Work Text:
"Mr. Hollander, thank you for waiting," the doctor says, coming back into the room and immediately drawing the privacy curtains on the door closed.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Shane replies. He glances between the curtains and the phone in his hand, where he's been carefully not googling his symptoms. Look, he knows how long it takes to run bloodwork, okay? He knows that usually doctors tell patients to come back in a few days, once the results are in. It can't be that different in Russia, can it? Being asked to wait while the doctor takes his blood sample down to the lab herself is weird, isn't it? And weird is bad, right? Weird is usually bad.
He's just here because he's tired. He's been tired for weeks. He's been fine for weeks. Surely it's just because training for the Olympics while playing in regular season games and then not getting a break because he's playing in the Olympics is hard, right? Anyone would be tired. Everyone probably is tired. Coach is just being overcautious because the players are technically on loan from the MLH and he doesn't want to break any of them. Everything is fine.
Shane looks at the pulled curtains again. When he puts his phone back in his pocket, he finds himself straightening and putting his shoulders back, becoming the media ready Shane Hollander, a noncommittal answer prepared for any question.
The doctor takes a breath, then seats herself in the rolling chair next to the exam table. "I want to reassure you that your medical information is private, and will not be shared with either your organization or the Olympic organizers." Her English is perfect, just like all the Russians involved with the Games, her accent light but coming through here and there. It makes Shane think of Rozanov, and he doesn't want to be reminded of Rozanov. Rozanov takes up too much space in his mind already.
"Thank you," he says, because that's usually a safe thing to say. It hadn't occurred to him to worry about who might be told about these test results. It hadn't occurred to him that medical information could be kept from whoever he was playing for, or that he might want it to be.
The doctor nods, satisfied with his answer. Shane wishes he could remember her name. It's on a tag pinned to the front of her coat, but the letters are too small to read from this distance and probably in Russian. His mom always tells him that remembering people's names is the second best thing he can do to make them like him, after smiling. He's never had a particularly natural smile.
Should he be smiling? He hopes not, he's not sure he could manage it.
"Mr. Hollander," the doctor says again. "Your bloodwork - are you aware that you're a carrier? Ah," she pauses and shakes her head, "In Canada I believe they say 'double fertile' - no, uh, 'dual fertile'? That you are capable of -" she drops her voice, holding his gaze with her gentle brown eyes even though the edges of the room are fading out, "- becoming pregnant?"
Shane doesn't hear her last words, either because her voice is too low or because the ringing in his ears is too loud. He knows what they are though. He doesn't even need to be able to read her lips, a skill picked up to better understand coaches from across the rink. As soon as she said 'carrier', he knew.
It's an outdated term, which means it's been used derogatorily too often, so someone had to invent a new term for when it's not meant to be a slur. Shane knows how it is. To the sportscasters he's 'Asian American', never mind that he's Canadian, but that's not what his teammates called the other Asian kid in his childhood league. He's 'kind of awkward', instead of what the kids at school called the other kids who didn't get their jokes.
There's another term for something he is, both a media approved one and what's said in locker rooms, but he's never even thought it in connection to himself and probably never will.
He's not thinking much of anything, actually. Probably that's a problem.
Something cold is pressing against the back of his hand. With a blink, an outstretched bottle of water, beaded with condensation, comes into focus. He accepts it more because that's what he's supposed to do than because he wants it, but it helps. Every sip brings him further back into himself, cool and centering, like hydrating on the bench between shifts.
A second blink, and the bottle is empty. Another is offered, and this time Shane is present enough to follow the arm holding it back to the doctor, her other hand closing a mini fridge with a quiet click. He doesn't drink this one, presses it between his palms to let the temperature ground him and focuses on modulating his grip so he doesn't crush it.
"Thank you," he says belatedly.
The doctor nods, politely not mentioning his lapse in concentration. "You understand then, what the tests found?"
"Yes," he says, because he does. She wouldn't be telling him this otherwise.
