Chapter Text
“He’s gonna worry…” Shane Hollander mumbled from atop the gurney.
Paramedic Captain Carina Garner had never seen the Montreal Metro’s captain take a hit like that. Normally, this guy was the epitome of focus, all hockey, all the time, but tonight it looked like he’d actually not been paying attention. He was glancing back at Rozanov who, in fairness, loved to shove Shane specifically into the boards. He had probably been erring on the side of caution and happened to slam into the one player built like Sasquatch. Anybody else, and he probably would’ve just stumbled aside or fallen, but no, it had to be Marleau.
The Boston forward did look genuinely remorseful when he recovered from the impact, but the damage was done.
Carina’s team had had to pull Shane off the ice quickly and activate all the concussion protocols. It seemed mild, since he was both conscious and talking. He wasn’t exactly coherent, but it was enough.
“Your coach is calling your dad,” said Carina’s coworker Gerald, who was walking alongside Shane’s stomach. Carina was by his head, ensuring his neck stayed straight and he stayed awake.
“No—not him…” answered Shane, even softer than before. His last word came out like a breath, “…Ilya.” His eyes fluttered closed.
Now Carina prided herself on how little she knew about hockey, even after ten years with the Metros, but she knew the name Ilya Rozanov. He was the reason she’d started having to help the team doctor check for injuries during intermissions. He and Shane had been pitted against each other at every opportunity for almost a decade, since they were rookies. Why would Shane want Rozanov to know about his condition?
But he clearly wasn’t Rozanov to Shane. He was Ilya.
Ilya, who Shane was thinking about through his haze of pain, who he wanted to make sure wasn’t worried, even as he was being carted off to the hospital.
Ilya and Shane, who the world thought were bitter rivals. Ilya and Shane, who clearly no one knew about… whatever they were, so the Russian would have to hear about his status from ESPN like the rest of the world. He wouldn’t know what hospital they took him to or what room he was in. He wouldn’t be able to see him before the Raiders flew out tomorrow.
From the lack of reaction everyone else was having, Carina was the only one who heard the name come out of Shane’s mouth.
“What?” asked Gerald.
Carina just shrugged, trying to swallow down any reaction, and looked back down at Hollander again. “Shane, Shane, I’ll let him know, okay. I’ll tell him, but only if you keep your eyes open. You have to stay awake just a little longer for me, okay?” She meant it.
Shane grumbled but forced his eyes halfway open and focused on the texture of the ceiling as they wheeled him out toward the ambulance bay.
Gerald got in the driver’s seat of the bus while Carina and Vijay hauled the gurney into the back and hooked Shane up to the larger vitals’ machines. Vijay got a sling out of a drawer, and Carina pulled out some ice packs to stack around his shoulder. His shoulder was already swelling, and his clavicle definitely looked broken. He was still mumbling.
The ride to the hospital was semi-cal,m and as they wheeled him into the ER, Carina saw her best friend standing by the front desk.
“Isa! Definite concussion, possible C-spine injury, but I couldn’t feel any crepitus, and probable broken clavicle,” she called as Isa reached behind the front desk to grab an empty set of intake papers.
Isa met them in the middle. She started leading them towards triage as Carina began reciting Shane’s information. She may not have known much about hockey, but she knew all the medical information about each one of the players on the Metros.
They got Shane in front of a doctor and in line for a CT, and that was as far as the paramedics went. Isa and Carina walked back together toward the front, and Carina leaned into her friend’s shoulder as they reached the door where Gerald was waiting with the ambulance.
“Hey, Ise, listen, it’s a long story, but once Hollander gets fully admitted, I need you to text me his room number,” she whispered.
Isaraised her eyebrows and spoke at a normal volume. “Uh… why? Y’know, I gotta have a decent reason to break confidentiality, especially for a minor celebrity.”
Carina winced and leaned her face closer to Isa's to whisper again. “Keep your voice down! Look, he’s got a… loved one, who isn’t going to have any way of knowing he’s okay besides the news, and Shane asked me to let him know.”
Isa sighed but closed her eyes and nodded. “Alright, I’ll send you a text, but if you get me in trouble for this, I’ll murder you.”
Carina smiled, hugged Isa, and ran out to catch up with Vijay and Gerald to ride back to the rink.
She could not believe she was about to break medical confidentiality for the sake of a concussed Shane Hollander and his supposed archrival.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The second intermission just started, and Ilya was somehow still vibrating with tension. He had started the day off tense; he had been planning to end his and Shane… thing at their meet-up tonight.
