Chapter Text
The ice was perfect tonight—hard and fast, the kind that made every stride feel like flying. Shane Hollander dug his edges in and accelerated through the neutral zone, his lungs burning with that good, clean pain that meant he was giving everything. Forty-three seconds left in the third period. Score tied 2-2. Last game of the regular season, and if they won, they'd clinch home ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
This was it. This was everything.
Shane had been skating for twenty-three minutes tonight—way over his usual ice time—and his legs were screaming, but he didn't care. Couldn't care. Hockey was the only thing that had ever made sense to him, the only place where his brain went quiet and his body knew exactly what to do. Out here, he didn't have to think or talk or figure out what people wanted from him. Out here, there was just the puck and the net and the perfect, crystalline logic of the game.
Boston had possession in their own zone. Shane watched the play develop, reading it three moves ahead the way he always could. Their defenseman—number 44, slow pivot, liked to go cross-ice—was going to try to break out along the boards. Shane was already moving before the pass came, angling to cut it off.
And then he saw him.
Ilya Rozanov, number 81, skating up the far wing with that effortless stride that made everyone else look like they were working too hard. Even now, even with everything on the line, Ilya looked like he was just out for a casual skate, like the game was something that happened around him rather than something he had to fight for.
It drove Shane fucking crazy.
They'd been battling all night—every shift, every board battle, every faceoff. Shane could feel Ilya out there even when he couldn't see him, could sense his presence on the ice the way you sensed a storm coming. They knew each other too well. Had been doing this dance for too many years, on the ice and off it.
Off the ice. Christ. Shane shoved that thought away hard. Not now. Not here. That was something that happened in hotel rooms in cities where nobody knew them, something that existed in the dark and stayed there. It had nothing to do with this, with hockey, with the only thing that actually mattered.
The puck came around the boards. Shane got there first, pinning it with his skate and chipping it forward in one motion. He could hear Ilya closing on him—could always hear Ilya, somehow, even through the roar of the crowd and the scrape of skates and the thunder of his own heartbeat. Shane protected the puck with his body, feeling the solid weight of Ilya's check against his shoulder, and managed to slide it across to Hayden at the blue line.
Hayden wound up for the shot. Shane drove hard to the net, looking for the rebound, and Ilya came with him. They crashed into the crease together, a tangle of limbs and sticks and the kind of contact that looked accidental but never really was. Shane felt Ilya's glove on his hip, just for a second, pressure in exactly the spot where he'd left a bruise three nights ago in a hotel room in Tampa.
The shot went wide. The goalie covered it. Whistle.
Shane skated away from the net, sucking in air, and allowed himself one glance back. Ilya was looking at him. Their eyes met for maybe half a second—long enough for Shane to see something flicker across Ilya's face, something that might have been concern or might have been a question—and then Shane looked away. He couldn't afford to think about what Ilya wanted from him. Couldn't afford to think about the way Ilya had started staying after, lately, trying to talk, trying to make it into something it wasn't.
Thirty-seven seconds left.
Shane's line stayed out. Coach was rolling his top guys, and Shane was having the game of his life—two assists already, plus-three, and he'd been in on every big play. His whole body was vibrating with adrenaline and exhaustion and the desperate, clawing need to win. This game meant everything. Playoffs meant everything. Hockey was all he had, all he'd ever had, and he needed it like he needed air.
The puck dropped. Boston won the draw, sent it back to their defense. Shane pressured high, forcing a quick decision. The defenseman tried to go up the middle—mistake—and Hayden picked his pocket clean. Suddenly they had numbers, three-on-two, and Shane was flying down the right wing with the puck on his stick and nothing but ice ahead of him.
He could see the play unfolding in perfect clarity. The defenseman was going to take away the pass to Hayden. The other defenseman was going to step up on Shane, try to force him wide. Which meant if Shane could hold onto the puck for two more strides, cut to the middle, he'd have a shooting lane.
He didn't see Ilya coming from the backcheck.
Shane cut hard to the middle, exactly like he'd planned, and Ilya was just there, materializing out of nowhere the way he always did. They collided at full speed, and Shane felt the impact all the way through his bones. He tried to stay on his feet, tried to protect the puck, but his skates got tangled with Ilya's and suddenly he was falling.
It happened so fast and so slow at the same time.
Shane's body was already twisting as he fell, his momentum carrying him forward and down. He put his hands out to catch himself—instinct, stupid instinct—and his glove hit the ice wrong. His wrist buckled. His shoulder hit next, and then his head, and there was a sound like a crack, like something breaking, and the world went white.