Her face is smooth, professional. If she has any thoughts about an Olympic hockey player getting himself knocked up, she doesn't share them. Instead she says, "I strongly recommend that you keep this to yourself until you're back in your home country." Her accent is coming through stronger than before. It makes him think of Rozanov again, and thinking of Rozanov is probably the only thing that could make this worse.
"R - right," he gets out. A man having sex with another man is illegal here. His - condition - implies he's had sex with a man. Maybe he could say it was a dual fertile woman, but he has the feeling that wouldn't help. "I understand."
The doctor's lips purse, and she sighs. "I see that you do." Her posture has changed, sagged. She's looking at the floor instead of at him. She feels guilty, he thinks, but that doesn't make sense. Being the bearer of bad news doesn't make it her fault. "I want to reiterate that this information will not leave this room," she says. "The only person other than myself who knows is the lab tech who ran the tests, and she will say nothing. We have - this is not the first time. She will destroy the sample, and I will destroy the results. Would you like to read them first?" Her accent is strong now, which makes it clear how much she was suppressing it before. Are all the Russians involved in the Games suppressing their accents?
"No. I mean, I don't need to see them." What would they tell him? He doesn't know which numbers gave him away. Is there a blood marker for dual fertility? Surely not, or the Metros would know. Or do they? Do his parents know? Does his childhood doctor know, the team medic? Did they all decide not to tell him? Why would they tell him? It's only relevant because -
The doctor nods again, and without looking at him she pulls out a lighter and sets the sheet of paper with the results on fire.
They go up quickly, the ashes falling into the sink. The scent reminds him of Rozanov as well, of the cigarettes he ought to give up. Rozanov did say he likes trouble. Shane wouldn't have thought that was something they had in common.
"Once you are home," the doctor says, drawing his attention from the smoldering remains, "You will have options. Canada is not like Russia in this way. You could even -" she searches for the right word, "- continue, if you want."
No, he really couldn't. The reminder that he does have options helps though, sets his mind to planning. He'll have to find a doctor in Canada, not the team doctor or his family physician. Someone discreet. That makes this a solvable problem.
Shane can’t be pregnant. He can’t be dual fertile, and he can’t be gay, and he can’t be fucking Ilya Rozanov, but he especially can’t be pregnant. And that, he can do something about.
"Tha - thank you," he tells her. This could have gone so much worse, really. Someone else could have ruined him with this. Even back in Canada, where - he doesn't know exactly what Vaughn had meant, what the queer athletes were risking by coming here, only that it was a risk - where the damage wouldn't be jail time or being disappeared or whatever - it would still ruin him. This woman had his entire life in her hands, and instead of taking it to the media or the authorities, she made sure he knew she wouldn't. "Thank you."
The doctor - he really needs to find out her name - smiles sadly. "Best of luck, Mr. Hollander. In the Games, I mean."
He thinks maybe she doesn't mean in the Games.
~O~
Shane wishes he could say that he doesn't think about it until he gets back to Montreal, but that would be a lie. It doesn't consume his thoughts the way he expected it to, roiling around and around and not letting anything else in, something that would force him to resort to the sort of techniques Rozanov would make fun of him for, like reciting the stats for every player in the league over and over until his brain goes still and leaves only hockey. He can concentrate in practice. He can chat with his teammates. It does creep in in ways that surprise him.
Like, he already doesn't drink. So why, when JJ invites him out for drinks, is his first thought fetal alcohol syndrome and not that they have an early practice? And he's not having it anyway, why would it matter if he gave it fetal alcohol syndrome?
Pulling on his socks before the game, he thinks but we used condoms, and has to start his pregame focusing routine all over again.
And when he gets checked hard in the first period, it's not the fact that he lost control of the puck that has him spinning once he's back on the bench, it's the fact that he took an elbow to the ribs, and he knows how little protection their heavy pads really offer. The whole second period, he's flinching from hits he could've easily skated through. He pretends he doesn't see the coach's concerned eyebrow.
