Chapter Text
Shane plans on going into the 2014-2015 season and doing everything in his power to make sure Rozanov doesn’t win the Cup. Fuck Vegas, fuck MVP, fuck that asshole for leaving him on read for half the summer. He’s going to personally ensure that it’s the Metros at the end of it all.
As it turns out, he doesn’t have to.
Halfway through October the weather starts to get properly cold, and Shane thinks that’s why he’s pacing all the time. Not because Rozanov hasn’t bothered to answer a text since August, but because he needs to keep his blood flowing. Nevermind that the heater has already been turned up and he’s wearing the thick socks his mom gave him for Christmas.
Because, really, he has no reason to be wound this tight. He knew Rozanov was an asshole. Despite their… whatever they were, that hadn’t changed. So Vegas turned out to be a humiliation ritual. Rozanov getting his rocks off by turning Shane to putty in his hand and letting him leave without so much as a “Can’t wait to fuck you again”. It didn’t matter. They weren’t anything to each other, and so it didn’t matter that Rozanov was a dick and Shane felt like he was standing on a dock that had lost its support beams in the waves. He was going to get over it and win the Cup and rub it in his stupid Russian face.
He is thinking about how much it doesn’t matter especially when the Raiders are playing Minnesota.
“Honey, you’re wearing a hole in the carpet,” his mother says lightly.
She’s on the couch half watching the game, scoffing every time she spots a slipped play or clumsy stick handling. His father is pretending to watch over a book.
Shane grinds to a halt. He can’t help but actually check to see if there’s a hole forming. “Sorry.”
“What’s got you so on edge?” She turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her eyebrows always draw together like a little squiggle mark when she’s worried about him. “Is it the Chicago game?”
Guilt forms a tidy lump in his throat. “Yeah. They’ve got a couple of newbies that look like they’ll put up a fight.”
He really hates lying. In the meantime, his eyes flick up to the screen. Boston is up by two, Minnesota dragging behind. They traded their best defenseman last season and it shows. Rozanov is skating circles around them and is gunning for a hat-trick, cocky asshole. It’s infuriating to watch. But Shane loves hockey, and unfortunately, Rozanov is very good. He can’t make himself sit, so instead he’s pacing and chewing the drawstring of his hoodie idly.
His mother turns back to the TV. “I wouldn’t worry about them. They’re still green, and it helps that you’re playing them at the beginning of the season. It’ll take time for them to gel as a team.”
Before he has to come up with a response, he’s saved by the announcers remarking about something. It takes a moment for Shane’s brain to process the words, because the picture is locked onto Rozanov.
Who is sprawled out on the ice against the boards. From the camera angle it almost looks silly- like a doll, drowning in the gear, sitting slouched in a toybox. Shane can see blood trickling from Rozanov’s nose. He isn’t moving.
The cold finds a way to seep from the floor into his feet, up his legs and into his heart. He slowly comes around to sit between his parents, unblinking.
Rozanov doesn’t move when the medics get to him. There’s no cocky smirk, or grandstanding. He’s so fucking still. The camera follows the medics getting his helmet off and putting him into a c-collar and onto a stretcher. And then they take him out of sight, far from Shane in another city.
His first instinct is to text Lily. As if there’s someone who can respond on the other end and will be able to tell him Rozanov is okay, and there’s no reason for Shane’s heart to be pounding a thousand miles a minute.
“Damn. That looked rough.” His mother takes a sip from her wineglass, She reaches a hand out to fix the cowlick at the back of Shane’s head, like she’s always done. “I hate seeing injuries like that, even when it’s Rozanov. Just makes me glad it’s not you.”
Shane feels as though his lungs might collapse.
*
He doesn’t get an update on Rozanov for three more days. Three.
The news breaks not long before the Chicago game.
“Rozanov takes brutal check during buzzer-beater against Minnesota, will be out for the remainder of the season.”
Shane reads every article he can find. Most copy and paste the same soundbites and quotes from the Raiders quotes during the press release. Only one gets him any closer to some kind of answer.
“Boston Raiders Captain Ilya Rozanov Out of Season with Concussion”
“Unfortunately, Rozanov suffered a concussion in an earlier game that went undetected. While his condition at this time is stable and he is healing up well, the Raiders want to take care of our men. So, in order to prevent any further damage or risk post-concussive symptoms, we’ve decided to bench him for the remainder of the season. It’s always terrible to lose a player so early in the year, but we are certain Rozanov will be ready for the 2015-2016 season when it comes.”
He slams his phone into his cubby.
Players don’t go out for a whole season for minor injuries. Shane had seen head trauma before- none of them involved the player being out cold for that long. Even as he’s getting himself ready for the Chicago game, he can’t help but replay his internet history from the previous night.
Passing out concussion
How bad is it if you pass out from a concussion
Post concussive syndrome
Long term side effects post concussive syndrome
Fuck.
Surely, Rozanov was okay. If he wasn’t, they’d have a get-well message and stuff about thoughts and prayers. Right? Maybe he’s remembering it wrong.
“Dude, you good?” Hayden’s voice pulls Shane from his head.
“Yeah, m’fine.” He replies. “You?”