Not white. Bright. Too bright. The lights were too bright and everything was spinning and there was a sound in his ears like rushing water. Shane tried to move, tried to get up, but his body wouldn't respond. Nothing worked. His arms and legs felt like they belonged to someone else, and there was something wrong with his vision, everything doubled and blurred and wrong.
He could see the ice, inches from his face. Could see his own breath fogging against it. Could see skates—someone's skates, lots of skates, people gathering around him. The ref's whistle was blowing, sharp and insistent, but it sounded like it was coming from very far away.
Shane tried to say something. Tried to say he was fine, he just needed a second, he could get up. But his mouth wouldn't work either. Nothing worked. And the white brightness was getting bigger, eating everything, and there was a pain in his head like nothing he'd ever felt before, like his skull was splitting open, and—
Ilya saw Shane go down and felt his stomach drop.
It was a clean hit. Ilya knew it was clean even as he was throwing it, even as their bodies collided and Shane's skates tangled with his. Just a hockey play, the kind that happened a hundred times a game. Shane was already falling when Ilya pulled back, already going down hard, and there was nothing Ilya could do but watch.
Shane hit the ice and didn't get up.
That wasn't unusual. Players went down hard all the time, took a second to catch their breath, shake it off. Ilya had seen Shane take worse hits and pop right back up, grinning like a maniac, ready for more. Shane was tough. Shane was always tough, played through everything, never showed weakness.
But something about this felt wrong.
Ilya stood there, breathing hard, watching Shane's body on the ice. Shane wasn't moving. Wasn't even trying to get up. Just lying there, face-down, one arm bent at a weird angle beneath him.
"Get up," Ilya thought. "Come on, get up."
The ref was skating over, whistle already in his mouth. Other players were gathering—Shane's teammates, Ilya's teammates, everyone converging on the spot where Shane lay motionless. Ilya should skate away. Should go back to his bench, let the trainers handle it. That's what you did. That's what the game required.
But Ilya couldn't move.
He'd hit Shane before. They'd been hitting each other for years, on the ice and off it. Ilya knew Shane's body better than he knew his own—knew every scar and bruise, knew how he moved, knew the sounds he made when Ilya touched him in the dark. Three nights ago in Tampa, Shane had been fine. Perfect. Alive and warm and solid under Ilya's hands, even if he wouldn't talk, wouldn't stay, wouldn't give Ilya anything but his body.
Now Shane was lying on the ice and not moving, and Ilya felt something cold and terrible spreading through his chest.
Hayden got there first, dropping to his knees beside Shane. "Shane! Shane, buddy, you okay?" His voice was loud, urgent, and Ilya could hear the fear in it. Hayden was Shane's best friend, had been since they were kids. If Hayden was scared—
Shane's body jerked.
It was a small movement at first, just a twitch, and for a second Ilya thought he was trying to get up. But then it happened again, harder, and Shane's arm spasmed, his hand clenching and unclenching against the ice. His leg kicked out. His whole body went rigid.
"Fuck," someone said. Maybe Ilya. Maybe someone else.
Shane was seizing.
Ilya had seen seizures before. His mother had epilepsy, back in Russia, before the medications got good enough to control it. He knew what they looked like. But this was different. This was Shane, and Shane's body was convulsing on the ice, violent and wrong, his helmet scraping against the surface as his head jerked back and forth.
"Get the trainers!" Hayden was yelling. "Get the fucking trainers, now!"
Ilya's feet finally moved. He skated closer, not away, even though he should go, even though he couldn't let anyone see how much this was affecting him. The other players were backing up, giving space, but Ilya pushed through them until he was right there, right next to Hayden, looking down at Shane's convulsing body.
Shane's eyes were open. That was the worst part. His eyes were open and rolled back, showing mostly white, and there was blood—Jesus Christ, there was blood on the ice, spreading out from under his head in a dark pool that looked black against the white surface.
"Don't touch him," one of the refs was saying. "Don't move him, just—"
But Hayden already had his hands on Shane, trying to hold him still, trying to keep him from hurting himself as his body thrashed. Shane's mouthguard had come out, and Ilya could see his teeth clenched, could see the muscles in his jaw working, could see the tendons standing out in his neck.
The seizure went on and on. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. It felt like hours. The crowd had gone silent—eighteen thousand people holding their breath—and all Ilya could hear was the scrape of Shane's equipment against the ice and Hayden's voice, low and desperate, saying "It's okay, it's okay, you're okay" over and over like a prayer.
Ilya wanted to do something. Wanted to help. But there was nothing to do except watch and feel his heart trying to break through his ribs. This was Shane. Shane, who never got hurt, who never showed weakness, who played through everything. Shane, who'd been in Ilya's bed three nights ago, alive and whole and perfect even if he wouldn't talk about what they were doing, wouldn't acknowledge that it meant anything.
