Chapter Text
The scoreboard glares down from above the ice: 2–1 in Montreal’s favour.
Two minutes left in the third.
Shane watches as Ilya glides toward center ice, chest heaving, breath fogging inside his visor. The crowd is loud and restless; their echoing cries the kind that press against your ears to drown everything else out. It makes every thought sharper. Focused.
Shane sucks in a breath as he leans over the boards, sweat cooling fast under the arena lights. Ilya flies past him, chasing Hayden as he barely maintains control over the puck.
One point behind. One goal.
The game is far from over - with Ilya on the ice, momentum starting to tilt just enough in their favour - hope feels dangerous in the pit of his stomach, gnawing at his insides.
Ottawa has been chasing the game all night, grinding for chances, refusing to let the gap feel permanent. But Montreal had come out swinging from the go, and they had cracked down hard on Shane. Every check personal, every steal a reminder of where Shane had come from, and a reminder of who had cast him aside.
Like trash.
He hadn’t been able to breathe on the ice. J.J and Comeau on his ass for every moment of play. Haas and Barrett had tried desperately to divert them on his wing, to give him room to propel himself up center ice – but it’d been no use, and Ilya had been called on.
And God, he’s beautiful on the ice – his precision clinical as he loops around stunned Montreal players. In their desperation to bury Shane beneath their raw power, they had forgotten that Ottawa has another star Centre.
And he’s unstoppable.
The puck comes loose.
Ilya snaps into motion, stick blade catching the pass clean as he cuts between two defenders. He feels the opening before he saw it—shifts his weight, pulls the puck just wide enough, and fires. The shot streams past the goalie’s blocker and slams into the back of the net.
The arena explodes.
The horn blares as the scoreboard flickers into the new truth: 2–2.
Ilya barely has time to lift his arms before Shane is on his feet at the bench, pounding the boards, grin wide and wild.
He spins to look at Shane, his grin so wide the mole on his left cheek disappears deep into his dimple, and if Shane were on the ice he would kiss him – right there – lips pressed against the corner of his smile.
The equalizer. Momentum. Everything is cracked open in this moment and finally, finally, it’s time for them to play.
“Coach, put me in” Shane shouts over the roar of the crowd. “Put me on the wing.”
“Are you sure kid?” Weibe hesitates. “Barrett’s solid, he’s got Rozanov’s flank.”
And Shane knows that he’s thinking about the first third, the crack of J.J’s stick against Shane’s skate. His inability to move, to even breathe, as Montreal pin him in his own half of the ice.
But he can feel the tide changing, momentum finally behind them and he knows the play Ilya needs to break through. To win.
“Just trust me Coach” Shane says, firm. “I can win this game.”
Weibe looks at him long and hard before finally before nodding. “Okay kid, you’re on.”
The officials line them up for the faceoff at center ice. Final shift. Final play.
Shane jumps over the boards, skates biting into the ice as he takes his position on the right wing.
He glances at Ilya, now set at center, and their eyes met—no words, just that familiar understanding. They’d done this a thousand times. Shane would push wide, draw pressure. Ilya would drive the middle.
They’re both able to play each part seamlessly, like breathing. Ilya’s speed and Shane’s precision breaking through the defense like glass.
The Hollzanov, he’s heard it’s called,
Shane smiles as the puck drops.
Ilya wins the draw clean, kicking it back and immediately accelerating up ice. Shane bursts forward alongside him, right wing lane opening just enough to be dangerous. He has the puck, effortless in his control.
Montreal scrambles, suddenly aware that the game is rapidly slipping from their grasp like sand.
They’re afraid, Shane thinks. Good.
And he laughs as Hayden skids into the boards as Shane pivots around him, eyes narrowing on the slimming path ahead. One moment, that’s all it takes – a sharp twist to the left and a flick 60 degrees upwards and he knows Ilya will be there, exactly where he needs to be.
It feels so natural, being on the ice with Ilya. Easier than breathing.
Montreal should be afraid, Shane decides.
A defenseman, J.J, locks onto Shane, stick raised, and Shane knows that he’s lining him up for a hit. Shane twists away, only to be backed in my Comau, shoulder lowered as he drives forward.
Before Shane can react – hunch himself over and prepare for the hit, pin the puck between his stick and the boards to stop it from flying loose in the oncoming onslaught, Ilya breaks formation and pivots - angling himself straight between Shane and Comeau.
Ilya had done this a hundred times—absorbing hits, creating space, protecting the player everyone else seems determined to crush. Shane trusts him with that without ever having to say it.
But Comeau panics.
Comeau panics because he wasn’t in position to hit Shane cleanly. The puck was already past him, Shane slipping by with speed that made the crowd rise to its feet. He’d made a split-second choice born of desperation.
And it’s the angle, the intent, the inevitability of the incoming shove. Shane can’t breathe.
