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In one moment, Hollander is right there — perhaps just ten, fifteen yards ahead, effortlessly gliding across the ice, the bottom of his stick dancing with the puck he’s got in his possession. 

Rozanov can’t see his expression, only the back of his helmet, but he can picture the smug, crinkly eyed grin he’s got plastered across his face — giddy with excitement, as if every game he played was his first, leagues ahead the teammates that chase him for the puck. 

Ilya can’t take his eyes off of him. Mostly because that’s just how the game goes, he’d like the win, also for his own game and glory. But also because the way Hollander moves is so fluid. So effortless in the way his body tilts a little, giving him some leverage as he sweeps past Karlsson like he’s flying.

So when Hollander suddenly drops to the ice with a resounding thud, he can’t quite wrap his head around what’d happened.

Nothing stills, not straight away. It feels more like a train running out of steam the way everybody starts to slow down. 

Pike was already throwing his gloves off, throwing his voice towards a stunned looking Cliff Marleau whom Ilya knew was actually innocent in all this.

Nobody had touched Shane — there’d been no dirty plays or even accidental ones. One second he’d been flying, and the next he was sliding across the ice in a crumbled heap, his stick and the discarded puck skittering towards the boards with abandon.

“What the fuck?” He hears one of his teammates say as they come to a stop beside him. Ilya hadn’t even realised he’d come to a halt. All he could see was Shane. 

Officials have already filled the rink, coming in between Pike and Marleau, waving their arms as Pike continues to hurl out a reel of insults at the other man, his face only getting redder and more twisted.

But Ilya didn’t care about that. All he cared about was why Hollander was on the floor, and why he hadn’t gotten back up yet.

Murmurs echoed around the crowd which Ilya only remembered now was watching. He feels like he floats forwards, towards where more officials and some of Shane’s team were approaching his body. 

“What is happening?” He barely registered his own voice, scraping out the back of his tightening throat. 

He doesn’t know who he says it to in particular, all he wants to know is the answer. He wants to know what to do.

The crowd, confusion bleeds through the stands, people standing to get a better view — like the was some dramatic speculation, and Ilya wishes he could wave his stick at them all and tell them to shut up and sit down.

But he can’t find himself to do anything. Just stand, and stare, mouth agape as his brain spins every ridiculous scenario.

Perhaps he’d tripped. It was stupid to even think of because Shane never tripped. He never made stupid mistakes like that, but… but he hadn’t been touched. 

Had he?

A whistle blows, somebody yells, the voice echoey and strained. 

Something… something was wrong. Seriously wrong. 

Ilya isn’t counting now but when he’d watch the footage back much later on, he’d know that it took thirty eight long, horrible seconds for the medics to get onto the ice to Shane. 

And as soon as that happens, chaos seems to erupt just about everywhere. 

“Jesus.” That’s Dubek now, beside him with his stick slung casually over his shoulder. Ilya swears his heart might burst right through his gear and splatter at his feet. “This looks bad, huh?”

Ilya doesn’t get a chance to answer him, unsure that he might not be able to with the way that all words seem to fail him now. Members of the Metro’s are scrambling with panic, some yelling up into the crowds for more officials, the rest of them seem to be circling around Shane and the medics. 

“Rozanov!”

His name scrapes through the air — it’s his coach, beckoning him off the ice. He barely has the momentum to turn around. None of his team remained on the rink now, all but Ilya. “Off, now!”

But he can’t move. He cannot move. He wants to glide forward, push through the ring that Shane’s team had formed protectively around him with their arms locked over their shoulder, to push through and collapse at his side, begging him to get up. 

He isn’t sure how much time passes between being beckoned off the ice as he just stands here, but he’s suddenly being scruffed; a fist in the back of his shirt, and he’s scrambling backwards off the ice, until he’s not, and it’s like he’s never even walked in skates before the way his legs buckle underneath him, struggling to get his balance.

“Fuckin’, easy, Roz,” Marleau curses gently at him, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. 

Ilya exhales hard, like it feels more like he’s choking than breathing. 

“What.. what happened?” He asks. He can see officials in the crowd now, directing the spectators off the benches. 

Fuck. They were being made to leave. And they hadn’t taken Shane off the ice yet. 

“We don’t fucking know,” Marleau says wearily. Ilya doesn’t want to tear his gaze away but he manages it, just to see the hollow look in Troy’s face, a shade paler than usual. 

He’s told to sit down and wait. He can’t imagine that they’ll play on after this. This felt too big, too real. This wasn’t a sprained ankle or even a couple of broken ribs. 

This was something else. Ilya felt it deep within his gut like he’d swallowed poison. 

There’s not much left of the crowd as they slowly filter out, but Ilya’s head snaps up at the sound of small applause that echoes through the stands. 

“They are moving him.” Ilya says it as he stands back up. He can see the circle of Metro players slowly disperse as they make way for the paramedics and… Shane, on the stretcher. 

Unmoving. 

Ilya doesn’t even think as he takes one step back onto the ice, wobbling a little before he’s yanked back again.

“Game is fucking over, Rozanov. Take it easy, okay?”

Ilya doesn’t think that’s fair at all — he’s watching his… his. Fuck. He couldn’t do this. 

He barely remembers storming away from his team, skates clattering against concrete flooring, the tunnel through to the locker rooms feels smaller and more claustrophobic that it ever had done. He’s tearing off his helmet and his gloves, shoving them without care, making a beeline for his bag and for his phone.

His hands tremble as he types in Shane’s name into a new Google search. 

BREAKING NEWS: MONTREAL METROS SHANE HOLLANDER COLLAPSES DURING GAME AGAINST BOSTON BEARS

Ilya feels a shudder pass through him, stealing his breath as he braces himself to scroll.

