Chapter Text
Feb 2017 - Montreal
Shane wakes and immediately knows that something is wrong.
The unfamiliar ceiling stares back at him as the last vestiges of sleep cling to him like ambrosia. He’s trying, and failing based on the painful squeeze of his head, to remember how he even got here. All he remembers is Ilya’s distraught face and the cold mercy of the ice against his body as everything fades to black. He faintly remembers telling the paramedics something. There was something important he needed to say. Something else was wrong with him, he knew on some innate level.
He told them to tell Ilya not to worry, Shane thinks, based on their wide eyes. Maybe that was enough.
“Shane,” he hears his mother call for him. Yuna fills his vision with tears in her eyes. He hates that he caused those tears. His mother sighs in relief as she squeezes his hand. “Honey.”
“Mom.”
She calls the doctor, and they do a quick examination. They tell him about his injuries, how his omega body suffered from the force of a hulking alpha ramming into him at full speed. But they tell him that it could’ve been worse, with a strange relief. It could’ve been way worse. His mother has a conflicted look on her face at that one.
The hustle and bustle is too much for him and Shane feels himself slipping into darkness again. But his mother is uncharacteristically twitchy, and it sets off an uncharacteristic annoyance in Shane.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Shane says firmly, as firm as someone high on painkillers can go. “Mom, what is going on?”
Yuna Hollander finally stops her fidgeting and catches his gaze quickly, before they fall to the ground.
He briefly wonders what news would await him. Has some brand dropped him because of his broken omega body? An omega with a broken collarbone too inelegant for a watch deal?
On many levels, Shane knew he was unconventional. Tall, broad and muscular for an omega. Barely big enough to pass for an alpha. That he was a god on the ice, on par with Rozanov and sometimes better, is a testament to his skills, and not a biological advantage. He knew how to take advantage of his deficiencies, his coaches have said, as though he wasn’t in the room with them.
Shane wonders who or what his omega traits have disappointed now.
Yuna collects herself and catches his eye again. She rises from her seat and settles next to him, holding his hand and allowing her relaxing scent to flow between them. It relaxes Shane enough for him to fall asleep again.
“Honey,” Yuna says quietly. “Have you had a… special someone?”
Shane freezes, eyes popping awake.
“It’s okay if you do. Or don’t,” Yuna continues with a steadiness that sets Shane’s nerves on fire. “Man or woman is fine. Just… have you had anyone?”
Shane would later decide that he hallucinated this conversation with his mother about his sex life.
Shane nods, unsure of what to say. Yuna seems to loosen a little, but her grip is strong and her gaze unshakeable.
“You’re…” Yuna hesitates. Yuna rarely hesitates. Shane internally spirals, wondering how he’s failed his mother now.
“Pregnant,” Yuna says quickly. “There’s a bun in the oven, Shane.”
For a moment, the whole universe seems to be silent.
And all Shane can think about is-
Ilya.
Oh god.
“You are almost 5 months along,” Yuna continues. Shane barely hears her but feels their hands clasped and squeezed. “A cryptic pregnancy. You wouldn’t have known. But the baby is okay. They’re safe, Shane. By some miracle, they’re okay.”
Shane forces himself to breathe. It comes in gasps and sobs as Yuna bundles him into a hug.
He’s a bad omega. A really bad omega. He hadn’t known. He was too small to withstand a hit from Marlow and he was broken in the process.
He’s panicking. Why is that? He doesn’t know why exactly. But he allows Yuna to rock him, hold him close, and whisper reassurances, as he forces his body to breathe along with hers.
He’s pregnant. Oh god. He’s a bad omega. Ilya wouldn’t want him. He’s pregnant. Ilya doesn’t know.
Ilya doesn’t know.
Ilya can’t know. Ilya will leave. They can’t risk it. Ilya must hate him. He’s a bad omega. Ilya will leave him. Ilya can’t know. Ilya can’t know. Ilya can’t know.
Shane falls asleep to his mother’s rocking, his nose pressed against her neck.
The next thing Shane wakes to the faintest glimmer of sunlight shining on his face. It gives him a headache, but the sun is warm and it energises him.
The last thought he has before slipping under comes rising to the surface. Frantically, he looks down at his abdomen and finds it completely flat. Surely, there can’t be a baby in there…
But then something clicks.
It made sense why he was eating more calories than usual. Why he found himself craving sugary drinks. Why his instincts kept yelling at him whenever he was tired.
Why he felt the sudden urge to find every soft piece of clothing in his home and bring it to his bed.
Before he can really think about it more, his mother returns, his father in tow. He freezes as he searches his father’s face for any signs of disappointment.
He finds none.
Instead, David Hollander has tears in his eyes as he wraps Shane in a tight hug and whispers that everything is okay. Dad is here to protect you.
When they pull apart, David looks down at his abdomen. Shane stills as he tries to find any hint of disappointment in his father’s expression. Briefly, he wonders if his father has x-ray vision to see the no-doubt curly hair this baby will have.
(The fact that Shane has allowed himself to visualise this is something he needs to unpack later.)
He still finds none of that.
Instead, David smiles brightly and says, “Wow, there’s really nothing there! Maybe your mother hallucinated it!”
“There is,” Yuna insists, already looking through her phone camera. Thoughtfully, she lowers the brightness and hands the phone to Shane, who finds himself staring at an ultrasound photo.
Of what looks to be a very developed baby.
