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Fifteen minutes into the first period and the game is already tilting hard enough that it almost feels unfair.
Almost.
The scoreboard reads 4-0, to the Centaurs with the Detroit Red Wings clawing back every ticking second they could without avail.
They haven’t touched the puck for more than ten consecutive seconds before its swept out of their grasp, a loud cheer from one side of the arena and a commiserating groan from the other that sends a trill of pleasure dancing up Ilya’s spine.
He glides through the neutral zone like he’d floating a foot off the ice, timing his skates with the puck that circles back to their defence. It’s a clean change, no gap in pressure. It’s how it’s supposed to look when it’s working, which as of late, much to the fans delight, is how it’s always looking.
Shane is circling high in the offensive zone, stick down and ready, calling for the rim around the glass.
“Wheel! Wheel!” Bood shouts as the puck slips and wraps hard off the end boards with a clatter.
Shane gets there first, zipping through the Detroit players like he’s invisible, low and fast as he takes the hit along the wall, shoulder braced, effortlessly absorbing contact without losing the puck.
It comes to a slow at his skate and he kicks it loose with an almost irritating ease, Ilya would admit – all these years later and he still studied Shane’s movements on the ice with fierce competition brindling in his gut, now, equally tinged with pride.
The puck slips up the boards to the point before the second defender can close in on it, like a pack of starved out dogs. Ilya reads it before it happens.
The weak-side winger, Ilya barely remembers his name when he’s not watching the back of him with his jersey fluttering over lean shoulders, chases too high. Their centre drifts towards Shane. The slot opens for at least half a second.
Half a second is easy. Half a second is enough.
Ilya cuts off the back of the net, stick grazing across the ice. Shane doesn’t need to glance upwards, finding him like he’s clairvoyant as he sails the puck right towards him, skittering off the wall. The pass arrives, fluently and perfectly, like it had nowhere else to possibly go.
Tape to tape; the goalie flounders, sweating behind his helmet, and tracks it too late.
Ilya pulls the puck from the backhand to forehand as he comes out on the right post. Adrenaline surges through him like fire in his veins. It surges him forwards, blades cutting through the ice with the familiar shlick, shlick.
The goalie drops early, sealing low: predictable and desperate and Ilya can’t help but twist his mouth into a grin at the sight of it.
He waits one beat lower than polite and snaps it short side, the crack of wood against ice echoes like a gunshot around the arena. The puck cuts through the air, faster than the glove can climb and the red light flares.
5-0.
For a split second there is silence, vacuumed out of the arena in a collective sharp inhale.
Then, like a match struck, it finally detonates.
The Centaurs’ side of the arena bursts in a roar that rattles at the rafters, rumbling through the ice. Gloved hands batter against the glass, white towels and banners whirl overhead. Somewhere deep within the crowd a horn bellows out, long and triumphant if not a little off key.
Shane is on him before the red light fades out, crashing solidly into his side with a joyous laugh that rings out louder than any of the other sounds that swarms around him right now.
He hooks an arm around his shoulders, visor knocking against his and he grins hard — Ilya likes being this close to Shane during a game: he can make out his freckles a little clearer when he’s this flushed and pink in the cheeks.
“Fucking beaut,” Shane says still smiling hard, breathless and sounding far more Canadian than ever because of it. “Nice work there, Captain.”
Ilya is smiling back, feeling the stretch in his cheeks that he doesn’t ever want to have to miss. His knocks his helmet back against Shane’s, letting it linger for a moment, almost forehead to forehead, aware of the blinking of camera flashes that pop around the stands, no real urgency between them to have to pull away.
Until he does, at the sound of the whistle being blown, he takes a short stride backwards when he says, eyes crinkling, he throws his voice over towards his husband with his chin jutted out.
“Keep up, da?”
Shane had been responsible for two of the other five goals scored so far tonight, but he’s not disputing Ilya’s playful tease when he laughs and says,
“Sure. Okay.”