It’s not much, mostly statements from whatever players journalists had tracked down so far as well as few stills, showing Shane perfectly fine, and then as he’d hit the deck. 

“Fuck,” Ilya says out loud, rubbing a hand over his face, as if to scrub the memory away altogether. 

Cliff seems to have appeared behind him, keeping his distance, however, like some weary animal not wanting to get too close to an angry bear. 

“They wanna know you’re good.” He says to him, tentative as well as considerate. “Are you?”

Ilya clears his throat and blinks hard a few times before setting his phone down and turning to face his friend. 

“Da,” he says it in Russian, only because it feels a tiny bit easier. “Will be fine. Are reporters wanting to…”

He trails off, not really wanting to know if he’s being pulled for an interview right now. 

But Cliff shakes his head before he runs his fingers backwards through his hair with a sigh.

“No. They— this looks serious, Roz. I think his, uh, his folks don’t want this to be too big right now.”

Hollander’s parents. 

They hadn’t been here at thr game but he was certain they’d been watching wherever they were — wasn’t that what he’d hold him once before? That his parents were bigger hockey freaks than he was?

He swallows hard, trying hard to school his, well, everything into appearing as natural as he possibly could when he asked,

“Is any update yet? Is he…”

He didn’t want to say that word. Didn’t want to even grant is passage in his mind before he shoved it, hard with both hands, away from where it threatened to spin uncontrollably at the forefront of all other thoughts.

Cliff shakes his head again.

“No. Nothing,” be says, sounding sorry like it was his fault somehow. “Hey, man. Let’s just.. let’s just get ready and just.. get the fuck out of here, alright?” 

Ilya grits his teeth, sure that he’ll break teeth if he doesn’t unclench. 

“Sure,” he agrees, picking up a glove off the bench to put back into his bag. It’s about all he can do right now.

***

Ilya keeps about ten tabs open on his phone as well as the news feed for one of the sports channels like white noise in the background of his apartment.

He’s not really listening, he doesn’t really want to considering it’s just repeated conversation of the incident, said in a hundred different ways. 

But it is like, how they say, watching a car crash — he can’t tear his eyes away from the screen as the show the fuzzy footage of Shane crumpling, again and again, like some invisible force had slammed into him.

The commentators are talking in circles and it’s driving Ilya mad as the flit through different dialogues, like how well Hollander’s season had gone so far, the impacts of something like this happening, before they try and divert conversation to far less interesting talk, like potential season signings and goals on targets per player.

Ilya huffs. Nothing else could possibly be more imperative than keeping updates on Shane’s condition, but it would appear that the rest of the hockey world was perhaps as in the dark as he was. 

He focuses on his phone, but not at the reams of articles he’s been refreshing for the last hour or so. Instead he opens up his text threads. Opens the ones he has with Jane. 

It’s very one sided right now, all of Ilya’s worries poured into one line bursts of texts.

ILYA: Are you ok

ILYA: Message me when you can

ILYA: Please let me know 

ILYA: I worry

He sets his phone down, feeling his sudden embarrassment flush his face, despite what he’d claimed before. 

He exhales, slowly, like he was about to stare down the open mouth of a great white rather than opening his phone to a text thread between him and… whatever the hell Hollander was to him, and picks it back up. 

He didn’t often keep their messages saved, often deleting them just for safety reasons. But he’d kept the last month’s worth of back and forth conversation. Like it was something real. 

He thumbs through it carefully, combing backwards at whatever it was they’d talked about in intervals. 

Some of it was innocent. Some… was not. 

He’d might have gotten a kick out of reliving some of their forays into sexting, especially since he didn’t have a whole lot of evidence that it’d ever happened for obvious reasons, but he isn’t so focused on that. 

A text from Shane that talked about a book he’d been reading. About hockey, of course.

A text from Shane that mentioned that he was in Boston and wanted an opinion on a sandwich shop he was trying out.

A text from Shane telling him about a weird, non-sexual dream he’d had about them both that had made him laugh when he’d read it.

He doesn’t realise he’s welling up until he blinks, and suddenly his lashes are wet and there’s tears falling onto his screen. 

He jolts, surprised at his own actions as he sniffs and blinks away, trying desperately to keep his emotions under wraps despite the fact there was nobody else here to see him cry like this. 

Maybe that was what was hurting him all the more — he was totally alone in his feelings right now. 

He huffs, the sound comes out all wet and crackly sounding like he hadn’t nearly gotten enough of his sorrow out of him just yet, but with another sigh, he pushes his sleeve over his hand and wipes at his phone, accidentally exiting out of the text app and swiping back to one of the articles.

It’s refreshed, in the moments Ilya was feeling nostalgic, it’d updated.

He holds his breath as he makes himself read the big, bold lettering that had changed from the last time he’d checked.

BREAKING NEWS: MHL STAR SHANE HOLLANDER ADMITTED AFTER SUDDEN HEALTH ISSUE DURING BEARS V METROS GAME TONIGHT

He swallows hard and scrolls a little further. It’s all the same recycled talk about what had happened during the game, and he knows better that the arrival would perhaps confirm what hospital he was at, but with a quick scan on his eyes, he’s still none the wiser. 

He chews on his bottom lip nervously as he rereads the headline again. 

He wasn’t dead. That was a relief at least. But the words sudden health issue didn’t dismiss all of his anxieties. That still wasn’t good. He’s sure he’d rather him have been checked badly than something that had caused him to collapse out of nowhere. 

It takes a couple more second before his phone buzzes in his hands, his team group chat clearly blowing up from the update. 

He doesn’t intend on opening it, not sure what he’d walk into if he did, but decides otherwise — perhaps somebody had some further information that the press didn’t have. 

It’s a lot of slanging matches, common for their chats, and he’s grateful at least to see that there is some kindness for Shane, not all of it is tasteless jabs.

