Chapter Text
October, 2017
The slow beeps and steady hum of machines are the first thing that Shane’s consciousness cling to when he comes back to his body. He can feel the stiff mattress underneath, his hip throbbing a little where it’s been settled too long. He resists opening his eyes because he knows what he’ll find - bright fluorescent lighting and discolored tiles lined up in slightly crooked rows across the ceiling in a sterile hospital room. He’s been here before. Hazard of the job.
Shane sifts through his thoughts but some of them slip away, like sand shifting under his feet. Some images are too sharp, too bright, others are dull and fuzzy around the edges. He’d been at a game - that much he’s sure of. He remembers scoring, the game going well. And then he remembers something hitting his knees from behind and the sensation of falling backwards. Fuck. His head hurts.
He’s not sure how long he lays there before he risks opening his eyes, squinting at the unsurprising intensity of the lights. Shane’s eyes feel crusted at the sides and his mouth feels dry. He can feel cold tubes around and under his skin, see them snaking out around the edges of the scratchy blanket covering most of his body. He doesn't see any bandages though. No casts or splints. Shane lifts his arms slightly and finds them free and unharmed, save for the IV in the back of his hand.
Before he could catalogue much more, Shane’s eyes snap to the door. A women in her thirties pushes through with a clipboard. She's wearing colorful purple scrubs and a high ponytail and freezes froze when she sees him.
“Mr. Hollander…you’re awake,” she says, before quickly turning around and leaning back out the door. She gestures with her hand towards someone out of sight and before Shane knows it there are four people hovering around him - checking his vitals, shining a pen light in his eyes, testing reflexes. It's overwhelming. He tries to talk but feels like he has cotton in his mouth.
“Wh…” he coughs.
The nurse with the purple, Addie, she said her name was, swivels around with a cup and a straw. The bed whirs to life as it props him up further and he carefully cups his hands around the smaller ones holding the cup, taking a few sips of water. He coughs again.
“Easy,” she says. “You’ve been out for a couple days so you need to go slowly.”
“Days?”
“Yes,” she says a little hesitantly, looking at the man in the white coat for guidance. He shakes his head at her. “The doctor will explain everything shortly. You just rest now.”
She gives his chest a small pat and Shane sighs heavily, letting himself sink back into the bed.
“Where are my parents?” he manages to croak, sounding like he smokes a pack a day.
“They’re here,” Addie says quickly. “Just stepped out. We’ll have someone bring them back.”
Less than thirty seconds later his parents step through the door, each with a paper coffee cup in hand. They go still at the sight before them.
“Shane!” his mother cries, rushing over to him instantly. He watches some of the liquid slosh out of the little hole in the top of her cup as she leans in and claws at his hospital gown, pressing her face to his collar. “Oh baby, you’re awake.”
“Hi mom,” he says, reaching around her back with his left hand that remains untethered.
When she withdraws, he notices a nurse had taken the coffee cups and set them down so both of his parents could fret over him with equal measure.
“You gave us a scare there, kiddo,” his dad says, taking Shane’s hand in both of his and squeezing.
They both look on the verge of tears and Shane wonders how bad it had been. His parents love him to the point of being overbearing sometimes. But they also know hockey. And they know he can take a hit.
“What happened?” he asks, squinting a little under the glare of the lights.
“You took a hard hit on the ice, honey,” Yuna explains. “Hit your head. You had a brain bleed. They had to put you in a medically induced coma for 48 hours to give the swelling time to go down. But you’re going to be okay. The doctor said you should make a full recovery.”
“I can play?”
“Yes, baby. You can play.”
That relaxes him a little. He closes his eyes and listens to his parents consult with the doctor and nurses until he feels the room grow quiet again, the door opening and closing. He almost allows himself to give in to the pull of sleep, assured that things would be okay. But then his mind caught on a detail he hadn’t recognized the significance of in the moment.
“How long have I been here? What’s the date?” he asks, opening his eyes again. His parents are the only ones still in the room.
Almost three days. And. Fuck. He’d been playing Boston.IIn Boston. Shane's eyes search the room. His parents' coats and laptop bags were strewn across the chairs against the wall but there was no sign of anything else. Had they spoken with Ilya? Of course they had. They wouldn’t keep him in the dark even if it might be difficult for him to show up at the hospital, given their continued secrecy. They know how important Ilya is to Shane…and Shane to Ilya. Still, Shane is a little surprised he isn’t here.
“Where’s Ilya?” he asks quietly, even though there’s no one else in the room to overhear them. “Have you talked to him?”