This couldn't be happening.
The trainers arrived, pushing through the crowd of players with their medical bags. They dropped down beside Shane, professional and efficient, and one of them—the head trainer, Mike—immediately started checking Shane's airway while the other stabilized his neck.
"How long?" Mike asked.
"Minute, maybe more," Hayden said. His voice was shaking. "He hit his head, there's blood—"
"I see it. Okay, everyone back, give us room."
The ref started herding players away, but Ilya didn't move. Couldn't move. He was dimly aware that he should care about that, should care that people might notice, might wonder why he was standing here like his world was ending over an opposing player. But he couldn't make himself care. Couldn't make himself do anything except stand there and watch Shane's body finally start to still, the convulsions slowing, stopping.
Shane went limp.
"Shane?" Mike's voice was sharp, commanding. "Shane, can you hear me?"
Nothing. Shane's eyes were closed now, his face slack and pale under the blood. He looked dead. Christ, he looked dead, and Ilya felt something break open inside his chest, something he'd been keeping carefully locked away for years.
"He's breathing," the other trainer said. "Pulse is strong. But we need to get him off the ice, now. Get the stretcher."
More people were arriving—the team doctor, more medical staff, someone with a backboard and a stretcher. They moved with practiced efficiency, stabilizing Shane's neck, carefully rolling him onto the backboard, strapping him down. Shane didn't move through any of it. Didn't open his eyes. Didn't show any sign that he knew what was happening.
Ilya watched them lift Shane onto the stretcher. Watched them start to carry him off the ice. The crowd was applauding—that automatic, respectful applause that happened when an injured player left the ice—but it sounded hollow, wrong. This wasn't a regular injury. This wasn't something Shane would shake off.
Hayden was following the stretcher, skating alongside it, his face white and stricken. He looked lost. Shane was his best friend, his center, the guy he'd played with since they were kids. Ilya knew how much Shane meant to him.
Ilya knew how much Shane meant to him, too. That was the problem.
The stretcher reached the tunnel, and Shane disappeared from view. The game was going to continue—there were still twenty-eight seconds left, and the refs were already gathering at center ice to discuss the call. Life went on. Hockey went on. That's how it worked.
But Ilya stood there on the ice, his legs shaking, his hands clenched into fists inside his gloves, and felt like he was the one who'd been hit. Like he was the one whose world had just shattered.
He'd been sleeping with Shane for three years. Three years of hotel rooms and stolen hours and Shane's body against his in the dark. Three years of wanting more, of trying to make Shane talk to him, stay with him, give him something beyond just the physical. Three years of knowing it was hopeless, that Shane would never let him in, that hockey was the only thing Shane really cared about.
And now Shane was being carried off the ice on a stretcher, unconscious and bleeding, and Ilya didn't know if he'd ever get the chance to try again.
Someone grabbed his arm. Ilya looked up and saw his captain, Dmitri, looking at him with concern.
"You okay?" Dmitri asked in Russian.
Ilya nodded automatically. "Da. Yes. I'm fine."
"It was a clean hit. Not your fault."
"I know."
But it didn't feel clean. It felt like Ilya had just destroyed the only thing that mattered, even if he couldn't admit that it mattered, even if Shane would never let it matter.
The ref was waving them over. The game was going to continue. Ilya skated to the bench on autopilot, his mind still in that tunnel where Shane had disappeared. He sat down, and someone handed him a water bottle, and the puck dropped for the final twenty-eight seconds of the game.
Ilya didn't remember any of it.
The ambulance bay at Massachusetts General Hospital was bright and cold and smelled like antiseptic. Ilya stood in the parking lot across the street, still in his suit from the post-game, and watched the ambulance pull in. He'd left the arena as soon as he could, made some excuse about not feeling well, and driven straight here.
This was insane. This was the kind of thing that could ruin everything—his career, his reputation, his carefully constructed privacy. If anyone saw him here, if anyone asked questions, he wouldn't have good answers.
But he couldn't stay away.
The ambulance doors opened, and they pulled Shane out on the stretcher. He was still unconscious, still strapped down, with a cervical collar around his neck and an oxygen mask over his face. There were more people now—a whole team of doctors and nurses waiting to receive him—and they moved fast, wheeling him through the doors and into the emergency room.
Ilya waited until they were gone, then crossed the street and went inside.
The ER waiting room was half-full, people with various injuries and illnesses slumped in plastic chairs. Ilya went to the desk, where a tired-looking woman in scrubs was typing on a computer.