FELLER: bleacher report is saying it was medical emergency 👀

KOVALEV: mhl are gonna have a field day with that !

SEBBIN: Have Metros put out statement yet?? Can’t see anything on the socials. 

JOHANSSON: probably crapping their pants rn 

SEBBIN: Fuck off bitch 🖕

So it was pretty much clear that his teammates knew just about as much as he did.

He closed out their conversation, not wanting to contribute and opened up his and Shane’s ones again. 

He didn’t scroll — he just stared, until his vision blurred and he could feel his heart thumping in the back of his throat. 

He types without thinking.

ILYA: dont let me lose you. I love you

He grits his teeth and curses through them in sharp Russian before he backspaces the whole thing and clicks out of the messages.

The TV commentators have since circled back around to Shane, discussing the incident and the game that had been played up until that point and end the segment with their very wooden thoughts and prayers.

Ilya shuts the TV off with a scowl and stands up in refuge for something to drink. 

***

Ilya doesn’t get much sleep that night, drifting in and out, flashes of the game as well as dream segments of Shane that keep him drifting between consciousness, but he’s awake when he hears his phone buzz on his nightstand. 

He flips it over, swallowing hard his mouth dry like cotton, hoping it might be Hollander calling, but it isn’t. It’s his Coach.

“Rozanov,” he says his name sharply as he accepts the call. Ilya is sure his stomach plummets all the way through him, leaving his empty insides cold and small. 

Whatever he’s expecting, it’s not what comes next. 

He’s dead. He died. He didn’t make it. 

All of his worst fears remain just that: fears. 

Instead, his coach is telling him that he received word from the Metro’s coach that Shane was still in the hospital but stable. He’d been asked if he wanted to perhaps show face, make them look good after a very tender day for hockey and Ilya had agreed, but not for the same reasons anybody else wanted him there.  

He’s thanking him hastily as soon as the information sinks in, his heart hammering when he hangs up and checks his phone properly.

There were no new texts from Shane, and that didn’t do much to loosen the knot he found in his stomach. Could Shane not text? Was he that unwell that he couldn’t even look at a phone screen. 

He tuts, annoyed by his own irrational thinking — perhaps Hollander had no access to his phone right now. Perhaps was still in his locker back at the arena, or maybe it was dead, out of battery after a long night. 

Perhaps, and this was the most absurd thought to cross Ilya’s mind, perhaps Hollander had ignored him because he didn’t want him there.. 

But Rozanov didn’t really care about that right now. He couldn’t stand to be away for a second longer than necessary.

More texts filter through from the group chat as more sports outlets get fresh updates but he doesn’t bother to check in with what they’re saying now: he had to get ready and go. 

Like, right now. 

He throws on whatever he can find sprawled across his carpeted bedroom floor. 

He doesn’t bother with breakfast or even coffee, not sure that if he did, he’d be able to keep it down at all. 

He throws on a baseball cap, lights a cigarette and gets into the car. At least it’s something fast to get him to the hospital. 

When he arrives he has to skirt through a slew of reporters and fans that seemed to be lingering outside, awaiting a glimpse of Shane Hollander. Ilya is grateful that his last minute disguise is seemingly enough to keep them away; he’s not so sure he could handle being spotted and pulled around for interviews and statements right now, especially if he was seen turning up at the very hospital where Shane Hollander was right now. 

He heads to the front desk, keeping his head low in case any of the outside crowd had managed to get their way inside. 

“I am here to see… friend?” He says, leaning over the desk a little to keep his voice suspiciously low. 

The receptionist looks at him kindly. She doesn’t seem to judge — why would she?

“Name?” She asks. 

“Hollander,” he tells her. “I am—”

He’s ready to introduce himself, just in case there’s some sort of tight knit security on Hollander’s room number perhaps, especially given what was happening outside.

But it seems like it’s unnecessary, the desk clerks eyes lighting up with recognition as her mouth twitches. 

“Ah, of course. They said you’d be here.”

Ilya isn’t sure who they are exactly, and what they’d told this girl to make her recognise him from a simple request only.

She gives Ilya the room number without any further hesitation, and even instructs him kindly where to find it. 

He thanks her with a curt nod of his head and then, following what she’d told him, heads towards Shane’s room.

As he nears closer, walking down winding corridors he realises that he’s not really sure what it is he’s going to do when he sees Shane.

Surely, after all evening and all night of worrying the idea down in his head, he could have perhaps planned something— but he really has no clue. He just needs to see him, sat up in some hospital bed wearing an ugly scratchy, blue gown with a doped up smile because god knows what kind of drugs they might’ve hooked him onto during his stay. 

That’s all he needs, and he isn’t even clear on whether his or Shane’s coach would be here too — or fuck. If his parents were too. 

He finally reaches Shane’s room and it’s like he can hardly breathe. His chest feels compressed and his ribs are rattling. 

He steadies himself. This was just Hollander. Nothing to be afraid of. 

He pushes the door open and steps in, exhaling quietly as if to hide the tremble that rests heavy there. 

Shane’s eyes crack open, his eyes are tiny little dark pinpricks against his whites, and they slide around groggily as if fully taking in Rozanov’s form. 

“Ilya.” He says his name, every letter of his name looping with the last. 

Yup, he was most definitely on the good stuff. 

Rozanov crosses the room hurriedly, slowing down when he reaches his bedside to Shane’s outstretched hand. He throws a cautious look over his shoulder, nervous as if someone might’ve followed him in here or at least lingered by the door. 

When he’s certain the coast was clear, he turns back to face Shane, and rests his fingers in his upturned palm.

“Are you alright?” He asks him first, not caring now how his voice sounds. So fully of worry. So frightened and small.

