his movements stiff and almost robotic as he begins to fill a tiny paper cup with water. The area, filled with a few water fountains, cups, cushioned chairs and softer lighting, probably has some proper name like the Refresher Room. Jackie doesn’t really give a shit about the name, she does care that it has a door she can shut and is completely vacant. She’ll need privacy to deal with - with whatever this is.
“Here.” Ilya hands her the cup, and Jackie smiles at him before handing it right back. He blinks, staring down at the water like he’s never seen it before. His hands are trembling, his entire body is trembling, a fine shake that makes him look like an injured, feral stray. She wonders if he’s even aware of where he currently is.
Okay, scratch that, she’s alone with Ilya Rozanov, who is in the middle of a silent panic attack.
“Ilya, you’re barely breathing, drink the water and I’ll tell you everything I know.” He keeps staring and staring and - then the words hit him, information about Shane.
Ilya practically throws back the water, and by the time the paper cup is crumpled in his grasp, his hands are no longer shaking. Boom, she’s getting good at this after all her practice with Shane’s anxiety attacks.
“What do you know?” His voice is rough, Russian clinging to each syllable as he stares at her like she’s holding his heart in his hands, like she could break him in an instant.
Fuck. Jackie is actually not prepared for this; she has no idea what to do next.
Ilya Rozanov, Shane’s rival of a decade, an unfeeling asshole according to her husband, looks incredibly small in a way that makes her heart ache. His shoulders are hunched over, a hand fidgeting with the cross around his neck while the other clenches and unclenches, crushing the already ruined paper cup. His knuckles are bloody.
Despite the impossibility of it, Jackie recognizes the look in his eyes. It matches hers from the time Connell sent Hayden flying, and he went limp on the ice. It had only taken about fifteen seconds for her husband to move again. He had eventually made it off the ice with Shane’s arm wrapped around him, but it was the longest fifteen seconds of her life.
Ilya Rozanov looks like a wounded wife.
Some small part of her wants to laugh at the oddness of, well, everything. Mostly, she just wants to hug him because it’s incredibly clear now that he loves Shane. He loves Shane, her Shane, their Shane. He loves Shane and Shane has been seeing Lily for years, Shane hasn’t been himself unless he’s had Lily on the other end of the phone. Shane loves him back, and right now they’re both hurting.
Jackie can’t fix Shane, can’t do anything but wait to see if a broken collarbone is the worst of his injuries. She can’t fix Shane, but she can help Ilya, somehow, so that’s what she’ll do. It’s not even a choice, really. She’ll help Ilya, she’ll hold him together until they find out Shane’s alright - because he will be alright - and then they can hold each other together in the privacy of a hospital room.
Shane’s her family, and Ilya is his. It’s simple.
Well, she always did want a big family.
“He fractured his collarbone, that’s why he’s in surgery. They rushed him in, but Hayden managed to get that out of them. Shane did something, years ago, probably, and he’s now his medical proxy until Yuna and David get here. They’re hours out, they happened to be down in the states during this game, they’ll be here by tomorrow morning at the latest.” Jackie is the calmest she’s been since she made it to the hospital and was met with Hayden’s tears. It’s a fair trade, a common one in their family. She held Hayden while he fell apart; he held her, and now it’s her turn again to be the calm one to Ilya’s fear.
“Surgery? Is - Will he be okay?” His hands have started trembling again, and once again, it’s easy, what she does next. Jackie reaches out and takes the hand that’s tearing the paper cup to shreds, tossing away the paper and simply holding it within her own.
Hayden liked pressure; when he had panic attacks for weeks after Amber the quickest way to calm him down was to bodily throw herself at him. He always caught her, only relaxing when she was stretched out over him, arm to arm, leg to leg, fully holding him down. They fell asleep like that most nights, clinging to each other's warmth.
Shane wasn’t like that. He was like a stray cat, wary and quick to startle. Jackie had to be gentle and cautious and exact with her touch. A hand against his arm, her head against his shoulder, her feet braced in his lap. It was the simplest touches that could ground him, remind him that he wasn’t alone, that he never would be, that she was rooting for him too.
She doesn’t know Ilya Rozanov much, nothing beyond Hayden’s rants and the surprising lack of them from Shane, but she imagines he’s a lot like him in that aspect. Quick to startle, unsure, his arrogance and cockiness only true when it comes to the ice - but off of it, he’s shakeable, uncertain, and so very afraid. So, Jackie will be gentle and cautious and aware of the flicker of emotions on his face, but she will not let him drift in a void of fear and panic that Shane so easily falls into.
That’s not happening. She won’t let that happen. Fuck the world, Jackie will fix this and they’ll all be happy and safe and okay in the aftermath. She’ll make sure of that, let them, she doesn’t even know who, let anyone try to stop her. This is a fight she’ll win.