“Sure. You’ve been reaching for the same strap and missing for like three minutes. Where are you, Cap?”
Shane shakes his head. He can’t be worried about Rozanov right now. He’s probably got his family at his side doing enough worrying.
“I’m here, I’m here.”
“Better be. If we lose I’ll never be able to show my face at home again.”
A small smile manages to make its way out. “I’m sure Jackie would forgive you eventually.”
“Oh, sure, Jackie is the generous one. But Ruby? She’s vicious.”
He can’t help but chuckle a bit- because Hayden is right, and Shane has learned that Ruby expects a certain level of fear from him when she comes charging around the Pike kitchen island at him. Hayden claps him on the shoulder in a commiserate sort of way as Shane makes another promise that he’s ready to take this on.
Rozanov would have to wait.
*
They win. Barely. It is a truly impressive 0-0 game for the majority until Shane finally gets his act together and slips between two defensemen charging towards him and nets the puck in the upper-left corner. There’s still another seven minutes in the game, but he breathes a sigh of relief and coasts off of that to the end. Chicago was horrible this year.
So Metros barely eeking out a win was not exactly something to celebrate. But, they celebrated nonetheless.
The Metros all crowd into some poor local bar that he can’t help but feel sorry for, as none of them called in advance. It was crowded, but no one on the street seem to take notice of who they are or care to stop. Shane sticks to ginger ale and pulling his phone out every few minutes hoping to see a text, despite the research he’d done telling him that any doctor worth their degree would be keeping Rozanov far from a phone screen.
“Lily again?” J.J. elbows him. “Tell her you’ll be a good boy and in bed by eleven.”
Shane instantly tucks his phone away, heat rushing to his face. “Fuck you.”
J.J. slumps against him dramatically. “What have we done to deserve this? All this love for our dear captain, and he shuns us for Lily. Maybe have her come to a game, ah? Then you will not be so lost on the ice when we are trying to get you the puck.”
“Shut the fuck up. You’re one to talk, too busy looking at your skates to see Firstman headed for you.” He knows the cadence of this conversation, it’s easy to replicate. A good way to distract from himself.
Hayden yawns. “Eh, Firstman barely tapped him. However, I’m pretty sure he’ll be out of the game for a minute. Guy looked like he took a nasty hit at the end.”
The conversation ambles from there, muddied by the sound of other voices and the music and glasses slamming on tabletops. Shane’s eyes are fixed to the floor, taking in a napkin that’s soaked in a mystery liquid and sticking to the wood slats. God, it was really loud. One of those can’t-hear-yourself-think kinds of loud. He keeps trying to find words, but his brain can’t come up with a single phrase.
“-Rozanov, man. Listen, I’m glad the Raiders will be down their star, but I don’t wish that kind of thing on anyone.” One of the voices says. A teammate Shane can’t distinguish right now. If he looks up he’ll have to deal with the lights moving and reflecting against all the bottles behind the bar.
“I heard they put him up at the place in New York.” Hayden, this time, just to his right. “NHL has their own wing in a rehab. Buddy of mine from the Centaurs was there for a knee thing. It’s about as good as it gets.”
The sound in the bar is gone. Shane can be safe in his head again, because for the moment, he has an answer.
Rozanov is being cared for. Shane knew he was, probably had all sorts of people doting on him, but. Still. It was nice to know for certain. Now he knew where he was.
Shane could even visit, maybe. Not that Rozanov deserved it. He probably wouldn’t even want Shane to visit. And he wouldn’t, because he doesn’t need to do anything for Rozanov. It was just him being a good person- wanting to know if the guy he sometimes slept with was alright. Now he could stop thinking about this whole thing and go back to focusing on the Cup.
Well. They do have a game in New York in two weeks. Maybe, if the rehab place isn’t far, he could go and visit. Just to see. Not because he owes it to Rozanov. Just to prove that he was the better person. And maybe he could finally get some answers about the summer of silence and why Vegas had felt so… distant.
Shane recalls it as he tells the team he’s going to head back to the hotel, finishing the last of his ginger ale and zipping his hoodie up against the cold. Rozanov standing in the light of the skyline, shirt open, glass in hand, looking like something from a magazine cover. The heat of his eyes when he watched Shane touch himself.
A shudder wracks his body. The harsh wind has almost nothing to do with it.
He remembers the awkwardness after, too. Trying to find something to say only for Rozanov to stay fixated on his cigarette. Getting dressed in silence and heading for the elevator. Touching his lips and wondering why they felt so strange until he realized they hadn’t kissed. It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t.
Rozanov would still get a piece of his mind. And flowers, or something. You were supposed to bring flowers to people in the hospital, right? Though it was a rehab, so maybe it was different. Shane would bring flowers and Rozanov would probably throw them away or laugh in his face, but at least he would’ve made the effort.
Another bout of wind brings the stink of cigarettes from a couple he passes. The smell clings to his clothes. In between his plans of confrontation, a soft, nicotine-laced kiss touches his shoulder. It sticks with him even as he gets back to his hotel room and undresses, and it burns him when he tries to sleep and put any thought of Rozanov far from his mind.