Shane blinks, and it’s long and slow and tired. There’s dark circles weighed around his eyes and he’s paler than Ilya had ever seen him. It only annunciated his freckles more but he admitted he did miss the rosiness of his cheeks a little despite it. 

“Hm. Well.” He says. And he closes his eyes a second too long that Ilya thinks he might’ve fallen asleep. Or died. 

“Shane.” He says his name quietly. “Tell me what is wrong. What happened.”

He’s only recognising it now but there’s a heart monitor, rhythmically beating, and there’s rubber tubes trailing up Shane’s nose and a needle taped to the back of his hand. It makes Ilya wince a little — he’s never liked the sight of sharp objects under someone’s skin. 

“S’my heart,” Shane slurs. “They think… something wrong with my heart.”

Ilya feels his world go cold. “What is this?” He demands softly. 

Shane peels his eyes back open, barely, just enough to give Ilya a long, almost loving look, and his mouth twitches, as if attempting to draw a smile. 

“S’you,” he says, face cracking even more now he’s said it. “My hearts gone crazy because of…” 

He trails off with an airy giggle. Ilya tenses. Had Shane meant…? 

“I am serious,” Ilya tells him, lacing their fingers together now to give his hand a gentle squeeze. “What is it with your heart?”

Shane exhales and its long. Like he’d been holding it for a while. The heart monitor jumps before it steadies itself again. Ilya would take note if it meant getting ahead of what Hollander might tell him, but he had no idea what looks normal and what doesn’t. He just knows what a dead heart beat looks like, and thankful this isn’t that. 

“They’re not sure,” he says, a little less oomf in his voice now as his eyes slide back closed. But he does gingerly squeeze Ilya’s hand back, twice in fact. “Might be an un… undetect… undetected condition,” he manages slowly. His brow furrows then, mouth determined.

“My career might be over.”

Ilya straightens. “Your life could have been over,” he reminds him. “You… you really fucking scared me,” he tells him. Then, because he gets embarrassed, he adds. “You scared a lot of people.”

Shane’s hand relaxed but Ilya doesn’t pull away, not just yet. 

“Fuck,” he says with a breath, opening his eyes again, blinking hard as if to will them to stay open this time. “Yeah. Jesus. It was… it was scary for me, too.”

Ilya hasn’t really had any real updates on any of this other than what Shane had just told him: a possible undiagnosed heart disorder did tend to be career ending for most, but it was more than just that. 

He’d watched Shane drop right in front of his eyes like someone had just switched his lights off. 

He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d been scared.

It was something he was sure, was going to haunt his nightmares for a very long time. 

“Can you remember?” Ilya asks quietly, ready to back out if Shane got offended by the personal question. 

But Shane seems to think on it for a moment before answering him. Then, he shakes his head.

“No,” he tells him. “Not really. I remember being on the ice during the game, I remember I had the puck and then everything after that is either completely gone or just a blur.”

Perhaps it was a good thing that Shane couldn’t recall all of it — the hushed concern of the crowd, Ilya being ripped off the ice, and Shane’s friends having to form a circle around him whilst the medics worked on him.

“They said my heart stopped,” Shane blurts out, eyes closed again. It was clear he was very tired, and Ilya thought that soon he’d leave and let him rest, especially before anyone saw him here.

But that statement alone made it very hard to ever imagine walking away from Hollander in this moment. 

“Yeah. My heart stopped,” Shane repeats. “They said I arrested on the ice, they got me back and I went again in the ambulance. Two minutes and then another three and twelve seconds.”

Ilya doesn’t dare move. 

Shane had been… dead for a total of five minutes and twelve seconds yesterday. Whilst Ilya had been stuck, gawking on the ice and whilst he’d likely been sulking alone in the changing rooms… Shane had died and came back to life.

Twice.

He sniffs hard, feeing his eyes burn. He doesn’t care about Shane seeing him cry — he’s likely far too high to remember it anyway, but it feels like it isn’t a good idea anyway. He doesn’t want to be caught seen leaving this room anyway, and leaving looking misty eyed would only make things a million times more complicated. 

“Fuck, Hollander,” he says with a breath. “Don’t… don’t ever fucking do that again. Okay?”

Shane hums. It’s clear he hasn’t got any further energy to keep this little meeting going, so Ilya just traces his fingers into his upturned palm still, all the way to his fingertips before he had to pull himself away. 

“I will see you soon, okay?” He whispers. And then before he can talk himself out of it, he leans in and presses a chaste kiss to his hair. He still smelled like the shampoo he used. It was nice to know it was still his Shane despite it all. Still the one he’d fallen pretty hard for. 

He leaves the room eventually, fingertips brushing over whatever inch of Shane’s own limp hand, like he wanted to trace every little feeling to pure memory before he had to leave. He doesn’t see any coaches and manages to get away without being seen, and thanks the desk clerk on the way out.

He doesn’t let himself weep until he’s all the way back home. 

***

“Did you see the statement? What the Metro’s said?”

Kohn is beside him, one foot up on the bench, bent over as he meticulously threads his boot laces. 

Ilya doesn’t need further explanation as to what his teammate was saying. He was talking about Shane. 

“Hm. Yes, maybe,” he says, voice a little scratchy. He clears it, and furrows his brow as he starts fiddling with his own boot laces just to give his hands something to do. 

“Undiagnosed heart condition,” Kohn says with a somber shake of his head. “Man… think he’ll play again?”

In the last day since Ilya had visited Shane in the hospital, there was now official word from Shane’s representatives, as well as his parents, about what exactly had happened during the game. 

They were still being vague about it all, which was understandable: from what Shane had told him even in his drug fuelled haze, it was something they were likely still looking into. A wishy washy statement that failed to go into too much detail about Hollander’s medical issues was probably the best anyone would get right now. 

He swallows hard and stomps his foot on the floor once he’s done retying his laces.

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, unsure of what else to say. 