He was in too deep. He had decided after he’d let everything spill out on the phone in Moscow. He couldn’t keep doing this. He was more addicted to Shane than to his cigarettes. Every time they met, it just seemed to get worse. He spent every other moment thinking about him. His fingers tangled in Ilya’s curls, Shane’s mouth swallowing him down, Shane’s teeth nipping his lips, the breathy, downright pornographic sounds Shane made when he came undone. Ilya wanted to kiss every patch of his beautiful freckles, memorize exactly where each one was with his mouth, until his lips fell off.
What made Ilya realize he wanted truly more was, horribly, when he’d seen Shane with Rose. When he realized that Rose got to see his perfect body naked and stay until dawn in his bed. Rose got to kiss him in front of people, hold his hand, and go on dates that Shane undoubtedly planned down to the minute. He would have based each detail on what she liked and made it the greatest night of her life.
Shane and Ilya couldn’t ever have that. And Ilya didn’t know how much longer he could take this. Just having hits of Shane every few months and going through what felt like withdrawal in between.
Then Shane got slammed.
At every single moment through the whole rest of the game, his brain was replaying the fall. The smile on Shane’s face just before impact, the way Ilya’s mouth had instinctively opened to warn him, but he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
Then Shane was on the ground, blood dripping out of his nose onto the pale blue ice. The sheer contrast of it nearly made Ilya sick right there. He’d swallowed it down and barked at the paramedics to let him know what was going on, but the ref, who wasn’t breaking up Pike and Marly, shooed him back to his bench.
He’d caught one glimpse of Shane before they’d wheeled him away, and the blood had been wiped away, but he was bruised all around his eyes. The bruises had made his freckles stand out so much more, and all Ilya could think about was how beautiful they were, how beautiful he was, even like this.
God, how could he still be so perfect?
Ilya saw Shane’s eyebrows pinch in pain as they hauled him off the ice, and Ilya wished he could trade places with him. He would do anything to take Shane’s pain away, even if his own plan had been to cause him more.
After the first period was over, he’d torn into Marleau in the locker room, and the giant had the decency to stew in his guilt for the rest of the game.
Ilya wasn’t the only one tense. The entire locker room was. Even without Shane, they were losing badly. Ilya hadn’t even scored. He was totally distracted by Shane. Pike was also on an absolute tear, slamming Marly and Ilya into the boards as many times as he could before he got a penalty and somehow scored two goals.
Ilya couldn’t ever remember seeing him make one of those before. Wow, Pike had a lot of rage when it came to Shane. Good, that meant there was someone to protect him when Ilya wasn’t around.
As he and Marly sat silently together on the bench waiting for intermission to end, a woman in a medical uniform stuck her head into the locker room. He’d nearly jumped at the sight, wanting to ask about Shane, wanting to ask what hospital they’d taken him to, wanting to know how bad his injuries were, wanting to know if he had someone with him at the hospital now, or if he was alone. Ilya knew his parents were a couple of hours away in Ottawa, and the one friend Ilya knew about was here, playing in this damn game with him. Pike should go. Pike should be with him. He could be with him in a way that Ilya couldn’t, and he wasn’t. Instead, he was playing fucking hockey.
Ilya pulled himself back to reality when the paramedic called his name. “Rozanov!”
“Uh, yes?” he asked, and he didn’t love how he sounded, but he was a little too emotional for decent English, even just for one word.
“That was a hard check from Pike at the end there, I wanna take a look at your shoulder.”
Since when did Montreal doctors come to check on him? They all hated him because of how much extra work they had to do when Boston played here. And his shoulder was fine; what the hell was she talking about?
His coach, who had been standing off to the side, immediately jumped in to argue with her. “Rozanov is fine. Who are you? If he has a problem, he will let us know, and then our team will handle it. Get out of here!”
Rozanov didn’t like the tone his coach usually took with doctors, especially lady ones. He acted like they knew nothing and were deliberately trying to take players off the team, instead of making sure their bodies stayed healthy and their careers lasted as long as they could.
Rather than cowering, like most, the lady doctor held herself tall and strong. “Speak to me like that again and Rozanov won’t be the only one who needs medical attention.”
The entire locker room went quiet. She said it perfectly calmly, like she was stating a fact rather than making an obvious threat. Everyone paused to see how Coach was going to take this.
She didn’t let him get another word in. “Do you have fifteen years of medical experience, Coach? Are you trying to say that you can better tell when a player has a serious injury than me? You are in my arena, and if I think he needs to be seen to, then I am going to see to him.” She turned her attention back to Ilya. “Rozanov!”