It’s going to be a good night, Ilya is sure of it. They’re battering Detroit of their own playing field. Shane is playing an absolute beauty of a game, having slotted so well into the Ottawa team so effortlessly, and Ilya thinks that if he continues to play his cards right tonight, he’s most definitely getting his dick sucked by his ridiculously hot husband that’s now circled back around the rink for a reset.
It’s so perfect, he almost doesn’t notice Coach Wiebe at the bench, not at all celebrating with the others or even so much as instructing anybody else what to do next after a spectacular play such as that.
His eyes meet Ilya from across the rink and his brow furrows. He gets a sinking feeling right down the middle of his body, dragging his gut down with it: did he do something wrong?
Then, Wiebe lifts his hand, a two fingered notion wagging in the air to signal for Ilya to come over. He mouths, exaggerated in his mouth stretching all over the place, but clear enough for Ilya to understand:
“Hollander, too.”
He’s managed to get Shane’s attention with a kurt not of his head. Shane’s grin seems to slip off his face, much like Ilya had felt as the pair of them break off from the team to reach their coach.
They clatter off the ice in silence — nothing else has stopped or slows down without them. Somebody behind their coach is standing with an hand poised on their hip, fingers pressed against what Ilya would guess is a Bluetooth device wedged in their ear as they mutter away, just out of earshot for him to know what was going on.
“What’s going on?” Shane asks as they follow the man into the tunnel, stopping halfway. He’s still a touch breathless, less likely a testimony to his fitness but likely the adrenaline coursing through him, finally now coming to a slow. He’s pulling off his helmet to give his head some space to breathe, and his hair sticks up in all sorts of angles.
It’s the perfect kind of picture, on the perfect kind of day during a perfect game. So much so, Ilya of the future wishes he could just pause this moment and bottle it, knowing that what came next would totally and utterly destroy how perfect it all seemed.
Coach Wiebe clears his throat and then seems to come to the conclusion that he should just get on with it and say what he needs to say.
“Shane, your mom called,” he says, almost grimly. “Your dad… your dad had a heart attack.”
There’s the sound of Shane’s helmet clattering to the ground that registers first in Ilya’s mind — he must have let go, body loose whilst Ilya’s felt entirely rigid and tight. Down the long, quiet tunnel the sound reverberates before it slips away entirely, leaving Ilya and Shane in the wake of its hollowed out echo.
“She wants you to know he’s at the South Muskoka Memorial Hospital, he’s…” his eyes look around as if searching for the right word. He seems to have gone grey in the face. “Stable, I think.”
Alive? Ilya wants to ask, but his tongue feels thick in his mouth, and all of the times it’d been sharp and witty and quick and fluid in both English and Russian, it now felt like the very opposite of all those things where it weighed heavily and uselessly in his mouth, feeling paralyzed.
“Fuck,” Shane says with a sudden shuddering breath.
Booming claps and stomping of feet around the stands. Excitement still pumping into the atmosphere as their team blissfully plays on, chants of Hollanov! Hollanov! Hollanov! Ring out like cannon fire. Ilya felt like the strength of their celebrations could perhaps cleave the stadium in two, and have the floor open up beneath them where they stood, waiting for them to fall into its endless pit.
“We’re working to get a flight booked for you both,” Wiebe carries on talking, mouth drawn down. “There’s a car ready to take you both to the airport. I’m working with Harris on a brief statement to keep things under wraps for you both.”
It’s a lot of words that Ilya struggles to keep up with; his brain feels like it’s weighed under a heavy fog – it’s been years since he’d ever had to ask anybody to slow down and repeat themselves on account for his slightly wonky understanding of the English language, but he might need Wiebe to repeat everything again, from the top since he’s not entirely sure anything he’s said so far has actually stuck.
He’s looking to Shane like he’s eighteen again, sat in front of a room of reporters with a collar too tight around his neck, waiting to be told what to say when words don’t come.
His eyes are round and he looks… freakishly white. Like he’s on the verge of passing out.
Ilya has the right mind to steady him, just in case, with a hand against his elbow, bracing the pair of them as they manage to stay upright.
“Wh– what about the game?” Shane asks.