He hasn’t really given in much thought — hockey seemed to set the furthest back in his mind at this point. If Shane had died, if at least, failed to come back after he had died, twice, what would Ilya have done?”

Would he have played on today against their game against the Admirals? Would he have mourned, grieved in complete and utter secret? 

How could he hold all that emotion inwards like that? Surely it would be spilled over in so many places.

“Hey. I’m sure he’s alright,” Kohn suddenly says, slapping a hand against his back in a masculine way of affection. He seems to mean well, though. “Let’s just worry about kicking Scott Hunter’s ass and wining that fucking trophy.”

Ilya forces himself to smile, though it feels strained and makes his face feel rubbery somehow. 

If Kohn or anyone notices, nobody says a thing. “Da. Let’s.”

They don’t kick Scott Hunter’s ass, at least not in any way Ilya secretly would like. 

They lose, only by a margin where Ilya doesn’t feel too bad about it as he sulks back to the changing rooms with the rest of his team. 

“Fuck.” He hears Dubek groan as he drops onto the bench, still fully geared up. 

Ilya sniffs. Usually by now he’d be hyping himself for a team pep talk — giving them some confidence that it wasn’t a huge loss and that they were still the fucking Boston Bears no matter what. 

But he knows he hasn’t got it in him to even pretend to be excited. If he even tried to fake it he’s sure that it might just bum them out even more. 

He takes a swig of his water and then checks his phone.

Shane had text him the night after he’d visited, something small and simply like a smiley face and a short thanks for coming to see me that Ilya was yet to respond to. 

He’s stuck staring at it, like it might manifest Shane out from his hospital bed right now. Though, he was sure that if Shane suddenly appeared in their locker room it might not really go down well with the rest of his team. 

He’s startled out of his thoughts, locking his phone with a jab of his thumb as a hand comes to rough him around the scruff of his neck. 

“Down in the dumps, eh Rozanov?” Varkov says with a grin — a lot of enthusiasm for somebody that had just lost an important game. 

Ilya scoffs, mouth curling into as much of a grin he could muster. “Ah, you know me. I will find ways to cheer myself up.”

It was true, once upon a time, Ilya would use whatever excuse he could for drinking and having sex with strangers. 

If he’d won, he’d go out and fuck whatever beautiful person he could find. 

If he lost, he’d get himself laid just so he had something to cheer himself up. 

It was like, in a sense, that he was always winning and rarely ever losing. 

Of course, he’d never do that now — he’d ultimately committed himself to Shane now, so that barely crossed his mind anymore.

But he had appearances to keep up with. A white lie wasn’t so hard to tell in the grand scheme of things.

Varkov cackles and gives him another shake. “Thattaboy!” He exclaims and it’s enough to cause a ripple of laughter around the room. 

It’s easy to feel swept up, in times like this, in the support of his team — if they lost it was rarely any blaming or arguments or cold shoulders like Ilya remembers during his training years. It was supportive and understanding. 

And that’s why it seems to hurt more that he can’t tell him that the real reason why he was glum wasn’t because of a game, but because sometimes he cared so deeply for was hurt, and he couldn’t be with him. 

“Fuck it. I need a stiff drink and something stiffer between my legs,” Oregan barks, halfway undressed now, shaking his sweat damp curls over his forehead. “Let’s get wasted and get laid.”

The few men on his team that were happily married grumble at him, and it’s only in good natured fun. Usually Ilya would say yes, like he’d thought before. 

But even drinking alone felt redundant to him right now — having to go drinking with the team felt like an even bigger chore. 

He smiles at him, baring his teeth in a playful way. 

“Ah. You go have fun. I will go home and feel sorry for myself I think.”

He gets a few boos in response that makes him chuckle.

But nobody pushes it. He’s assuming that they might also assume his reservations came perhaps from the fact he was supposed to be grieving his father right now. It’d only been two weeks since he’d stuck him in the ground, but none of the men in the room understood that it’d been the biggest relief yet, rather than a heart ache. 

“Aw, you’re getting old, Rozanov,” Zadonsky says with a grin. “Old and boring.”

The word sits funny in his chest, like a knot that won’t budge. 

He blinks hard and then turns away to wrangle himself out of his chest, standing bare chested wondering if when he turned out, it’d be obvious how hard his heart pounded from behind his ribs. 

“Da,” he croaks. “Boring.”

***

The interview he gives after the game goes how any interview usually does after a loss. It’s nothing special and he plays up on pretending not to really understand the questions very well as to make his answers choppier and unenthusiastic. 

He’s ready to leave when one final journalist gets picked. She stands, a tidy looking woman, holding out her little box to pick up their exchange. 

“Mr Rozanov, yesterday was a very tumultuous day in MHL history, what with the very unfortunate health incident with Montreal’s Shane Hollander, your rival—”

Ilya could scoff. Why did they always feel the need to constantly remind each other that they were rivals whenever they were mentioned to one another? As if Ilya didn’t know that already. 

“— do you feel like that might have impacted your play today? Is there anything you’d like to comment, regarding yesterday?”

Ilya goes very still, his eyes widening before remembering that he was on camera and couldn’t look too spooked by the question unless he wanted it played on loop on every sports outlet that ever existed. 

He looks quickly towards where his coach stood at the sidelines, but he just gave him a reassuring nod. He hadn’t been schooled into what to say if this sort of question came up, so he stalls for a moment, as if trying to figure out the words in English, even if he knows exactly what he wanted to say. 

“Uh, yes, yesterday was very… bad. Very… um, unfortunate,” he starts. A flash of a camera, somebody scribbling down notes with pencil. 

“I still play well, I think,” he continues, voice slow as he lets his thoughts spin around in his head. He wasn’t sure if he believed it himself, but he still had to say it. Even if what he really wanted to say was right there on the tip of his tongue. 