His parents share a look that he belatedly interprets as confusion.
“Ilya?” his dad asks.
“Rozanov?” his mother says, almost at the same time.
“I know it would be hard for him to come but he’s probably worried. Have you talked to him? Does he know I’m okay?”
The pinched expression his mother is wearing is something he doesn’t see very often. She’s almost always the smartest person in the room and tends to be a bit of a know-it-all. A trait Shane had unfortunately picked up himself and had to work for years to employ tactfully. But it's not often that Yuna Hollander looks like she's out of the loop of an important piece of information.
“Um…I’m not sure honey,” she says, her tone cautious. “The Metros released a statement. He probably saw it. But…Shane, do you think Rozanov was the one who hit you? It was St. Simon. Clean…doesn’t mean I don’t want to run into him in a dark alley…”
Shane’s expression matches hers now, he’s sure of it. He knew Ilya hadn’t been the one to hit him. He remembers seeing him seconds before going down, fifteen feet away, dodging around J.J. to chase after the puck Shane had stolen from him.
“Can you just…can you call him, please?” Shane asks.
He knows they’d only had a few encounters with Ilya at the cottage but why are they acting like…like he's just another player? Like Shane's rival? Had his parents not actually been okay with the two of them together and just pretended for Shane’s sake?
“I…” Yuna stands to her full height and exchanges another look with her husband before dropping her gaze back down to Shane. “I can try to get his number. If you really want to talk to him. I can see if I can get a hold of Boston’s management. I’m not sure they’ll just give it to me though. It could take a while.”
Sighing, Shane squeezes his eyes closed. He’s so tired. “Just give me my phone, I can call.”
“Shane you know you shouldn’t be looking at screens yet. Not for another few hours at least…”
“I don’t care. Give me my phone,” he says, a little snappishly.
Yuna sighs and slowly moves towards a small table on the opposite side of the room. She digs through a clear plastic bag of his belongings he’d been brought in with and plucks his phone from the contents.
“I’ll dial, and you keep it short,” she says, holding his phone in her palm.
He watches her thumb brush across the screen in a repetitive motion, brows knitting closer together with each passing second.
“I don’t see his contact information here,” she says, still scrolling.
“It’s under Lily,” says Shane, turning his head away to hide the flush creeping onto his cheeks.
He’s never told them about that particular piece of their past.
“There’s no Lily in here,” adds Yuna. “Are you sure you have his number?”
“Of course I have his number mom, he’s my boyfriend,” he says, exasperated.
Yuna flinches so hard she drops his phone. His dad hastily scoops it up but doesn’t hand it back immediately. They’re both staring at him like he’s grown three heads.
“What?” he barks.
Fine. So maybe his parents weren’t as okay with Ilya as they let on. But that wasn’t going to stop him from talking to his fucking boyfriend who was probably losing his damn mind over Shane being MIA for almost 72 hours.
“Shane…baby…” says Yuna, her features twisting to something like grief. Her bottom lip trembles. “....you’re gay?”
What?
Ignoring his relationship was one thing but pretending he hadn’t come out to them in the most stressful way possible was another. Shane can feel the anger bubbling in his chest.
“....you said you were fine with it,” he grits, feeling moisture prickling at the edges of his eyes.
“Oh honey of course we are,” Yuna says quickly, reaching down to take his hand. His father puts his hand over her shoulder and smiles at Shane, looking both shocked but empathetic. “We just didn’t know. Of course it’s okay…we love you. We are so proud of you. It doesn’t matter to us who you want to be with.”
She reaches up and pushes a hand through his hair and the anger stalls, viscosity thinning and dissolving almost immediately. But now Shane is the one who is fucking confused.
“Dad…give me my phone.”
“Baby…” Yuna tries.
“Please. Just for a minute.”
He feels a little panicked and knows it’s coming through with his tone, the flare in his nostrils.
His dad looks at the phone first, slides his finger on the screen, and then hands it to Shane. The brightness is almost all the way down. Shane quickly pulls up his contacts and scrolls through them. But his mom was telling the truth. There isn’t any contact for Lily. Or Ilya.
“Shane…you said that Rozanov…he’s your boyfriend?”
Where did his contact go? Nothing else seems to be missing. Did it get deleted somehow? He checks his photos next. They had been very careful of the years, but over the summer Shane had taken a couple photos. Two of Ilya on his own, and one of the two of them. He tucked them away in a hidden, password protected folder of his gallery. He can’t find that either.