They lose to the US, and he's just glad it's over.
Fucking Rozanov, Russia got knocked out by Latvia, and he's still somehow ruining the Olympics for Shane.
He hasn't seen Rozanov since their argument (was it an argument?) during the men's figure skating event, and he wishes it helped that he'd looked like he was having a worse time than Shane is (seriously, Latvia), but it doesn't. It makes him feel sick, and he can't even pretend that's not what's causing the low grade nausea because the other option is worse.
He's not going to tell Rozanov. Obviously, he isn't going to tell him. They'd agreed not to talk during the Games, a resolution he's already broken once, and Rozanov probably wouldn't want to know anyway. Probably he's not even the first person Rozanov has left…like this. Rozanov likes women, and he's never been discreet about fucking them. Probably he wouldn't care, not about Shane and not about - not about any of it.
Even if he wanted to tell him, which he doesn't, Shane doesn't see him again before boarding the plane back to Montreal. The familiar looking pair of shoulders and ballcap he ducked into the airport bathroom to avoid probably wasn't him anyway.
~O~
In the end, it's easy. A couple of incognito web searches (he will definitely never tell Hayden that his serious lecture about internet safety and how to find "whatever porn he happens to be into" came in handy), a couple of stammering phone calls, a couple of days of gut churning anxiety, and he's answering a call from a receptionist in the parking garage of a doctor who is apparently used to patients who don't want to show their faces in the waiting room.
"Well, Shane," the doctor tells him, not looking up from the screen of the ultrasound machine, carefully turned away from him, "It's a good thing you came in when you did. There's still a few weeks before the cut off for termination. You won't have much time to consider your decision, I'm afraid."
"I don't need any more time," Shane says. He doesn't know when the cut off is. Three months? Six? When did he and Rozanov first fuck like that? October, he thinks, and now it's the end of February, so that's five months, right? He can't be five months, can he, wouldn't there be - signs? When Hayden's wife Jacki was five months she was definitely - but she was having twins, so - no. He doesn't want to know. It doesn't matter how long his body has been doing this without his knowledge. "I'd like to schedule as soon as possible, please."
He tells his coach he has to have his appendix removed and he'll miss the home game against Detroit. He tells his parents he has the flu. He tells Hayden he's fine and that it's sweet that Jacki offered to make him soup but it's not necessary. He doesn't tell Rozanov anything.
~O~
Shane has to tell Ilya.
They're talking about having kids. Well, Ilya is talking about it. Shane should have known, did know, if he's honest with himself. Ilya loves the Pike kids, he loves the kids at the Foundation, he even loves the kids on his street who make signs for him on game days. Of course he wants kids of his own. Of course he wants kids with Shane.
Ilya keeps saying things like 'adoption' and 'surrogacy', which he pronounces wrong because he's only read it, not heard it said, and because Shane didn't correct him. He has to correct him. He has to tell him that they don't need a surrogate, that adoption would be fine but there's another option too, and he isn't sure he's willing to do it but he has to tell Ilya that he can.
Ilya has never noticed the birth control, as far as Shane can tell. It was easy to hide when they were on opposing teams, only seeing each other a handful of times a year. He didn't even need to hide it. Then they spent those weeks together at the cottage, and Shane didn't think about how the bottle was right there in his medicine cabinet until he went to brush his teeth the next morning. The label was still on and everything, not like the bottles he packed for roadies, when he roomed with Hayden. But Ilya just made fun of him for taking so long for his "morning shit" and never commented on the ripped up label in the trash can. Now that they live together he takes a little more care, puts the pills in his daily vitamin organizer as soon as he gets back from the pharmacy and buries the bottle in the kitchen garbage.
He's been handling it. Ilya never needed to know because Shane was handling it.
Now he's struck by the absurdity of keeping something like this from his husband. They're fucking married. They're talking about having kids. And Shane has been hiding a relevant fact of his biology from a man he's supposed to trust completely, does trust completely.