“My— our thoughts are with Hollander right now. Nobody… nobody wants to see that happen to a, uh, a very respected and good player, I think. We will continue to play our best and uh, Hollander will hopefully come back in fighting form for us to wipe the floor with him and the rest of the Metros, as they say.

The joke, as half assed as it is, does enough to expel any tension in the room as everybody starts to chuckle responsibly. Ilya nods and smiles and then holds his hand up, respectfully ending the interview there. 

He stands up, thanks them again and walks out, feeling like he might be a bit sick. 

***

Whilst the rest of Rozanov’s team are washing their sorrows away at local bars and picking up the hottest women they could find, Ilya is at his apartment, in sweatpants, eating the last of the wonton soup he’d ordered to his door.

He’s not particularly hungry but he supposes he should probably try and eat something, so this was what this was. He’s got a Coca Cola in lieu of anything far stronger and there’s a Fast and Furious movie playing on his flatscreen that he’s seen a hundred times before, so he’s only sparing it a fraction of his attention. 

He doesn’t often watch back his own games or interviews — as cocky as he came across most of the times, he got a little awkward about hearing himself or watching himself, and felt his ears so red hot before he had to either turn it off or look away. 

But he finds himself playing back the after game interview a few times, mainly the last question that’s involved Shane. 

He didn’t look too obvious, like his soul was being crushed or his heart was bleeding out of his chest. He’d checked a few fan comments and nobody seemed to think so either. It was a relief, at least, but it didn’t really help the ache that lingered bone deep. 

It still felt like something within him was screaming, clawing him from the inside, that he was so desperately cut up about what had happened to Shane on the ice that day. 

He finishes off his food and drink with a burp, thumping a fist to his chest when his phone buzzes against the coffee table. He’s thinking it probably is his team, the group chat likely starting to roll with drunken texts, clumsily beckoning Ilya to their partying. But he opens his phone and sees that wasn’t the case.

It was Hollander. 

His breath gets stuck in his throat, leaning forward so far he almost stands up, but figures that far too much of an overreaction before he sits back again and opens the text. 

JANE: Saw game highlights, sorry you didn’t win. You played better than Hunter did

Then, whilst he’s still reading the text over and over again, it buzzes in his grasp again, almost making him drop it. 

JANE: You looked better than him too. Just a bit ;)

Ilya can’t help but laugh out loud, feeling ridiculous as the sound travels around his vast, empty apartment, but he doesn’t care. Fuck, he doesn’t care in the slightest. 

ILYA: You must be very high to think just a thing. Do you at least have any hot nurses caring for you?

He swallows hard. He wasn’t sure how to play this — it felt so normal, texting in this silly, playful way like he did sometimes. But was it normal still? Could things be… just how they were? Before this had happened?

He gets another text before his screen even dims.

JANE: Hot nurses and drugs galore. I think I’m living your dream, ‘Lily’ :P

Ilya swallows hard. He wasn’t sure what galore meant but he’d google it later. He understood the basics of what Shane was trying to say, at least. 

He thinks on what to say for a moment before he texts slowly. 

ILYA: hm cannot be good for bad heart. How are you feeling? Is boring in hospital? 

He’s never switched up on a conversation like this before with Shane — if it was silly and flirty and a bit sexual, then it was silly and flirty and very sexual. He didn’t like to get serious in times where it didn’t start off that way, but he supposed that the situation really called for it. 

JANE: Extremely!!!! Food is awful too. I am fine, tired and achy. Had a few more scans and tests.. I feel like a pin cushion LOL 

Ilya sighs impatiently. He couldn’t do this over text messages. It was already hard enough sometimes having to understand what Shane was saying without hearing him say it, but right now he needed to hear him — needed to see him. God he wishes he was here so he could press his hand to his bare chest and have proof that his heart was beating still. 

ILYA: can we FaceTime? Is now good time?

Ten seconds later, the call comes through, and Ilya sits up where he’s sat to hit answer. 

Shane’s face fills his screen — he’s exactly how Ilya had left him a few days ago in his hospital bed, except his hair was looking a touch more limp and he at least had some more colour to his face. His freckles were still as prominent as ever. 

“I don’t know how you do this,” Ilya says in lieu of a proper greeting, his voice low, careful because he isn’t sure how was in earshot on the other end of the line. “But you look very pretty in that hospital gown, hm?” 

Shane blinks, registering what Ilya was saying and then snorts, face scrunching up in a very cute way.

“Did you call me to have phone sex? You asshole, I’m in the hospital!”

Ilya laughs, and it’s a real laugh. Hollander sounds better than what he did when he saw him, perhaps more with it now with any more strength beneath him. It was good, it made Ilya worry a whole lot less

“No,” he says, still smiling as he shakes his head. “I pay you compliment. Not everything with me is sex all of the time."

Shane’s brow cocks upwards. There’s a beat of prolonged silence and then Ilya finds himself laughing again. 

“Okay, I say not all of the time. Some of the time, yes. This would make for very sexy role play.”

Shane hums and readjusts the phone he’s holding. He’d had it up in front of his face but it seems like he’d grown tired already of having his arms up, and rested it in his lap, the angle a little less flattering but Ilya wouldn’t tell him that of course. 

“Do they give you much update?” Ilya asks, only because he can’t possibly think of flirting around asking for much longer. He’s desperate to know. 

Shane inhales, wincing a little bit as he does so and it makes Ilya stiffen, wishing not the first or last time that he was there right now. 

“They think it might be to do with the muscle around my heart?” He says, voice a little pitchy like he’s not so sure Ilya would understand what he was trying to say. “It uh, it’s too thick, essentially. And it basically obstructs— it blocks the blood from pumping properly. That’s what they think stopped it altogether.”