Ilya had shifted his path to shield Shane, because he had seen something Shane hadn’t.
And it’s not a check. Not a play on the puck. Just both hands slamming into Ilya’s back, vicious and panicked, driving him forward with all of Comeau’s weight behind it.
Shane watches helplessly as Ilya is sent headfirst into the boards, spine twisting, skates lifting off the ice as his body folds under the force. The sound of impact is thunderous and wrong - echoing - louder than the crowd, louder than the goal horn, louder than the pounding of his heart against his chest, as Ilya’s body finally crumples into the ice.
Ilya had no time to brace, Shane knows he had no time to brace because Shane had no time to brace.
And he’s not moving.
Shane skids to a stop, heart lurching –
“Ilya,” he whispers.
The whistle screams.
“Ilya!”
Ilya is still, his helmet skidding across the ice, the visor cracked across the left corner.
Shane rushes over, dropping to his knees beside him. He rips his gloves off, hands shaking as he reaches out, then stops, terrified of making it worse.
Ilya’s eyes are closed, his face bleeding from a cut across the bridge of his nose – pooling under his head, staining his sweaty hair a dark red.
“Hey,” Shane whispers as he inches closer, voice breaking – he longs to grab Ilya’s face, his hair – to brush the matted curls away from his eyes. “Hey, sweetheart… come on. Open your eyes.”
Nothing.
Their teammates react almost instantly. One by one they skate in around Shane, forming a tight circle, backs turned outward. They’ve blocked the cameras, all the watching eyes of a crowd too stunned to speak. They’ve blocked off the entire world and Shane is grateful – so, so grateful – as he chokes back a sob – desperate for Ilya to wake up.
To open his eyes.
To tell him that it’s all okay, that he’s fine and it’s all been a joke. Something that he organized with Comeau before the game.
But it’s not a joke – and Ilya isn’t waking up.
The silence is deafening, even the biggest Rozanov hater unwilling to cheer as he lays sprawled out unresponsive on the ice. It’s broken only by the scrape of skates and the frantic calls for medical staff.
The trainers arrive, then the stretcher, forcing their way through the human barricade around them.
“Is he going to be okay?” Shane waivers – voice cracking. “Can someone tell me if he’s going to be okay?
“We need to get him onto a stretcher,” a trainer says. “An ambulance is on its way.”
Shane feels useless in this moment, glued to Ilya’s side – unable to do anything, unable to help - holding his hand until someone gently, but firmly, tells him they have to work, that he needs to let go.
“We can’t help him like this,” they say. “Please – let us do our job.”
“I have to stay with him,” Shane says – and it’s surreal, the lights blur around him – “Please I have to stay with him.”
“I know,” the trainer gently pulls on Shane’s hand, unlocking his fingers from where they’re so firmly clenched around Ilya’s. “You can stay with him, but we need to get him onto the stretcher.”
He backs away just enough to let them secure Ilya’s neck, stabilize his spine. Every movement makes Shane flinch.
Wake up, he wants to shout. Wake up.
As they lift Ilya onto the stretcher, Shane skates behind them, ignoring the official trying to stop him. He follows them off the ice, follows them through the doors that swallow the arena from view.
The final buzzer sounds behind him.
He doesn’t check the score.
The hospital corridor is too bright, too quiet, and far too long.
Shane paces it end to end, looping around and around and around. His skates are long gone but his legs are still moving, unable to stop.
And he thinks that maybe, if he just keeps moving – down this corridor - Ilya will be there, at the end. That Ilya will wrap his arms around Shane and bury his nose into his hair. That he might apologise for worrying him so much.
“I’m sorry,” Shane can hear him whisper. “I did not mean to scare you.”
He feels like he’s trapped mid-shift with nowhere to go. His legs ache, his heart aches. Every time he blinks all he can see is that moment - again and again - the shove, the boards, the way Ilya hadn’t moved.
He scrubs a hand down his face, breath hitching as it catches in his chest for the fifth, sixth, seventh time in a row.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. He coaches himself - In. Out. But it isn’t working.
“Okay,” he mutters to no one, voice cracking. “Okay, okay, okay…”
His hands tremble violently now. His vision tunneling as the hallway narrows around him – pressing inwards and squeezing him so tight he swears he can hear his ribs crack beneath the pressure. Or maybe that’s just the sound of Ilya’s body hitting the ground.
“Get a grip!”
He can hear the beep from a distant monitor, and it’s so loud. Everything is loud - every footstep an intrusion, every door slammed a jackhammer against his skull
He leans forward, bracing his hands on his knees, fighting the urge to curl in on himself right there on the cold linoleum floor.
Don’t do this. Not now. He heaves -
Blink
And he can’t get it to stop –
Blink
The moment of impact—the way Ilya’s body twisted –
Blink
The unnatural stillness afterward. The way his eyes hadn’t opened.