It's just that if he tells him about this, he'll have to tell him about the other thing.
Shane doesn't think about the abortion much. It needed to happen and he made it happen, and if he had wished he'd had someone waiting when the clinic released him, well, he'd still been a little groggy. Once he'd recovered he'd put the whole thing behind him, except for the birth control prescription that he followed even more strictly than his diet.
It's just that the last time he'd been at the Olympics there'd been this kid on the US team that Ilya had thought might be gay. Shane thought the kid just hero worshiped Scott Hunter for his hockey, but he'd looked at that kid and thought - what if it happened to him? Which was stupid, because the odds that the kid was dual fertile were low. The odds that he was gay, dual fertile, and getting fucked by a rival player on the regular were even lower. But - he thought about that kid walking on shaky legs two blocks over from a discreet clinic and catching a taxi home to his silent apartment, an ache in a part of himself he hadn't realized had nerve endings, waking up with bloodied sheets the next morning and thinking he's dying and deciding not to call his parents because that would mean telling them - and Shane had been fine. Obviously he'd been fine. It's just that imagining it happening to the guy following Scott Hunter around Beijing with stars in his eyes makes him want to skate suicides until he can't move.
Beijing aside, he hasn't thought about it in years. He'd made the right decision for himself, and he doesn't regret it.
Ilya, though. Shane doesn't really think Ilya will be angry, but there's a part of him that doesn't want to find out. Ilya is so excited, his mug of coffee forgotten in front of him on the breakfast table. Shane can't bear the idea of ruining that, but he has to.
"Ilya," he says, cutting him off in the middle of saying something that Shane is horrified to realize he tuned out.
They don't tune each other out. When Ilya is waxing poetic about how soft the fancy shampoo he ordered makes Anya's fur, when Shane is running through the stats for the team they're about to face for the fifth time, when they're tired or annoyed or busy, they listen.
He has to tell Ilya.
"Oh," Ilya says, his face falling. "You do not want kids. I shouldn't have assumed -"
"No!" Shane bursts out, because that's an expression he never wants to see on Ilya's face again. "I do! Well," he adds, because they're honest with each other, "I'd actually never really thought about it before the first time you brought it up, but I do want to have kids. With you, I want everything." It's the truth. Watching Ilya with kids makes him desperately want their own, to give that to Ilya, to do that with Ilya. If he isn't sure he wants to carry them himself, that's a different thing.
A smile creeps up Ilya's face. "Okay," he says. "Me too."
At some point, reminders that Ilya loves him, that he chose him, that he's building a life with him, will stop feeling like this. It has to, right? Other married people aren't losing their breath every time they put on their rings.
Shane is helpless not to smile back. Then he refocuses. "I have to tell you something."
Ilya does that bratty expectant thing with his eyebrows that used to make Shane want to punch him when they were younger, the one that means okay? get on with it?
Shane stalls. "Uh, I don't know what sex ed is like in Russia, but -"
"What is this, 'sex ed'?" Ilya interrupts.
"Like, at school, when they explain how sex works and how to not get STDs."
Ilya's nose scrunches up. Shane wants to kiss it. "You do this in Canada?" His disbelieving foreigner act is mostly an act, but he knows how cute it is, the asshole.
"Well, some." Shane's high school hadn't taught him anything about the sex he wanted to be having, what he and Ilya did together, but it was better than what the US taught. "Mostly it was about how to avoid getting pregnant." For all the good that had done him. He tries a different angle. "I don't know the word in Russian, for a woman who can get someone else pregnant, or - or a man who can get pregnant himself."
Ilya cocks his head, eyes searching, but he just says, "Is different words, one for men and one for women." Shane doesn't recognize either of the words he uses, but his Russian is still about on par with a preschooler. Ilya winces, adding, "They are not nice words."
Shane isn't surprised. "Most of the English words for it aren't nice either." He stalls again, words refusing to come.