“I don't…I don’t understand…” he whispers, ignoring his mother.
“Don’t understand what?” his father asks.
“Ilyas number…the photos. They’re gone. Did someone…did anyone go through my stuff?” he feels the anxiety creeping back in. What if someone found out? “Did anything…do people know about us?”
“About who, Shane?” his mother asks, gently. She’s withdrawn a little but her hands are still clamped around his arm.
“About me and Ilya!” he nearly yells, dropping a few decibels after the first ragged syllable escapes.
“I…I don’t think so,” his mother says. “I mean we didn’t even know until just now. Oh honey…you’re…you’re dating Rozanov?”
“Why are you acting like you don’t know this?” he cries. “He came to our fucking house. You made him dinner. We talked about a whole five year plan for christs sake. I know we’re waiting to come out and we still have to hide…but there’s no one in here but us. You don’t have to pretend he doesn’t fucking exist!”
He’s crying now. Exhausted to the bone. His head hurts. His back and shoulders hurt. His parents are looking at him like there is something deeply, deeply wrong with him. They look...scared.
Shane watches his mother take a shuddering breath of her own. She leans down, kisses his temple and tells him she will be right back.
“Dad…” he says, choking on the word.
“I know son, it’s okay. We’re just surprised. It’s okay…” David says, his hands rougher than his Yunas but no less grounding when they squeeze his shoulder.
“I need Ilya,” he says, desperately, pathetically. He can feel his lungs constricting, making it harder to breathe and the machine he’s hooked up to starts beeping with more frequency, quickening with his heart rate.
“I know,” his father says again. “We’ll figure it out. Just rest, okay. Just breathe.”
~*~
The next time Shane wakes up there are people in the room. The lights have dimmed. Or, no. That’s not right. It’s a different room. This one has a window and the walls are beige instead of white. There are flowers on nearby tables and it's more spacious than the last.
“Mr. Hollander,” says the man in the white coat, the same from before. He’s looking down at Shane with a smile and shines that stupid light in his eyes again. “Glad you could join us.”
The joke lands flat and he can see his mothers arms cross where she's watching from the end of the bed.
“Do you think you’re up to answering a few questions?”
No. But he wants some answered and figures it’s something to trade.
Most of it’s pretty standard - his name, birthday, the month, the year. The doctor asks who the president is, his mom encouraging to ask about the prime minister instead, since he’s fucking Canadian - he answers both. He tells them how he ended up in the hospital. How he’d taken a bad hit in his second game of the season. Then they ask him more personal questions that were obviously supplied by his parents. Who is his best friend - Hayden. What kind of car does he drive - Land Rover. Does he have any pets - No. What did he do over the summer - Go to the cottage. He tacks on ‘with my boyfriend,’ since he’s pretty sure the doctor isn’t allowed to say anything and he's still a bit frustrated at his parents lack of acknowledgement from his parents. He tries not to glare at them. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. He can’t remember the last time he was mad at either of them. Not really.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?” Shane blurts, feeling like he’s under a fucking microscope.
“Shane…your parents have some concerns that you’re experiencing some confusion. Some memory loss,” says the doctor, sitting on the edge of his bed by his knee.
Shane shifts away on instinct. He crosses his arm across his chest and does his best to make eye contact, first pausing on the nametag across the man's chest. Doctor Mulden.
“Memory loss?”
“Shane…” his mother says, calmly, moving to the other side of the bed. She takes his hand and he lets her, resisting the urge to pull away. “You told us you brought your boyfriend to the house this summer. And to the cottage. You told us we met him…made dinner for him…do you remember telling us that?”
“Yes,” he says, snippily, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I told you what, like three hours ago? You’re the one acting like you don’t remember.”
“That’s because we don’t,” she says, not unkindly. “Honey your dad and I have never met your boyfriend. We don’t…none of that happened, Shane.”
“What do you mean none of it happened? Of course it…” he pauses.
Of course it happened. He remembers it so clearly. Whatever happened to him on the ice, he hadn’t forgotten anything. Had he?
So why doesn't he have Ilya’s number? What happened to their texts, to the pictures?
Dread licks up Shane’s body like ice water, starting at his toes and creeping up his spine until he feels frozen. Underwater. Trapped.
“I’m not…I’m not crazy…” he tries. Not sure of who he’s trying to convince.
And still, all he can think about is wanting Ilya. His chaotic, loud Russian who somehow calmed every flare of anxiety in Shane’s veins with gentle touch and soothing words that Shane didn’t even need to understand to feel.