Blink.
Shane’s throat tightens, a sob tearing free before he can stop it. He drags his sleeve across his face, but it does nothing to slow the tears.
Tears he didn’t even realise were falling.
“I should’ve been there,” he whispers – to the empty hallway, to the ghost of Ilya’s hand on his shoulder. “I should’ve taken the hit.”
Footsteps approach—faster this time, purposeful. Shane barely registers them until arms wrap around him, solid and warm.
“Shane.”
His mother’s voice finally breaks through the noise in his head.
Oh.
Yuna Hollander pulls him against her without hesitation, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other rubbing slow, grounding circles between his shoulder blades. Shane collapses into her, fists clutching the front of her coat as he sobs rip themselves from his throat, breathing in sharp, uneven gasps.
“I can’t—” he tries, failing to finish the sentence. “He didn’t wake up. Mum, he didn’t—”
“I know,” Yuna murmurs, pressing her cheek to his hair. “I know darling.”
His dad pulls them both in close, the heat radiating from his body a welcome embrace across Shane’s back. One steady hand reaching around Shane’s chest and gripping his shoulder, firm and anchoring. “Breathe with me,” David says. “In. Slow.”
Shane tries, but it came out shaky – uneven – against his mum’s shoulder.
“Again,” David says, tightening his arms around Shane. “You’re safe. Ilya’s getting help. That’s all that matters right now.”
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
They slowly guide Shane to a chair, Yuna sitting beside him, never letting go of his hand.
“We came as soon as we saw the hit,” Yuna says. “I swear David made the two-hour drive an hour.”
“There was no one else on the road.” David says, as if that justified his speed.
Tears drip onto Shane’s legs, his tears. He’s unable to stop them from falling, they catch in his eyelashes and pool down his cheeks, cutting rivers into his skin.
Yuna wipes his face with a tissue from her pocket, smoothing his hair back the way she had when he was a kid, running towards her with a scraped knee.
“You love him,” she says softly. It wasn’t a question. Shane nods, throat too tight to speak. “And he knows that,” she continues. “He felt it on the ice. He feels it now.”
“I can’t believe you came,” he whispers – so grateful that they had, unsure if he could face this alone. “I’m so glad you’re here, you have no idea.”
“Of course we did sweetheart,” Yuna rubs circles on his cheeks with her thumbs. “He’s our family too.”
They wait together in that corridor—time stretching thin, every minute, every hour, heavy with fear. Shane leans into his parents, the panic easing just enough to keep him upright.
Time works slowly in spaces like these, liminal – both an eternity and a mere moment, a blink in the history of the world.
Shane feels like stone, weighed down, his movements sluggish. And still his parents’ warmth surrounds him, pulls him close as the occasional sob racks his chest.
And when the doctor finally, finally, appears at the far end of the hall - Shane feels his heart leap painfully into his throat. Yuna squeezes his hand as David straightens in the chair next to him.
“Shane Hollander?” The doctor asks, and Shane nods. “I have you registered as Ilya Rozanov’s next of kin. Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” Shane rasps – then, firmer – “Yes. I’m his husband”
“I’m Dr Cunningham, but you can call me Melissa.” The doctor says, her face softening. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to see Ilya.”
They follow her through a maze of hallways, surroundings unrecognizable to Shane. He knows, logically, that he must have come this way. Knows, logically, that after the ambulance staff had rushed Ilya into emergency, some poor nurse must have directed him to that quiet hallway, away from curious gazes. That they had given him a cup of tea and a blanket and had sat him down and told him to hold tight.
That Shane had thrown the blanket off as soon as they had left, had started pacing – the hallway closing in around him.
Shane’s heartbeat picks up again, every step feeling like it carries the weight of the last several hours with it. Yuna reaches for his hand again, and Shane holds on to it like a lifeline.
“He’s been in intensive care since he arrived,” Melissa says as they walk. “He’s stable, but we’re keeping him under close observation.”
Shane swallows, hard. “He still hasn’t woken up?”
“Not yet,” she replies honestly. “But that’s not uncommon given the nature of his injuries.”
They stop outside a room marked ICU and through the glass, Shane can see him.
Shane’s mouth is dry, a whimper choking its way out of his esophagus.
Ilya lies surrounded by monitors and tubes, his body eerily still beneath thin white sheets. A rigid brace supports his neck and upper spine. Machines beep softly, each sound a reminder that he’s alive—and fragile.
The ground is obliterated beneath Shane feet, his whole world crumbling down the edge of a cliff he didn’t even realise it was built upon – and he might collapse, if not for the firm grasp of his parents. Yuna’s hand soft and warm in his own, David’s arms wrapped around them both. Steady. Unbreakable.
The doctor turns to face them fully.