“They checked him for brain damage, or bleeding. If that was an option, they would have focused on that before fixing his collarbone. He was talking in the ambulance, mumbling and slurring his words but he wasn’t completely out of it. The doctors haven’t sought Hayden out in the hour and a half Shane was in surgery,” His face flashes with panic, hand tightening around her own, but Jackie is quick to cut off the fear in his eyes, “Which is a good thing. It means nothing went wrong in the surgery; it means they don’t need us to make any life-or-death decisions. It’s a good thing.”
Her own panic threatens to creep in, but Jackie just swallows it down. She places her free hand on her stomach, holding Ilya with the other, grounding the both of them. Jackie breathes, in and out, in and out, “It’s bad - he’s hurt, but it’s not as bad as it could have been. Right now, all we can do is wait. Me and you are going to do that here until Hayden texts me because there are too many people and cameras out there, okay?”
Ilya’s face shudders with emotions, fear, panic, apprehension, and a sort of devastated love. He pulls his hand back, and Jackie almost chases after it if it weren’t for the way he grasps at his cross. It’s nothing but desperation, his knuckles almost white from how hard he’s gripping it.
It’s okay, she thinks, I don’t care that you love him, I don’t care that he loves you. He’s family, she thinks, you are too, so breathe and know you’ll never be hurt here.
She thinks and doesn’t say any of that because Jackie is not stupid. She knows the Hockey world and what it’s like; she’s had a foot in the door for a decade, even before she met Hayden in a shitty bar. She knows exactly what they think of gay people, heard the vile things thrown about as insults and vitriol disguised as chirps.
Cocksucker, queer, fairy, fa-
Jackie wants to kill someone. Jackie wants to remake the world for the people she holds dear. Jackie wants to hug Shane and then beg for his forgiveness for being the sort of person he couldn’t tell about this. Jackie wants to hug Ilya and thank him for loving Shane, for knowing him in ways that Jackie had failed to even consider.
Jackie breathes in and out, and casually slides a chair so it’s half in front of the door. There’s nothing odd about that, just pregnancy brain making her forget not place furniture in front of doors because it’ll block them and make an awful screeching noise if someone were to try to get through it.
Ilya still isn’t looking at her, he’s pacing, eyes darting across the lines of the tile on the floor. In fact, he’s looking at anywhere that isn’t her. Shit. She has to fix this, has to calm him down, has to bring him back to the ground because Shane, high and hurting, is already going to freak out - she can’t deal with two of them.
So, Jackie opens her mouth and tells him without telling him that she knows and it’s okay, “You know Shane’s had this girl - Lily - who he’s been seeing for years. Hayden’s whined to me about how Shane never goes out after a game whenever they play against Boston, but it’s bullshit, really. He’s happy for Shane, we both are.”
Ilya stops in place, his back to her, his shoulders hiked up so high they hit his ears. Something cracks just a little inside of her at the sight, at his shame. Jackie knows then and there that her girls will grow up knowing that there could never be anything wrong with something as pure as love. Ruby, Jade, Amber and Four will never even think they could be wrong in any sense for loving someone like them. Never.
“Shane, he’s - he has more anxiety and nerves than any other person I know. He clings to structure and routine because it keeps him sane, he freaks out over any deviation or if something goes even the slightest bit wrong. But with Lily, it’s like he comes undone, like he finally lets out a breath he’s been holding since the last time they met. Ilya,” At the sound of his name, he finally turns and - Jackie’s never quite seen heartbreak like that before.
Fighting the urge to lunge at him and hug him until the world is right again is the hardest thing she’s ever done. Instead, she pours her love and acceptance and it’ll be okay, we’ll be okay, into her words. She needs Ilya to understand, “He’s always so much - lighter after he meets Lily. It’s like he’s eighteen again, like the world isn’t on his shoulders because he’s always carrying it, even when he doesn’t have to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him at peace until he met Lily.”
Ilya stumbles back just a little bit, barely an inch or two, but from his expression, you would have thought she sucker punched him. Maybe she did, maybe this is the first time another person has ever talked about them, maybe she’s the first person to look at Shane and Ilya and say this is okay - No, this is good.
Jackie braces her hand on the swell of her stomach, the weight of Four against her spine somehow reassuring in this moment. “I’ve known him since he was that young,” Then, very carefully, “So have you, since you were rookies, since the beginning?”
Ilya nods, a sharp thing, “Yes. He was - Yes.”
There’s a surprising amount of weight in a single word, and Jackie wonders if Ilya was going to say He was everything then and now, or maybe she’s just projecting because it’s like that with Hayden. He was everything from the day they met, and he will be everything to her until the day she dies. Loving him like that, with all that she is, is terrifying, and it’s the easiest thing in the world.