“No one is saying that, Shane,” insists Dr. Mulden, who looks entirely too concerned for Shane’s liking. “Listen…it may be nothing. But we’re going to run a few tests. I don’t want you to worry, okay? Head injuries can be tricky. Your last scans came back clear so you’re not in any immediate danger, but we’ll just double check some things. We’ll get to the bottom of this, alright?”
The bottom of what!?
“Okay,” he says instead, nodding his head and not even feeling the gesture. He feels numb.
~*~
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Shane is pretty sure the medications they have him on are the only thing dulling his senses enough to stave off a panic attack. He tries not to let himself think too deeply about things. About what it could mean that he remembers things his parents are telling him didn’t happen. If that’s the truth…if that’s reality…he wonders if it might have been easier to just forget.
He convinces his parents to leave after eight o’clock that night. They won’t have the results of his many, many tests until the following day so he encourages them to go back to the hotel and sleep. He’s in Boston General, he’s learned. They had hopped on a flight the minute he’d gone down in the game, having been watching from home.
Around ten, he’s still unable to sleep so he twists a little awkwardly to grab his phone from the rolling table beside the bed. He’s technically allowed screens, just supposed to limit his time.
For several minutes he just stares at the device, not sure what his intentions had been. Then he opens his rarely used instagram app. Ilya’s account is there, just like he remembers it. They’re even following each other. A fragment of the tension he's been holding leaves his chest and he drags a finger along the stupid profile picture. He shakes his head and jams the same finger on the ‘message’ button.
There aren’t any messages here either - but he didn’t expect any. They’d never communicated on social media. It was too risky. Staring at the little ‘active now’ indicator under Ilya’s name, he starts typing before he loses his nerve. If it’s real he has to know. And if it’s not…
He swallows heavily. Ilya responds almost right away.
His phone rings a few seconds after he sends his number and Shane stares at it. He’s trying to remember if it's the same number he’d had under ‘Lily’ but it doesn’t look familiar. But then, he’d never bothered memorizing it. It comes through as unknown.
Shane brings the phone to his ear but doesn’t speak immediately. Not that it’s necessary. Ilya fills the silence quickly.
“What’s going on, Hollander?”
The flinch he makes is subtle but the gasp audible. Ilya sounds annoyed. Worried maybe, but annoyed. But for some reason, his voice is still soothing to Shane.
“I just…I’m…they said…I don’t…” he stammers, suddenly realizing he hasn’t actually thought this through. How does he say ‘Hey…so remember when you came to my cottage this summer and met my parents and we talked about our future together? They said it didn’t happen.’
For a moment, Shane thinks Ilya has hung up on him. But then his voice drops an octave, the words coming out slower. More serious. “....Did you break your head, Hollander?”
“Shane,” he responds, automatically.
“What?”
“It’s Shane.”
The swell of emotion reaches his eyes again, stinging and pressure around his lids. I’m going crazy, he thinks.
“Okay. Shane,” repeats Ilya, quieter now.
“You don’t remember…” Shane breathes, barely above a whisper. He reached up and fists the fabric of his gown at the center of his chest, fingers curling against the muscle underneath. He doesn’t remember.
“Remember what?”
Shaking his head, Shane feels the tears escape his lashes, landing on his exposed collarbone where the fabric has been pushed to the side. He doesn’t remember.
“Any of it…that we…”
“Are you okay, Hollander?” asks Ilya, sounding genuinely worried. Which should make Shane feel better, but it doesn’t. Because it doesn’t mean he cares. It means Shane is losing his fucking mind
“No…I don’t think I am…” he chokes out, voice breaking. He hopes Ilya doesn’t hear it but he’s sure he does.
He hangs up the phone. It rings. He declines the call through blurry vision. It rings again. He turns it off.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.
He doesn't remember. It’s not real. None of it was real.
He breaks. Not in an ostentatious way with heaving sobs and agonizing cries that would draw the nearby healthcare workers to his aid. But in a quiet, miserable catastrophe…a tempest beneath the surface of his pores that he contains so he can fall apart alone. With tear tracks staining his cheeks and his fingernails digging into his palms hard enough to break skin. With his jaw clenched and stomach muscles aching as he curls in on himself.
When it’s over and he doesn’t have any energy left to grieve…he’s not even sure what he’s grieving. Shane isn’t sure what hurts more. That there is definitely something wrong with him…that maybe his brain is broken. Or that he prefers his imagination to reality.