“I want to explain what we know so far,” she says. “Ilya has sustained unstable fractures to his thoracic spine—specifically the T3, T4, and T5 vertebrae. These are high-impact injuries consistent with a forceful collision.”
Shane’s mind snag on the words, each one sharp - cutting deeper and deeper into his chest. “How bad is it?”
“At this stage, we’ve confirmed the fractures through imaging,” she says. “We’ve relieved pressure on the spinal cord and surrounding tissue to help maintain the structural integrity of the impacted vertebrae. The full extent of neurological involvement can’t be determined until he regains consciousness, and we can perform a complete neurological exam.”
She pauses, then adds carefully, “What’s important is we don’t think there has been any substantial damage to the spinal cord. Based on what we’re seeing right now, I believe Ilya will recover.”
Shane’s knees nearly give out. Yuna wraps her free around his waist, holding him upright as he lets out a shaky breath – her firm grasp around his hand never once faltering.
“Okay,” he says, “that’s good… that’s good, right?”
“But,” the doctor continues, not unkindly, “I am concerned about the possibility of a herniated or ruptured disc in that region caused by the blunt force trauma. If the disc material has pressed against surrounding nerves, it could result in pain, altered sensation in his arms and legs, or muscle weakness.”
“Is that likely to cause ongoing pain?” David askes quietly.
“Yes,” she says. “That is a possibility.”
She doesn’t sugarcoat it – and Shane supposes that he should be grateful for that – but all he can think about is Ilya’s body, laid out on the ice.
Unmoving.
“In addition,” she goes on, “Ilya also sustained a significant blow to the head. We strongly suspect a serious concussion. Until he wakes, we won’t know the extent of cognitive symptoms—things like headaches, light sensitivity, memory issues, or emotional changes.”
Shane stares at the floor, then back at Ilya through the glass. “What happens now?”
The doctor nods, clearly prepared for the question.
“Right now, our priority is stabilization,” she explains. “His spine is immobilized to prevent further injury. We’re managing swelling aggressively with medication, and we’re monitoring his neurological status closely. If further imaging confirms spinal instability or severe disc involvement, surgery may be necessary to decompress the area and stabilize the vertebrae.”
“And the pain?” Shane askes, his voice breaking slightly. “If it… if it doesn’t go away.”
Her expression softens.
“We take that very seriously,” she says. “Pain management will be a major part of his treatment plan. Initially, we’ll manage acute pain with intravenous medications—opioids if necessary, combined with anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants.”
She continues, “As he stabilizes, we’ll transition to longer-term strategies. That may include nerve-targeting medications, physical therapy focused on strength and mobility, and possibly interventional treatments such as epidural steroid injections if nerve pain becomes an issue.”
Shane listens intently, clinging to every word.
“Should there be ongoing long-term pain,” she adds, “we’ll take a multidisciplinary approach. We’ll ensure he’s engaged with pain specialists, physiotherapists, and a psychologist. Managing pain isn’t just about medication—it’s about restoring function, preventing flare-ups, and supporting his mental health as well.”
Shane looks at Ilya, and he sees cold nights at the Cabin - Ilya staring, unseeing - into the flames of the fire pit, mind somewhere Shane can never reach. He sees a little yellow pill bottle in their kitchen cabinet, daily phone reminders pinging loudly in the morning.
He sees Ilya hunched over the table, tablet in hand – unable to bring himself to swallow.
Oh God.
“He’s…” Shane croaks. “Oh god, what do I do?”
“But now isn’t the time to panic, and I’m telling you this so we can manage expectations. We don’t know-”
“He’s already on anti-depressants, citalopram, 20mg.” Shane interrupts. “I can call his therapist – he has one, so we won’t need a new one. Maybe I can ask her to reach out to his psychiatrist…”
He feels the anxiety bubbling behind his eyes, the uneasy prickling across the bridge of his nose. It all hurts – it hurts so fucking much.
He doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to fix this – how to make it better.
“Will we need to change his dosage? Oh god…”
“Shane,” Yuna wraps both arms firmly around Shane, squeezing him until all he can focus on is the sensation of warm heavy weight around his ribs. “He won’t be alone in this.”
“No,” the doctor agreed. “And neither will you. We can’t do anything until he wakes up and we know what we’re working with.” She steps aside and opens the door. “You can go in now. Talk to him.”
Shane moves first, crossing the threshold and approaching the bed slowly, carefully, as if the slightest misstep might break something irreparable.
“I’ll check back in shortly, take some time to process what I’ve just told you.” The doctor leaves, and they’re finally alone.
He takes Ilya’s hand, warm beneath his fingers.
“I’m here,” Shane whispers, voice trembling but steady enough. “You don’t have to wake up yet. I just want to you know. Know that I’m here.”
The machines hum on, steady and patient.