Wiebe frowns, mouth parting like he’s in disbelief that Shane would even consider to ask that.
“Shane.” Ilya manages to finally speak. His head whips around like he’d somehow forgotten Ilya was standing there at all. Maybe the touch of his hand against his arm hadn’t been close to enough. “Shane, we will go, okay? We will go, is fine.”
It didn’t feel fine, however; the words land stiffly where they fall from his tongue. But thankfully for both their sakes, it takes no further effort for convincing him as Shane hastily agreed with a quick nod of his head before they’re being ushered to the changing rooms to quickly strip down before their car arrives.
They change in silence. Ilya’s head is pounding like he’d perhaps gone toe to toe between Cliff Marleau and the boards during the playoffs. He’s fumbling with trembling fingers as he takes off his helmet and then his jersey and his gear, his chest tight and achy the time he’s down to just his compression gear, the thin material not doing much to chase out the empty chill in the air.
Shane has managed it somehow, and when Ilya looks over to him, he’s being meticulous as he folds his clothes, smoothing the edges of his seams with a steady hand.
Ilya’s heart swoops, and it’s not until he wobbles over to him, skates clipping against the floor that he realises he was still wearing them even, when he tries to get his husbands attention,
“Shane?”
He reaches out, placing a hand on his shoulder. He’s tense and clammy, felt even through his hoodie. He takes one breath, seeming to hold it all at the base of his neck before he turns and faces Ilya with wet eyes and a trembling bottom lip.
He folds himself into Ilya’s arms without hesitation. His face buried into his chest, shirt now damp with Shane’s tears. He doesn’t sob, or whimper or make any sort of noise.
His fingers slide around the bulk of Ilya’s back, fingers knotting into his shirt as he holds onto him for dear life. Ilya certainly isn’t going to let go, and if they could just stay like this, then he would.
But there’s a flight to catch whether they want to face this or not.
“He… he’s gonna be alright, don’t you think?” Shane asks, voice muffled and small.
Ilya takes a breath, threading his fingers through the damp, sweaty ends of his hair that falls at his nape. He had to force his voice out from the back of his throat, and so his words scrape by his teeth when he says,
“Time to be brave, solnyshko, hm?”
Shane exhales deeply, the warmth of his breath felt through his shirt as he holds him tighter just for a second more. When he lets go, he’s not sure what they’ll have to face, but at least it shall be together.
“Alright,” Shane says, pulling away, scrubbing fiercely at his eyes. He turns and goes back to refolding his clothes before stuffing them into his bag. “Let’s.”
***
All throughout the tedious journey back to Canada, Shane can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants to be on his phone or not.
Ilya has been watching him, from beside him in the car and then next to him on the plane ride as he chews fervently on his nails and obsessively keeps unlocking and locking his phone.
It’s not until they’ve landed and they’re clambering into the Uber that’s been organised for them all the way back in Detroit that Shane finally pockets the thing and tells Ilya with a resigned huff that it’d ran out of battery and died.
Ilya supposes it was only understandable given the circumstances, and as they cruise down the interstate with the hospital in sight a few yards up ahead, he reaches over, brushing his thumb over Shane’s poor, abused fingers and wraps them up tight for a brief, tight squeeze.
“Easy, hm?” He says, tipping his head sideways a little.
Shane makes the arbitrary attempt at forcing a smile, looking closer to a grimace as all his facial muscles twitch at once, but he closes his other hand on top of Ilya’s with a pat that said he was at least grateful.
They don’t go through the main entrance even when Ilya takes a curious peek out the blackened out windows, it seems to look fairly clear, he doesn’t want to jinx anything, and Shane is already as nervous as is, so the roll up to a secluded side entrance where they’re instructed where to go and who will meet them.
It seems like it might be a tad overboard as the driver leaps out the car to open the door for them, but as Shane scrambles out, head ducked and shoulders haunched, he’s thanking him profusely like he means it, and Ilya doesn’t have it in him to poke jokes during a time like this.