He swipes and finds a photo of the tech holding a wand to his passed-out body, the ultrasound still on screen. He has no doubt his mother took this as undoubted proof of his condition.
“The doctor said we should be having another scan soon,” Yuna says, taking away the phone from her stunned son and husband. “They need to check on them.”
Shane distantly hears his mother chatting away. He allows slumber to take him, the sight of the ultrasound still clear in his mind.
The next thing Shane wakes, his mother gently shakes him awake.
“They say that Ilya Rozanov is here,” Yuna whispers. “Do you want visitors?”
Shane has honestly no idea what day it is. His body and head don’t hurt as much, so he probably was on the good shit. He finds himself nodding before he can really think it through, and Yuna sweeps out of the room like a hurricane.
Still, despite everything in the last few hours, the joy of seeing Ilya wins out.
The painkillers make him slur, and the world feels right again with Ilya’s scent in his nose and Ilya’s hands in his.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says.
“It sucks.”
“I know.”
But Ilya’s face is sad when the alpha reaches up to touch his cheek with a reverence that makes Shane shiver. He’s sad. Shane wishes he weren’t the cause of this sadness. Fuck Marlow, even if it was a hockey accident that was bound to happen a few times in his career. Shane had way better things to do - like invite Ilya to his cottage this summer over a nice dinner in his apartment.
And, well, he now has bigger news, he supposes.
“I wanted to talk to you last night, before this happened,” Shane tells him instead.
Still, Shane thinks, Ilya is uncharacteristically stiff. There’s a hardness to his face that stops Shane in his tracks, no matter how loopy he is.
He knows that look.
That look never means anything good.
He sees Ilya collect himself.
“Shane,” Ilya says.
“Ilya,” Shane replies.
It would be a good idea to invite the alpha to his cottage. But Shane needs to know what Ilya has to say and-
“Let’s end this.”
Ilya whispers this so quietly and looks away, withdrawing his hand. Shane thinks he must have misheard.
“What?”
Ilya sighs and nods. His expression is utterly wrecked. Shane can see the way the stoicism wavers, as though Ilya was trying not to cry. Ilya collects himself again after a breath.
“We can’t do this anymore.”
Shane’s world falls apart.
His mind immediately runs a mile a minute. Did he do something wrong? They were so close at the All-Stars. Shane confessed that he liked Ilya first, for heaven’s sake and-
You’re a bad omega.
You’re broken.
Unwanted. Not good enough for him.
“Hollander-”
Shane feels as though he has been slapped.
“Get out,” Shane bites out.
They can’t risk it. Ilya hates him. He’s a bad omega. Ilya will leave him. Ilya can’t know. Ilya can’t know. Ilya can’t know.
Ilya stands rooted to the spot, as if hesitating if he should soothe a distressed Shane, as though he wasn’t the cause of said distress. Shane glares at him coldly.
“Get. Out.” Shane snarls. “Don’t contact me, Rozanov. Get lost. Fuck off. I don’t care. Get out!”
That seems to snap Ilya out of his stupor, and he hastily leaves, nearly bumping into the distressed nurses who rush into Shane’s room at the blaring of the heart monitor.
Shane doesn’t quite care. Too angry, too hurt and too sad. The next thing he knows is his mother holding him as he cries, sobbing into her shoulder, smelling like a sad, distressed and abandoned omega.
“I’m not good enough for him,” he tells his mother between sobs. “I’m a bad omega, aren’t I? Born to be weird and unlovable.”
Yuna, bless her heart, does not pry. She whispers reassurances in his ear until Shane eventually falls asleep in her arms once more.
Ilya makes it past the nurses' station before collapsing into a chair at the far end of the hall. He hugs his knees to his chest and cries softly, uncaring for the stares.
He looks and feels utterly wrecked, as though he’s left half his soul in that hospital room. It’s confusing. He doesn’t know why his alpha is screaming at him to go back. He’s done exactly what he needs to do, and yet it felt so, so wrong.
The emotions scare him. It’s unfamiliar, too sudden, too harsh, too much, like a tsunami crashing against a city. He tries to rein it and his alpha side in, his control thin with every breath he wills his body to take.
It’s been like this for months.
He doesn’t know what has come over him. But he knows it feels bad, wrong, somehow. The sudden emotions that threaten to overwhelm him take him back to a simpler, albeit traumatic time in his life. He remembers the overwhelming force of his father’s anger as a young Ilya stands battered and bruised in front of his mother. He remembers the wildness in his father’s eyes and wonders if this is what his father felt.
He never wants Shane to experience this. It scares him that he can barely control himself around Shane.
An ugly part of him had always hated the sight of Shane getting slammed into the boards.
And it had grown and grown and grown.
Until Ilya stood dumbfounded on the ice, staring at Shane’s unmoving body.
His alpha had roared with rage while Ilya himself froze, his mother’s lifeless body in front of him.
And it took every ounce of control not to run to Shane. To not expose them, because Shane wouldn’t want that. It took just as much control not to tear Marlow’s head off for hurting Shane. It took a monumental amount of effort for him to move back to the benches and finish the game with his thoughts racing.
And then Ilya thought: What if he actually lost control?
Shane would get hurt.
They would get exposed.
Shane-
It was better this way. To end it.
Ilya sobs, a broken sound that barely escapes his throat.
There was no going back now.
“Fuck,” Ilya swears.
Ilya wonders if this is what dying feels like.