Ilya frowns and nods, showing that he was trying to understand. He tried to imagine what the inside of Shane looked like — perhaps that was bit of a psychotic thought to let cross his mind, but right now he was picturing all of his perfect insides twisted up inside of him, something wrong like a kink somewhere, and wondered if maybe it had anything to do with him. 

“Is… fixable?” Ilya asks, hopeful infliction evident in his voice. 

“Not curable, no,” Shane tells him sadly. But he looks like he’s holding together pretty well, probably having had a bit more time to wrap his head around it than Ilya just had. 

“There’s… medications, I could take,” he lists of slowly. “Surgery in some cases.” He swallows hard and Ilya watches through the grainy phone camera footage of his throat bobbing as he does so. 

“They mentioned maybe fitting a device under my skin beside my heart.”

Ilya winces and subconsciously lifts his own hand up to touch where his heart rested, imagining how he’d feel if he had to have something foreign sitting there all the time.

“Don’t look so freaked out, Ilya,” Shane laughs sleepily, eyes crinkling. “It’s small and it goes under your collarbone. Right here.” He taps the place he’s talking about with his finger. In the shot, Ilya can see the cannula still taped to the back of his hand. 

“Hm,” Ilya hums, drinking in most of what he could of Shane on his phone screen. “I wish I could help. Give you mine, perhaps.”

Shane snorts and shakes his head, dark strands of black hair sweeping over his eyes. “With the way you eat, drink and smoke? Yours is probably worse off than mine.”

Ilya’s mouth twitches. He really fucking missed him right now, even when he was right here in front of him, he missed him so badly it hurt. 

“Perhaps. When can you come home?”

Shane didn’t ask for him to elaborate where home was exactly — it was absurd for Ilya to perhaps consider that home could maybe be wherever Ilya was. 

But was it so crazy? After everything, was it totally and utterly crazy?

“Soon, I hope.” Shane says wistfully. He knew it wouldn’t take long for him to get a bit stir crazy, especially with having to strike out of the upcoming games so early on. “I think I need a vacation after this,” he says with a sigh, resting his head backwards on his pillow.

The topic of Shane returning back to hockey went unspoken. Ilya wasn’t sure whether it was intentional on Shane’s part or whether he just hadn’t even given it any thought yet.

But Shane Hollander lived and breathed hockey — he’d died for it, twice in fact. It most likely had been on his mind, perhaps the second he’d been pulled back from the brink of death. 

“Maybe,” Ilya muses, trying to picture a sunny looking Shane on a beach rather than a pale one laid out on the ice unconscious. “We can fly away somewhere secret. We will drink expensive vodka and you’ll look good in tiny tight shorts and when I fuck you it will have be slow because you have old man’s heart now, hm?”

Shane’s head snaps up so fast he is sure it almost flies off his shoulders. 

The lighting is terrible but the flush that deepens across his face is obvious. 

“Ilya.” He says his name through his teeth. From what Ilya could tell, he’d been alone in his hospital room, but Shane being Shane, had been anxious that somehow somebody outside of the room might have heard that comment. 

Ilya chuckles, sure that he hears the sound of his heart monitor tick a little quicker, perhaps.

Oops. 

“Sorry,” he says, a total lie, and Shane knows it. 

 “It… sounds nice,” Shane says quietly, and Ilya is certain he’s talking about the flying away together rather than getting fucked on the beach. “But I was thinking…”

His voice trails out, sounding like he might be out of breath, or perhaps lost his nerve as to what he was going to say. 

Ilya doesn’t say anything. He waits for Shane to be ready: that’s what this always is, waiting, patiently, ready for the reward that comes with his unbridled patience. 

“My parents want me to rest but I think if I stay the next few months at their house I’ll end up having another stress induced heart attack.”

Ilya snorts. He loved it when Shane talked about his family to him. It made him feel… involved, somehow. 

“So, what, hospital charges you rent to be annoying them instead?” Ilya teases him. 

Shane’s nose winkles as he screws up his face, through it seems like it’s costing him a lot of his energy. Perhaps Ilya will hang up soon and let him rest. 

“No, no. God, I can’t wait to get out of here,” he says. Then, he lifts his gaze up, like he was trying to really look at Ilya. “I have… my cottage. Not far from my parents,” he says. 

Ah yes. The cottage. The one Ilya had seen on that spotlight piece not long ago, with Hollander in ridiculous nylon clothes as he’d stretched about on his deck.

Fat load of good, hr thinks almost bitterly, not towards Shane but at this universe. He was perhaps the most disciplined guy he knew when he came to his health and he was the one with a wonky heart? 

“Da, I know. Looks… peaceful. Will be good for you, yes?”

Shane blinks, confusion crossing his face for a moment like he couldn’t remember when or if he’d ever mentioned it to Ilya before. He doesn’t dwell on it, however, perhaps palming it off to the drugs he was currently on and then nods his head slowly. 

“Yes. It will be. It will give me time to… think.”

Ilya hesitates. He thinks if he grips his phone too tight it might just crumple in his grasp, and can’t afford that — can’t afford to cut his only connection with Hollander until he could see him again. 

“Think?” Ilya echoes quietly. “Think about—” 

“Think about everything.” Shane says firmly. “About my career. About my health. About…. Fuck, about you, Ilya.”

The way he says his name, the way he always says it is so undeniably sweet. Like it’s drenched in something so secret that Hollander only knows. It’s addicting, more than any liquor or drug or any fast car Rozanov chased in his lifetime so far. 

He didn’t say it like it was something to be worried about. Like it was something about to tear his world clean in half. 

“Me.” He says, his voice rasping. Would it be crazy if he dropped everything to be by his side right now? 

Did he care? No.

“Yeah,” Shane mutters quietly. “You. I want—” 

The phone currently cuts off, not entirely disconnected but Shane’s face suddenly is out of view, and it sounds like his phone has been dropped into his bedsheets. 