She wonders if it’s like that for them, for Ilya and Shane. Then, she takes another look at his eyes and the heartbreak that is practically engraved into every inch of his body, and she knows that it is.
Jackie swallows down another wave of guilt, of fear. She’ll see this through, for Shane’s sake if nothing else, “I know what Shane looks like when he’s happy, when he’s frustrated, and when he’s on the brink of an anxiety attack and I have to talk him off the ledge in my mother-in-law's bathroom. But I’ve never seen him in love, not until he started seeing Lily. Not with Rose, or any other girl he’s been around for longer than a day.”
This time, Ilya makes a sound that’s almost like keening. A wounded, strangled noise that rises from deep in his throat before he chokes on it. Because even now he’s trying to hide his fear, his love. Because even after Jackie made it abundantly clear that she knows, he’s still so fucking afraid.
Yeah, she’s going to have to fight the world for Ilya Rozanov too. But first, first he needs to understand, to really understand that he’s everything to Shane too - that this aching love goes both ways. “Shane - He’s my brother, has been for years. He’s family, and I want the world for him. I want him happy and at peace and safe. I want it all, I can’t help it, I don’t want to change that. Shane deserves good things, and Lily is one of them. Do you understand that Ilya?”
I know and I love Shane. I know and by extension I love you. Trust me, please, trust me, trust me, trust me. Let me help you bear this even if the world would turn away from you and your love. Let me help.
Ilya - Ilya looks like she’s just torn out his heart and crushed it before his eyes. Ilya Rozanov, one of the best players of his time, the Captain of the Boston Raiders, looks like he’s on the verge of passing out at her words. Ilya looks terrified and so incredibly fragile, and Jackie knows instantly that no one else knows about them, that no one else has ever acknowledged the love they share, the salvation they are to each other.
Fuck that. She’s hugging him.
She does just that, taking a careful step forward, then another, then another until she’s as close as she can get without her belly brushing against him. Jackie reaches up, one hand on his shoulder, tugging him closer, the other framing his face. It’s incredibly intimate for their first conversation, but Ilya nearly collapses into her arms. He leans into her hand, trembling again, as he stares at her with wide eyes, all the blood gone from his face.
“Do you understand that, Ilya. Lily -” Ilya is trembling in her grasp, swaying just a little bit, and two hours ago, he had watched Shane collapse on the ice and not get back up. Fuck pretenses, fuck the world, it’s just them and nothing can hurt them here. “You, you are one of the good things he deserves, one of the best things he has. He’s loved you for years, and I think he’ll keep loving you for as long as he can.”
His eyes slip shut, and the way he leans into her hand is almost childlike. It’s almost like a child, desperately seeking comfort from their mother, desperate to be told that all is right in the world, that they are safe, that they are loved, that their story has a happy ending, that the struggle is over.
Nine years of hiding, nine years of texts and covert meetings and horrific locker room talk. Nine years of panic, of seeing the other take a hit and not being able to rush to their side. The fear he must have felt to be here now, to show up like that, to still be here, breaking in her arms. Jackie thinks it would have killed anyone else, and she’s so thankful that it didn’t kill them.
“Do you understand that, Ilya?” Because he has too, because he risked the world finding out, Russia finding out, just to be here, to maybe get an update on Shane, to know if he was still breathing. He has to know that the desperation, the love goes both ways. She’s been trying to meet Lily for years, if only to tell her that she brings out a side to Shane that Jackie’s never seen before, that she’s so incredibly grateful to the woman whose love brought him to life.
Now that she’s meeting him, he has to know, he has to.
Ilya nods, just a little bit, although it's honestly more of a tremble. He’s been shaking since she first grabbed him by the receptionist's desk, and he hasn’t stopped since then. She wonders how many articles are whispering about paralysis, about brain damage. She wonders how many people he’s heard debating on if the love of his life is ever going to play again.
He has to know, if only so she can get his shaking to die down to a barely noticeable tremor. He has to know because Jackie is a hundred percent certain that Shane doesn’t, or at least that he won’t be able to articulate that without a panic attack or two. Ilya has to know because it’ll be rough from here on out, no matter how this goes, even if nothing’s leaked and no one finds out.
It’ll be rough for them. They both know that in ways she’ll never understand. Jackie can’t help them there, but she can make sure they understand. Love won’t save their careers and their reputations, but it will save them, she’s sure of that.
“Do you really?” It’s the same tone she’s used on the twins a thousand times before - This is a fact of the universe, concrete and permanent, do you understand what that means?
This time, Ilya opens his eyes, staring at her like she’s the only thing keeping him standing, like, impossibly, he’s seeing Shane and all of the tiny intricacies that make up the person they love. “Da, I understand.”
Then, somehow, he manages a rough laugh, “Shane is right. You do not pull your punches.”