"I'm here about Shane Hollander," Ilya said. "He was just brought in."
The woman looked up at him, taking in his expensive suit, his face that had been on TV an hour ago. "Are you family?"
"No, I'm—" Ilya hesitated. What was he? Not family. Not a friend, not officially. Not anything he could name. "I'm the one who hit him. On the ice. I just want to know if he's okay."
The woman's expression softened slightly. "I can't give you any information unless you're family. But there's a waiting area down that hall if you want to wait. Someone might come out with an update."
Ilya nodded and headed down the hall. The waiting area was smaller, quieter, with better chairs and a TV mounted on the wall playing the news on mute. There was only one other person there.
Hayden.
He was sitting in the corner, still in his game suit, his tie loosened and his hair a mess. He had his head in his hands, and he looked up when Ilya walked in. For a second, they just stared at each other.
"What are you doing here?" Hayden asked. His voice was flat, exhausted.
"I wanted to know if he's okay," Ilya said.
Hayden let out a breath. "Yeah. Me too. They won't tell me anything yet. He's in there getting scans, CT or MRI or whatever. They said it could be a while."
Ilya sat down, leaving two chairs between them. It felt wrong to be here, wrong to be sitting in this waiting room with Shane's best friend, waiting for news about whether Shane was going to be okay. But it would have felt more wrong to leave.
They sat in silence for a long time. On the TV, the news showed highlights from the game. Showed the hit, showed Shane going down, showed the stretcher carrying him off. Showed Ilya standing there on the ice, looking stricken.
Hayden glanced at the TV, then at Ilya. "It was a clean hit," he said quietly. "I watched the replay. You didn't do anything wrong."
"Doesn't matter," Ilya said.
"No," Hayden agreed. "I guess it doesn't."
More silence. Ilya could hear the clock on the wall ticking, could hear the distant sounds of the hospital—beeping machines, voices, footsteps. He thought about Shane lying in some room down the hall, unconscious, alone. Thought about the way Shane's body had convulsed on the ice, violent and wrong. Thought about the blood.
"He's going to be okay," Hayden said suddenly, like he was trying to convince himself. "Shane's tough. He's been through worse."
Ilya didn't answer. He didn't think Shane had been through worse. He'd seen Shane play through broken bones and torn ligaments and concussions, had seen him take hits that would have ended other players' careers. But he'd never seen Shane look like he did tonight, lying on the ice with his eyes rolled back and blood pooling under his head.
They arrived less than thirty minutes later.
Ilya heard them before he saw them—a woman's voice, tight with panic, asking the receptionist about Shane Hollander. Then footsteps, quick and unsteady, and suddenly there were two people in the doorway of the waiting room.
Shane's parents. Ilya recognized them immediately—he'd seen them in the stands before games over the years, always in the family section, always wearing Shane's jersey number. The mother was small, blonde going gray, still wearing her game-day sweater with HOLLANDER across the back. The father was tall—Shane got his height from somewhere—with Shane's same jaw, same broad shoulders, still in his team jacket and jeans.
They looked destroyed.
Hayden stood immediately. "Mr. and Mrs. Hollander."
"Hayden." Shane's mother's voice cracked on his name. Her eyes were red, mascara smudged. "Have you heard anything? They wouldn't let us come back with him, they said family only but we're his parents, we were right there, we saw—" She pressed her hand to her mouth, unable to finish.
"They took him back about twenty minutes ago," Hayden said. "They said they'd come out with an update as soon as they could. I'm sorry, I don't know anything else yet."
Shane's father looked like he might collapse. His face was gray, his hands shaking. "We watched it happen. We were ten rows up and we watched our son have a seizure on the ice and we couldn't—we couldn't do anything, we just had to sit there and watch—"
"I know." Hayden's voice was rough. "I know. But he's here now, and they're taking care of him."
It was only then that Shane's mother seemed to notice Ilya, still sitting in the corner, still in his suit from the game. Her eyes widened slightly.
"You're Ilya Rozanov," she said.
Ilya stood slowly, his heart suddenly pounding. Here it came. The accusation. The blame. He'd been part of the play, had been tangled up with Shane when he fell. They'd watched it happen from the stands. They'd seen Ilya right there when their son went down.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I should go. I just wanted to make sure—"
"You were there," Shane's father said, and his voice was heavy, dark with something Ilya couldn't quite name. Not anger. Something else. Something that sat in Ilya's chest like a weight. "When he went down. We saw you. You were one of the first ones to him."