Worry spikes through Ilya, worried that something had happened to make Shane fumble his phone like that. 

“Shane?” He says, leaning forward as if he could get a better view through the dark screen where his camera was obviously swallowed up by blankets. “Shane! What is happening? Hello.”

He pauses, straining his ear he can faintly hear voices — one was unfamiliar, a man’s voice and the other was definitely Shane’s. He was putting on his polite voice he did for interviews and meetings and Ilya realised then that perhaps a doctor had walked in to talk to him.

He didn’t hang up but he didn’t eavesdrop either, not that he could considering that the conversation was mostly muffled like he was underwater almost. 

He cleans away his soup container and heads to the fridge for a second coke. When he comes back to the couch, Shane returns at the same time, picking up the phone with a huff.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, wincing like he’d dropped Ilya personally. “That was the doctor, I had to… yeah.”

Ilya doesn’t allow himself to feel too bad about it, he understood entirely why he perhaps didn’t want to be caught FaceTiming Ilya Rozanov from his hospital bed even if patient confidentiality was a thing. 

“Is okay?” He presses, brows cocked.

Shane frowns, confused for a moment. “Hm? Oh. Oh, yeah, no. Just checking my vitals… or something.”

Ilya looks at him, feeling a grin creep up across his face.

“Were you not paying attention? Tsk, Hollander, I am such a distraction, hm?”

Shane’s frown deepens but his cheeks go pink, totally giving him away.

“Maybe it was because you were… yelling! From my phone!”

Ilya snorts. God, Shane was such a pill sometimes. 

“Vitals all okay?” Ilya asks, half serious as well as half teasingly. “What is doctors orders? Nice strong handsome men to take care of you?”

Shane lifts his other hand up, albeit gingerly and flips him off. “Fuck off,” he says with a beaming smile.

Ilya can’t help smiling back. “Ah. Your boringness still in tact, I see, yes?”

Shane rolls his eyes and then he hesitates. He’d been about to say something before they’d been interrupted with the doctor, and Ilya wondered now if he was maybe steeling himself to say it now.

“Well… if you wanted to… come take care of me…” 

He’s bad at flirting, especially bad when he’s actually trying. Ilya thinks it’s very endearing (a word he learned himself because he really needed to know what it was when Shane attempted to be sultry with him), even if Shane would get mad about it and screw his face up and curse him out. 

“Take care?” Ilya asks, brows shooting upwards. “What is this?”

Shane swallows hard. 

“The cottage,” he says it, the words landing hard like lead. “I was gonna ask you… to come with me. If you wanted to. If you’d like.”

Hollander’s face had gone red again, for different reasons now as he averted his gaze shyly.

Shane… wanted him. Wanted Ilya to come stay with him during his recovery… like a vacation. Like something couples did.

He realises he’s been too quiet for too long, only the heavy breathing of Shane and his rhythmic heart monitor, surprised that it hadn’t stopped from the anxiety of it all.

Okay, that wasn’t funny, Ilya scolds himself internally. 

“It’s… it’s probably crazy,  you probably don’t need… you don’t want…” Shane is rambling now, flapping like he often did when he’d backed himself into a corner — an impossibly tight corner and didn’t know how to get himself out of it without making a fuss. 

“Shane. Shane, Shane, quiet.” Ilya instructs him as the Canadian carries on talking, voice all high and wobbly like he might cry. 

Shane halts in his tracks, eyes wide and glistening likely with nervous tears. He swallows again, and Ilya is mesmerised by the way his throat moves with it, drawn to it like a moth to flame.

“Yeah?” He croaks, and it sounds like he’s choked up on emotions. 

Ilya looks at him, wishing he could somehow reach through the screen and brush his thumb across those damned freckles peppered over his cheekbones. How he wished he could cradle his face in both hands, bring him closer and ease his lips on his. A real, tender, loving kiss. 

“I… think it might be complicated,” Ilya starts, finding the confidence in his voice to speak in a level manner. “But. Perhaps we can make this work. I would like to know you are okay. I still feel so… frightened, about what happened. It kills me to not know what to do.”

Shane says nothing, staring at him so still, Ilya thinks maybe for a second they’d been disconnected by shitty hospital WiFi and he’d frozen on the screen. 

But then he chokes on a laugh, a little crackly in his chest and he’s blinking rapidly, no doubt fighting stubbornly against welling tears.

“Okay,” Shame says with a relieved breath. “Okay… yes. I, I would like that. Thank you.”

Ilya nods slowly, pressing his lips together mostly because the grin he can feel creeping across his face feels stupidly goofy.

“I would like that, also,” he tells him.

They talk a little more, mostly Ilya giving him updates about the game he’d lost and his predictions as to who he’d think was going to win the cup, all whilst Shane sleepily listened, his eyes growing heavy slowly. 

Eventually they hang up the phone, but it feels like the hardest thing Ilya has done in a long time, even if by the end of it he’s more certain about where they stand than he was before.

He goes all about five minutes before he decides to text Shane, grinning hard as he does so. 

ILYA: can’t wait for a very not boring few weeks with you at your not boring cottage with you very not boring bad heart to take care of 

He sets his phone down, pretends to be busy in the kitchen even if for the performance of nobody, just so he doesn’t stay sat glued to his phone like a dork awaiting a response. 

But he can’t help it, not for very long at least and he gives up and marches back to his phone he’s left on the coffee table, the last of the bad movie still playing quietly as background noise as he checks his phone.

LILY: can’t wait either <3 must be a very boring bad heart if it seems to like you so much ;) see you soon :)

Ilya sighs wistfully, staring at it over and over again like it might disappear and become untrue. But it doesn’t. And it’s real.

Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with a heart on the fritz.