He scrambled to follow her out of the room, as Coach stood there gaping like a fish. She didn’t speak or even look back as she led Ilya out of the locker room and down the hallway. He didn’t know much about the Montreal arena, so when they came upon the small room labeled ‘Infirmary’, he was surprised at how close it was to the visiting locker room.
She opened the door and flicked the light switch, bathing the room in fluorescent light. It had a tiny examination bed and a large set of cabinets labeled with different medical words. She waited until he stepped all the way into the room, then pressed the door closed behind him.
“Miss, I appreciate the…” What was the word Shane used? For when people did things to protect others?
It came to him, and the memory of Shane’s voice in his ears had him biting back a smile. Then he was biting back tears, because Shane was not in the home locker room across the rink, reading his sexts and blushing. He was in some damn hospital.
“… advocacy,” he said aloud as he rediscovered his thought, “but my shoulder is fine.”
She nodded, still not looking at him. “Oh, I know.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened a text thread with someone.
He was only getting more confused. “But you told my coach—”
“I know what I told him,” she answered again, and made eye contact as she put her phone back in her pants. She leaned against the door and crossed her arms across her chest. “I needed to get you alone without anyone getting suspicious.”
His eyebrows shot up to his forehead. Was she… hitting on him? This was so fucking weird. He guessed he just needed to let her down easy and get the hell out of here. “Um… well, I am flattered, but I don’t—"
“Ew, what? No, not like that,” she interrupted as she figured out what he was saying. “Not everyone wants to fuck you, Rozanov.”
He sputtered and almost laughed. He was so confused, and this was somehow the lightest he’d felt all night. “But you said you wanted to ‘get me alone.’ What else should I think?”
She huffed and rubbed her fingers on her temples. “I needed to… talk to you privately, because I know something that you should know.” She looked almost nervous as she brought her hands away from her head and twisted her fingers together.
What the actual fuck? “Okay?”
She let out a puff before she started. “Shane Hollander has a mild concussion and a broken collarbone. He is set to make a full recovery. He has been admitted to Montreal General Hospital, room 312B.”
Ilya’s eyes opened wide again. A bone-deep relief washed from his scalp to his toes. Shane was alive. He was okay. He was safe. He was going to play hockey again, the thing that mattered most to him in the world. Ilya let out a shaky breath and set his hand on his chest.
But why was she telling him this? How did she know he wanted to know? Why did she make sure to tell him Shane’s room number?
“Um… why are you… telling me?” He said, hesitantly.
When he looked at her again, she had her head tilted to the side, and she was examining him with curious eyes. Whatever she found in his face made the corner of her lips turn up, and something like pity crossed her face. She sighed and let them sit in silence for another long, awkward pause.
“Shane let me know you’d be worried, and that I should let you know he’s okay.”
Oh fuck, Shane must not have been thinking. He must have been in too much pain. Ilya’s heartstrings were tugging again, but he couldn’t even think about that; he had to do damage control. He went to speak, but she held her hand up to stop him.
“I do not know why you are worried or how he knew you would be. I do not know why he referred to you as Ilya. I do not want to know. I am the only one who heard him say your name, and I will never speak of this again after I leave this room. Outside of this confidentiality breach, I’m a professional. Your relationship with him is none of my business, but I’m glad I was able to let you know how he is. If someone who… mattered to me got hurt, I would want to know.” Her tone was serious, and she held his gaze. “That is all.”
He gaped at her again, and she turned around, opened the door, and took half a step into the hallway.
She looked back and spoke softly. “I got you the room number, but I can’t help you sneak into his room. You’re on your own for that. Good luck.” She disappeared down the hallway.
Holy shit.
Ilya leaned back against the wall and dragged a hand through his hair. He had Shane’s room number: 312B. He could go see him. Fuck.
He hadn’t admitted it before, but there was a minuscule, minute part of him that was relieved at not meeting up. It meant he had a couple more months before the last time. He had more time to prepare, to pretend Shane was his.
Then the thought of not seeing Shane with his own eyes, not hearing his voice say he was okay, not dragging his fingertips across gorgeous, freckled cheeks, not knowing for a fact that he was alive and well, made his breath catch in his chest.
He had to see him, and he had to end it. The reaction he’s had tonight is proof enough of that. Worrying about Shane had not only wrecked his mind but also wrecked his game. There was no way Boston would keep him on if he played like this every time Shane had a problem. How would he see Shane if he didn’t play hockey?
And they got lucky with the paramedic tonight, but he couldn’t spend his life relying on that. Shane could have easily said something to the wrong person and gotten them outed. He couldn’t risk putting Shane through that.
For both of their sakes, this had to end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, of course, he couldn’t fucking go through with it, not with Shane smiling at him and his freckled cheeks within reach of his fingers.