Ilya swallowed. "Yes. I was—we were both going for the puck, and he fell. I didn't mean—"
"No one's blaming you," Shane's mother said, and she crossed the room to him, put her hand on his arm. Her touch was gentle but somehow it made Ilya feel worse, made the guilt twist tighter in his gut. "These things happen in hockey. We know that. Shane knows that. But the fact that you're here, that you came to the hospital to check on him—that's admirable. That says a lot about your character."
Ilya felt like he might be sick.
"It's nothing," he managed. "Any player would—"
"Not every player would," Shane's father said. He moved closer, and there was something about his presence that felt oppressive, like the air was getting thicker. "You're on the opposing team. The game just ended. You could be on your way to the airport right now. But you're here anyway. That matters."
No, Ilya wanted to say. You don't understand. I'm not here because I'm a good person. I'm here because I can't leave. Because Shane and I have been fucking for three years and I'm in love with him and he won't even admit we're friends and I can't tell you any of that because Shane would never forgive me.
"I just wanted to make sure he was okay," Ilya said instead, and hated how hollow it sounded.
Shane's mother squeezed his arm. "Thank you. Really. It means a lot that you care."
She had no idea how much he cared. No idea that Ilya knew the taste of Shane's skin, the sound he made when he came, the way he always turned away after, always put the walls back up. No idea that Ilya had been trying for years to get Shane to let him in, to give him something more than just sex and silence.
No idea that Ilya was sitting in this hospital because the thought of leaving, of not knowing if Shane was okay, was physically unbearable.
"Of course," Ilya said, because what else could he say?
Shane's father gestured to the chairs. "Sit. Please. We're all waiting for the same news."
Ilya sat. Shane's parents took the chairs near him and Hayden. The waiting room felt too small suddenly, the air too close. Shane's mother kept twisting her hands together, and Shane's father stared at the floor, his jaw clenched so tight Ilya could see the muscle jumping.
"He's never had a seizure before," Shane's mother said suddenly, to no one in particular. "Never. Not once. What if—what if there's permanent damage? What if he can't play again?"
"Let's not think about that yet," Shane's father said, but Ilya could hear the fear underneath the words, could see it in the way his hands were gripping his knees.
They sat in tense silence. The clock on the wall ticked. A nurse walked by, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum. Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeped steadily.
Ilya felt like he was suffocating. The guilt was a living thing in his chest, clawing at his ribs. These people were being kind to him. Grateful. They thought he was here out of sportsmanship, out of basic human decency.
They had no idea.
And Shane—Shane would never tell them. Shane kept everything locked down, kept everyone at arm's length. Even Ilya, who'd been in his bed more times than he could count, who'd learned the map of his body in the dark—even Ilya barely got more than a few words, a few hours, before Shane pulled away again.
Shane's parents would never know. And Ilya would have to sit here and accept their gratitude and pretend he was just a concerned opponent, just a decent guy doing the right thing.
He'd never felt like more of a liar.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hollander?"
They all looked up. A doctor stood in the doorway, still in scrubs, a tablet in her hands. She looked tired but calm.
Shane's mother stood so fast she nearly knocked over her chair. "Is he okay? Can we see him?"
"He's stable," the doctor said. "The CT scan showed a traumatic brain injury—a severe concussion with some bleeding, but no skull fracture. We're monitoring him closely. He regained consciousness briefly, but he was disoriented and we've sedated him to keep him calm. We'll know more in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours."
"But he's going to be okay?" Shane's father asked, and his voice was rough, desperate.
"It's too early to say definitively," the doctor said carefully. "Brain injuries are unpredictable. But his vitals are good, and the fact that he woke up is a positive sign. We'll be keeping him in the ICU for observation. You can see him now, but only for a few minutes. He needs rest."
Shane's mother was already moving toward the door. Shane's father followed, then paused and looked back at Hayden and Ilya.
"Thank you both," he said. "For being here. For staying."
Then they were gone, following the doctor down the hall.
Hayden let out a long, shaky breath and sank back into his chair. "Jesus. Okay. He's okay. He's going to be okay."
Ilya didn't say anything. He was thinking about Shane waking up disoriented, sedated, alone except for doctors and nurses and machines. He was thinking about Shane's parents sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, and Shane not being able to tell them that the person he might actually want there wasn't allowed in the room.
Because Ilya wasn't family. Wasn't even officially a friend.
He was nothing, as far as the hospital was concerned. As far as anyone knew.
"You should go," Hayden said quietly. "Get some sleep. There's nothing else we can do tonight."
"Yeah," Ilya said. "Yeah, I should."
But he didn't move. Couldn't move. Just sat there in the waiting room, staring at the empty doorway where Shane's parents had disappeared, and waited for a morning that felt very far away.