Ilya’s never been to this hospital before — he’s never had to, thank god. The last time he thinks he ever stepped foot in a hospital was when Shane had been hurt during a game between Montreal and Boston, and he remembers the sickly feeling all too well as he’d followed overhead signage, blinking at the too bright fluorescent lights that seemed to follow him here too in this hospital.
He feels Shane’s hand slip into his, fingers threading, his palm warm against his.
“I think it’s this way,” he muses, head craned as he walks with a pace. Ilya keeps up, hand still firmly locked with his.
He doesn’t realise they’re following the directions for the ICU until they arrive at the unit. Shane lets go of his hand, only to plant them on the desk of the receptionist, looking like he’s ready to keel over when he asks the woman working for David Hollander.
“Are you a relative?” She asks him, eyes not so subtly shifting towards where Ilya had stayed behind to let Shane do the talking.
Shane nods. “Yes, yes I’m his son? Shane?”
It’d never perhaps dawned on Ilya before until now that there would perhaps be some misconceptions about Shane’s heritage to David considering that they looked so little alike. Shane was a copy of his mother, down to his complexion and his high cheekbones and even the cubids bow of his very irresistible top lip.
It was hard to tell just from a strangers glance that Shane was David’s kid without knowing all the internal things he inherited from his dad, like his need for routine and his unsociable qualities that made them both very quiet men.
There’s the sound of clacking keys before the nurse lifts her head and smiles at Shane like she’d finally clocked who he was.
“Of course, I’ll buzz you in.” She then looks at Ilya in full. “I’m afraid I can only allow one other visitor at the moment. We have a two per patient rule.”
Shane turns to Ilya, face hollowed out, still holding onto the desk like it were the other thing keeping him up.
“He’s my husband,” Shane is quick to say, sounding close to tears again, “I need—”
The doors ahead of them that lead onto the ward swish open, and out steps Yuna Hollander.
There were so many things that Ilya respected about this woman, even before he’d really ever gotten a chance to know her properly.
He remembers maybe feeling jealous at first — when he’d watch her in the stands during practice drills or at events, niggled by the fact that perfect Shane Hollander was, of course, a mamas boy through and through.
She’d always seemed to care deeply for her son of course. She’d been Shane’s manager from the get go, before his career had even gotten legs. She’d been fierce in an already fierce environment, and came out standing on top.
Ilya likes to think his own mama would have been that loud, had she ever been given the opportunity. He thinks that her and Yuna would have been good friends. The best of friends, even.
Now she stands there in the doorway, looking small and old, and tired and sad.
“Oh. Shane, baby.” She rushes to her boy and he goes, melting into her embrace despite the fact he loomed over her by a good foot and a half.
She’s swallowed up by him before she’s pulling away to look to Ilya. Her arms open, and Ilya hesitates only for a second before he goes to her, taking Shane’s spot only briefly to be held in her embrace.
“He’s okay. He’s okay,” she recites to them, saying it again and again as if to convince herself, too. “It was touch and go for a second but we got here in good enough time they think he’ll make a full recovery.”
Ilya pulls away but keeps his hand on her forearm. She smells like antiseptic no doubt having paced these corridors enough times in the hour or so it took Ilya and Shane to arrive to have to keep disinfecting her hands before going in again.
“Fuck, it’s so scary, mom,” Shane speaks, voice trembling.
Yuna looks to her son, face crumpling before she pulls herself together, head up shoulders back, expression stony — as much of a Hollander as Shane was by blood.
“I know it is, but we’re all here now and that’s what matters.” She sniffs. “Hey. I’m gonna grab something to eat. You boys go ahead and see him — he’s sleeping and probably will be for a while but he’ll know you’re here. It might help.”
Ilya goes to protest, mouth parting and brow creasing to tell her that he’d go fetch her some food whilst she spent time at her sickly husband's bedside, but he shot down all in the matter of half a second when she fixes him with a stern look that dares him to actually try and argue with her right now.
She looks at the nurse at the desk and nods, allowing her to open the doors again for Shane and Ilya to go ahead.