~*~
Shane is no stranger to shoving his emotions under a mask of professionalism and decorum. He does it the next day when he talks with his parents. When he very calmly, mortifyingly, explains that yes, he is gay. And yes, he has memories that he was in a relationship with Ilya Rozanov. He doesn’t give them details or tell them the enormity of what he feels or the elaborate web his brain has apparently spun. But he gives them the broad strokes. He also tells them he reached out to Ilya, who doesn’t seem to remember - unsurprisingly.
For a moment his mother seems worried Ilya might out him but he assures her he was vague and Ilya couldn’t possibly have guessed any of this from their brief conversation. Fuck. Not Ilya. Rozanov. He’s not Ilya…not the Ilya that Shane believes he is, anyways.
“What’s wrong with me?” he asks, sounding stronger than he feels.
His parents are on each side, gripping both of his hands, as Dr. Mulden stands at his feet. He looks like he’s trying to decide if he wants to tell Shane the truth or if he needs to rearrange his words to something more palatable.
“It’s called false memory syndrome,” the doctor explains. “It’s rare and not well understood. But it can sometimes happen with brain injuries. We believe you are experiencing fabricated memories, delusions, likely caused by the intracranial hemorrhage. You are not completely out of the woods, but the bleed has stopped and the swelling is down. All your tests came back within normal limits. Medically speaking, you’re healthy.”
“Except for the fucking fantasy world I’ve built in my brain…” he snaps, unable to stop myself.
“Honey,” his mom squeezes his hand.
The doctor holds up his hand. “It’s alright. It’s common for patients to experience irritability and mood swings. And the psychological aspect of this is traumatizing on its own. We will make some recommendations for psychiatric care, which is the recommended treatment for this kind of memory issue. And we’ll continue to monitor things for the next few months.”
Shane pulls his hands from his parents grip, crossing his arms across his chest. It’s meant to look intimidating or indignant but probably comes off like he’s trying to hide, more than anything.
“When can I play again?”
“Six weeks,” Dr. Mulden says quickly, as though he was expecting the question. “Four, possibly, if you complete all your follow up testing and PT. And follow concussion protocol like it’s your job…”
He says the last part knowingly and Shane shoots a small glare at his mom. She’s definitely been in the doctors ear.
“Will I ever…” he hesitates, not sure he wants to know. “Will the fake memories go away? Will I be able to tell what’s real?”
“I wish I could answer that for you Mr. Hollander,” says the doctor. “In some cases, yes. They do dissipate or it becomes easier to identify the false memories. Sometimes getting back to a regular routine and everyday interactions can help. But in other cases it can be permanent. What’s important is to work with a professional so you can learn how to manage it for now. I’m sure someone more specialized can give you more information, but it’s alright to ask if you’re not sure about a memory. Have people help you discern what’s real and what isn’t. The important part is not acting on the psychosis.”
Psychosis. Delusions. False.
So he is crazy. His brain is broken.
He nods, as though he’s accepted the information and waits for the staff to leave before burying his head in his hands. David steps in and places a firm hand on his back.
“It’s going to be alright, Shane. We’ll get through this.”
“This is so fucking embarrassing,” he says, the groan muffled into his palms.
“Oh honey, it’s not,” says his mom. “It’s just an injury. Like anything else. It’s not your fault.”
Shane drops his hands and stares at her. “I don’t think people usually conjure up an imaginary boyfriend when they break a leg, mom.”
She sighs and holds her hands up in defeat.
And he’s not entirely sure it isn’t his fault. What possible reason could he have for creating this fantasy in his head without wanting it already? He remembers wanting Rozanov. Since the first time they touched at the draft in that dingy hotel gym. It had only been a brush of hands, Rozannov’s sweaty fingers sliding over his as they passed a water bottle between them. But it felt electric.
And it probably didn’t even fucking happen, Shane thinks.
So then why Rozanov? They were definitely rivals. Shane spent the better part of his morning googling them. There were dozens of articles about the two of them over the years, starting from their rookie season. The CCM shoot had happened…though Shane assumed not quite like he remembered it. He was definitely gay. If not only for what he currently felt when he thought about the Boston captain but his texts with Rose were still intact. They weren’t explicit or detailed, but she teased him frequently and the context was pretty clear.
So, sure. He would leave later that evening with a mild concussion and recovered brain bleed, along with a laundry list of care instructions to take care of his head, but he would be stepping into a world that never really existed. Into a nightmare so terrible he'd never even considered it a possibility.