"You think we should - check if we can do this? If we are -" This time Shane catches the word he'd said earlier and tries to fit it into his mind. It sounds like it might be based on the word for 'cow'. Ilya makes a considering face. "I hadn't thought about it. It would be nice, maybe, to -" he pauses, searching for how to phrase what he means, "- do it ourselves? To have a baby with just us, both of us." He scrunches his nose again. "That isn't exactly the right words."
Shane knows what he means. Adoption would be fine, but surrogacy would be hard, he thinks. To know that their baby is out there, carried by someone else, nurtured by someone else's body, and to not be a part of it? Ilya is so self-reliant, to have so little control over something so important to him would drive him up the wall.
Ilya is still talking, thinking aloud. "I never thought that I could be that, but maybe. I don't know. I don't get fucked that often. You are probably not, because you do. Maybe I should - how do you check for this?" He snorts, mood turning bitter. "I already can't go back to Russia. At least my father would never find out."
Shane hadn't been expecting that from Ilya. "I mean, yeah, you should probably get tested. It's just, like - they take some blood." He can't really imagine Ilya pregnant, but he can't imagine it for himself either. Probably Ilya would be amazing at it. "But, um. Ilya."
Ilya shakes off the thought of his father. He must catch Shane's nerves, because he leans forward and takes Shane's hand in his, squeezing reassurance. "What is it?" he asks, voice soft.
"I. I am. I'm -" Shane tries the word Ilya had used. Ilya corrects his pronunciation, but Shane doesn't say it again. He hadn't liked the way it tasted. "I could get pregnant. Someday. If - if we wanted."
"You?" Ilya asks, his brow crinkled. Shane kind of wants to kiss every line on his forehead. "You could - you?" His voice has gone soft with wonder, like this simple fact of Shane's anatomy is the greatest gift Shane has ever given him. One of his hands curls around Shane's cheek, gentle and hot as a branding iron.
Okay fine. He might consider a pregnancy. Maybe. If Ilya uses that voice a few more times. "Ye - yeah. I, um, I could."
"How do you know this?" Ilya's grip is so light, his thumb rubbing over Shane's freckles, but his eye have gone distant, thinking. "You did test on blood?"
Shane loves that Ilya sometimes doesn't bother to use perfect English grammar when it's just the two of them. Every dropped article or unconjugated word sits warm in his belly, that Ilya feels safe enough to relax something he'd worked so hard on. On the other hand, sometimes Ilya does it because he's tired or frustrated or sad, and the fickle rules of the English language are beyond his patience. Usually Shane can tell which it is.
"No," he replies with a half smile because he isn't ashamed and this isn't something Ilya needs to forgive him for, no matter what his roiling stomach thinks about it. "I, uh. I found out the hard way."
Ilya nods, the motion small and revealing nothing. "You - I did that to you?" There's a flash of something in his eyes that Shane can't identify and then a flash of something that might be heat.
Shane nods, and Ilya tightens his grip so his hand doesn't fall off Shane's face. Shane has a sudden sense memory of that hand splayed over his belly, and wonders if it would feel different if -
"When? Only once?" Ilya asks, eyes meeting Shane's as intense as any face off.
"I - I'm not sure when. Before the Olympics in Sochi. That's where - um." Shane cuts off, because Ilya's face has cracked open.
"In Russia?" he breathes, his voice tight with fear. "You were - with my - in Russia?"
"Hey," Shane says, cupping the hand on his face with one of his own. He can feel Ilya's pulse fluttering in his wrist, as fast as it gets after practice or during sex. "It's okay. Ilya, it was ten years ago, I'm okay." Fuck, what if it had been Ilya? What if Ilya had liked bottoming a little more and Shane had liked it a little less? What if Ilya had been in that examination room, fresh off losing the Olympics in his home country, being told that this secret he'd kept so carefully was out? Ilya, who would likely have more concrete ideas about what Russia would do to him, where Shane just had the vague concept of 'bad'? His English hadn't been as good then, and Shane doesn't know how difficult it would be to navigate the American health care system as a foreign born local celebrity. If Ilya is afraid just hearing about it, a decade later -
Ilya nods the way he does when he's panicking and Shane is asking him to follow his breathing. Should Shane do the breathing thing? Is Ilya that upset?