“Nope.” Jackie pulls back the hand cupping his face to wipe away a few stray tears. She pretends not to see the way Ilya chases it for a split second before he seemingly remembers who he is and where they are. He takes a step back, out of her embrace, straightening his shoulders and blinking away the raw devastation in his face.
She almost misses the loss, but Ilya did have the right idea. They were in a public hospital, even if they were alone, and they’d have news about Shane soon enough. He’d probably try to crawl out of the bed if they both came in looking hysterical and weepy.
She takes a few deep breaths, placing a hand on her lower back and groaning at the ache. Before she can even really blink Ilya has pulled over a chair for her, eyes darting between her face and her belly. He looks almost - panicked. Not pure panic like he had when he thought Shane was gone, just plain, normal, men-don't-understand-but-fear-pregnancy panic.
It’s a look she’s seen Shane wear more times than she can count. It’s so mundane that Jackie is hit with a wave of pure relief. Shane is hurt but he will be okay, and despite Hayden’s dismay, Ilya is a good man, Ilya is exactly the person he’s been waiting to love.
She sits down, shifting until she’s comfortable and then stares pointedly at the chair nearest to her until Ilya sits down as well. He’s fidgeting now, looking incredibly out of place and awkward, as if they didn’t just have a gut-wrenching heart-to-heart. Men.
“Shane is going to freak out when he wakes up. But it won’t last, and once it’s done and this has passed, you’re coming over for dinner.” Ilya is Shane’s, that much is clear. If he was willing to risk everything just to love Ilya Rozanov, if Ilya Rozanov was willing to risk his home, potentially his life for Shane - Ilya is Shane’s and Shane is Ilya’s, Jackie is smart enough to understand that even if they don’t yet, at least not fully.
Ilya is Shane’s, which means by extension he’s hers as well. Jackie may not be able to understand them, or their fear, or the bravery it took to do an act as simple as loving someone, but she understands family. You fight for each other, you stand by each other’s sides, and no one is ever left out in the cold. It’s simple, the best things usually are.
Ilya, on the other hand, does not seem to understand that because he’s staring at her like she’s lost her mind. “Sorry?”
“Dinner. If you’re Shane’s,” She pauses, waiting to see if he’ll fill it in - boyfriend, partner, lover - but Ilya just keeps staring. Okay then. “If you’re Shane’s, that means you’re family now, and we have family dinners whenever we can manage them. The girls love their Uncle Shane, but they can be a bit much so if you want we can just have dinner, the four of us.”
“Pike hates me.” It’s automatic, then Ilya seems to realize he’s sitting next to Pike’s wife because he straightens just a little bit. The worried look on his face shouldn’t be as funny as it is. “He is good player, but he does not like me much. It would not be a good dinner.”
Jackie laughs at that, “Ilya, there’s no way Hayden can hate you after this.” She gentles her voice just a little bit, because it’s simple to her, but she understands that in some families it’s - it’s not so easy. “Shane loves you, and you love him. You came here, despite everything, because you had to know if he was okay. Hayden cannot hate you after this, not when he loves Shane just as much.”
“That’s,” Ilya blinks, stunned, “That’s not how it works.”
There’s a lot to read between the lines, and maybe Jackie wouldn’t be able to if she didn’t know how quick the world was to hate queer people. Or if she didn’t have enough common knowledge to realize that thirty years ago “gross indecency" in public between two men was an arrestable offence. Thirty years ago, Ilya could have been jailed for holding Shane’s hand at the rink. He could be jailed now for that if he was home, in Russia.
Ilya loves Shane, that’s a given, it’s a fact, and maybe he’s starting to accept that Shane loves him back but - It doesn’t make sense that anyone would accept it so readily, let alone someone who supposedly hates his guts. It doesn’t make sense that Jackie would sit here and not only accept his love, but welcome it into her home. It doesn’t make sense that Hayden would back him in an instant for Shane’s sake.
It doesn’t make sense to Ilya, and maybe it doesn’t to Shane either. Maybe that’s why he never told either of them, or maybe, he’s just been afraid for as long as he’s ever wanted someone else, wanted Ilya.
Jackie wants to fight the world, she wants to change it for their sake and her children and everyone like them. But she can’t do that, at least not right now, so instead she’ll drag Ilya into their family. For every hateful word dripping with venom that the world spits at them, she’ll give them twice the amount of love in return.
“Yes, it is. Maybe it doesn’t always end up that way, but it should. You’re Shane’s, you’re family, so dinner?”
Ilya stares, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, and then he - then he throws back his head and laughs. It’s the sort of laughter that’s drenched in relief, that’s half a sob and an exhale because oh, this isn’t going to hurt. Ilya laughs and Jackie smiles at the sound, they will be okay, she’s certain of that.
There isn’t another option.