"You are okay," he says, voice rough. With a steadying inhale his tone shifts, forcing calm. "You did not have baby, obviously. What happened?"
"No, I had an abortion. I - I couldn't -" Ilya nods sharply, contrasting with the soft brush of his thumb over Shane's cheek.
"No, not then," he says, and even though Shane knows he doesn't need Ilya to agree with his decision, it's nice to hear it anyway.
"Yeah. I was out for one game, but it was pretty easy. The same doctor that did it wrote me a prescription for birth control, and I've been taking it ever since." It would probably be safe to go through his regular doctor now, or even the one affiliated with the Centaurs, but he'd gotten used to doing things a certain way and they worked, so. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
Ilya jerks his head, refusing the apology. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."
Shane can't help his grin, breaking the tension. "Can you imagine? You'd have spent the whole time staring at that poor receptionist with your murder face, and people would have found out about us because she'd have had to file a restraining order." Ilya would have come with him; he knows that now. He would have driven Shane to the appointment, complaining about how boring Shane’s car was the whole way there. He would have sat in the waiting room trying not to imagine the worst, and when Shane was finished, he’d have teased him about his stumbling steps until Shane stopped being embarrassed about them. No matter what they were to each other then, Ilya wouldn’t have let him be alone.
"I do not have murder face!" Ilya protests, letting the tension be broken. "I am Russian, have Russian face, is different!"
Shane turns to press a kiss to the center of Ilya's palm, finally letting it fall away from his face. The air feels cold against his skin where it had been. "At least any kids we have won't get bullied, if they get your murder face."
Ilya scowls, his eyes dancing. "They will not get bullied. I will bully the bullies."
"With your murder face," Shane teases, then he sobers. "Look, I don't know if - I'd miss a whole season probably -"
"More than that."
"- but maybe after we retire. I just wanted you to know it's an option." Shane has never told anyone this, other than the receptionist at the clinic and the doctor who did the abortion. The Russian doctor knows of course, but he didn't tell her.
Ilya's face softens. "Thank you for telling me. You - ah -" he pauses and makes the face that means he's trying to fit a Russian phrase into English words and it isn't matching, "- you do not need to do this only because you can." With a flash of a grin, he adds, "You would hate it. Baby would want real food and naps."
Shane knows his face is doing something embarrassing, but he can't stop it. He doesn't want to stop it. Of course Ilya gets it. Of course Ilya wouldn't ask something of him he can't give. "You wouldn't like all of it either, you know. You'd have to eat actual nutrition and do yoga."
Ilya sighs dramatically. "Is sacrifice, yes. I will go to doctor and do test.” With a mischievous twist to his lips, he adds slyly, “I would be better at it than you, I bet.”
That surprises a laugh out of Shane. “At what, being pregnant?”
“Mmm, yes,” Ilya hums. “It would happen on first try, I think.”
“It did happen on our first try!” Shane protests. “We weren’t even trying!”
“See, I am very – what is word –“
“Fertile?”
Ilya hums again. “Yes, but also – starts with ‘V’ sound?”
“Virile?” Shane asks with a laugh.
“Yes, that! Good at sex. Good at getting you pregnant.” His eyes spark in a way that makes Shane think they may be revisiting that concept in the bedroom. “Good at getting pregnant too.”
“If you say so,” Shane says through a grin. “Maybe wait until you get your test results back before you talk so big.”
“I don’t need test,” Ilya brags, because he knows it makes Shane want to pin him to the floor. “I will do this, have our baby. I will be the best at it. Twins, maybe. No, three. More than Hayden.”
Shane groans at the thought of how many diapers that would create, and how insufferable Ilya would be about it, but he’s still laughing. Ilya always makes him laugh, more than anyone else ever has.
“Alright, you’re on.”