“I won’t be long,” Yuna says, rubbing Shane’s arm affectionately in a way Ilya imagines she did also when Shane was small.
She walks off in the other direction whilst Ilya takes Shane’s hand up and directs him through the corridor, thanking the nurse at the desk as the pass.
The whole ward is nice, polished and spacious, evident of what good insurance will pay for as they approach David’s room.
Shane stops outside the door, freezing in his tracks, eyes bulging a little from what he sees through the small square of window on his fathers door.
Ilya would agree that it was a daunting sight, even from here where he could only get a glimpse of a prone body laying on the hospital bed.
“Fuck, Ilya,” Shane grits, fingers fastening around his husbands. “What if… what—”
He stops himself in his tracks before Ilya even can, bowing his head, letting some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders with a long, forceful exhale.
“Okay. Okay, c’mon, it’s just my dad.”
Ilya nods, and waits for Shane to open the door.
He’s not so sure what he’s expecting as he walks in behind Shane, their hands loosely entertained until Shane breaks away, moving towards the edge of the bed whilst Ilya remains at the foot.
Machines surround the bed, barely making way for where Shane stands, meek and small amongst the wires and the rhythmic beeping. The room was glossy and smelled like bleach, and where David lay there in the middle, the hospital grade blanket tucked under his arms made him look almost not human.
He swallows hard. He’d never seen his mother in the hospital and he’d never stuck around to visit his dad in his finals days, but he remembers how still his mama had been as she’d lay in her bed that morning, arm draped over the edge of the mattress, her once vibrant, bouncy blond curls spilled over her face and over the pillow. It’d been the first and only dead body he’d ever seen, and he had to remember as he stands here watching Shane approach the bed like a tentative child, that David wasn’t another dead body.
He was alive, proven by the steady beep beep of the heart monitor that he was wired up to.
“H…hey, dad.”
Shane had been told that his father, whilst unconscious, could likely hear him when spoken to. There was no doubt that Yuna had been talking to him too, and so here was Shane, trying, even as awkwardly as it may be, his hands twisted together, shuffling from foot to foot.
Ilya managed to get himself to move, walking towards where the chair was, pulling it closer to Shane and instructing him wordlessly to sit.
Shane does so, glancing up towards Ilya.
“Oh. Thanks. Do you want—?”
Ilya shakes his head. He looks at David, and feels his chest suddenly cinch.
“I… I think I will check on Yuna,” he croaks, taking a step backwards. He knows Shane is okay here, there’s a buzzer on the wall for him to press if things got hairy.
Shane’s mouth twists but before he can say anything, Ilya leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to his head.
“Do not worry, I will be right back. Maybe tell David about my awesome goals tonight.”
Shane blinks, and then smiles slightly. It’d felt like maybe a million hours had passed since tonight’s game but if there was anything Shane could talk about to walk him back off the edge of his panic, even with a sleeping David, it’d be hockey.
“Okay. See you in a bit,” he says, and Ilya goes.
He feels light on his feet as he walked back the way he’d came with Shane, back through the ward, through the doors and past the nurse at the desk.
He feels his stomach turn, twisting itself into knots — he felt ridiculous, he was supposed to be here to support Shane, to support his husband during his hour of need and here he was, running away on legs that barely felt strong enough to hold him up because of what?
He makes it to an empty hallway. It’s quiet but he can hear the faraway buzz of usual nighttime hospital noises. He braces a hand against the wall, feeling his pulse thread faster and faster even at a stand still, he ducks his head and squeezes his eyes closed shut as curls fall over his sweating forehead.
He hated the thoughts that circled around in his mind like a vicious whirlpool: of David laying there so deathly still and unwell, of his mother in her own bed, slumped and pale, of his father on that cold, metal table in a quiet Russian morgue. He bit back the bile that rushed up the back of his throat.
He’d never had much luck with his own family back in Russia but he’d been welcomed so openly into Shane’s, embraced by their love, folding him in like he was one of their own — he’d just never really given any of it much thought of what it’d be like to have to lose one of them, too.
He doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels watery warmth on his cheeks. He sniffs and then straightens himself up to scrub a hand roughly over his face, palms catching on the day old stubble that framed his jaw.
He could vaguely hear his fathers voice scold him from somewhere in the back of his mind:
Perestán revét. Muzhchíny ne nóyut.
He blinks hard and shakes his head, as if attempting to shake the ghostly voice away.
He looks up, looking towards the movement that happens around him. A man walks past with a child, cradling a bouquet of flowers in his arms, talking animatedly with wide grins.
He closes his eyes again, willing his heart to calm in his chest, hearing David’s voice instead:
It’s okay, son. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t cry.
He stifles his son into his palm, turning away to face the wall; it was one thing to cry but he at least didn’t want anyone noticing it was the Ilya Rozanov blubbering alone.
Tears track down his face. He thinks about his mama. He thinks about his father, too. It was an ache in his chest he’d since learned to tend to — never fully healed, but slowly worked out the knots and the kinks.
He hears footsteps and he’s quickly wiping his eyes with his sleeve, worried for a second it was a fan that’d spotted him or even a nurse or other hospital worker that thought maybe he could use some help.
But when he turns around, he’s faced with a concerned looking Yuna Hollander.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, and it’s no help for he makes a wrecked sound and crumples into the arms she opens up just in time.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he rasps, hunched over to bury his head into her soft shoulder.
“Oh, none of that, Ilya.” She’s rubbing his back, like she’d rubbed Shane’s arm earlier. It’s such a simple gesture that holds so much weight and comfort. He melts a little into the touch before he forces himself to pull away, using the sleeve of his hoodie once again to swipe across his face.
“Hey, hey. C’mon,” Yuna coos. She reaches up and brushes her fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. “I know. It’s a little scary, I know.”
He feels totally ridiculous. He's standing here in front of a woman that could well have been made a widower less than an hour ago, having had to hold herself together for the sake of the media and her son, barely having shed a tear and here Ilya was, crying his eyes out in the darkened corner of a hospital hallway after running away at first glance.
He exhales, his breath coming out all wobbly where his chest hiccups at the weight of his emotions.
“Sorry,” he says again, unable to stop himself even when Yuna pins him with a firm look. “Is… is a lot. Here.”
Yuna’s fingers fasten around the flesh of his arm, holding tight in a reaffirming squeeze.
“Oh, honey. I imagined as much.” Her voice wavers a little. “I appreciate you so much for being here, for us. For Shane.”
He bows his head, ashamed that he’d essentially walked out on Shane even if he had seemed to have been understanding about it all. He screws his face up, shaking his head at himself.
“He is so brave,” he rasps. God, he loved Shane so much. Sometimes it felt like the love he had for his husband had manifested itself into this big, powerful weapon that cleaved his heart clean in two. It was an ache, he’d discovered, that came with an undeniable adoration: the price you paid to love and be loved in return.
He finds the strength to stand up, towering over Yuna once more now he’s no longer crumbling in her arms.
“You’re brave too, you know that, don’t you? We think that of you, too.”
Yuna’s voice is wet with unshed tears, held together with enough willpower even as it warbles slightly.
Ilya nods his head numbly. “I think you all make me feel brave.”
Yuna pulls him in for another hug, cradling the back of his head to pull him down to plant a kiss to his cheek.
“Feel ready to head back, honey?”
Ilya steels himself for a moment, letting those thoughts come to a still before they finally sink away into the depths of his murky subconscious.
He nods, and Yuna smiles at him. He’s not sure how she does it but he’s in awe of her always: what a woman, David and Shane were lucky.
So was Ilya, by extension.
They walk, arm in arm back up the hallway towards David’s unit.
They near the desk again and Ilya bumps his mother-in-law's shoulder as his brow furrows.
“What about two person rule?” He voices his concern out loud. “They will want one of us to stay out here?”
Yuna doesn’t look at all disheartened at Ilya’s honest worry. She just bumps his shoulder back and beams up at him, eyes crinkling the same way Shane’s did when he was being beautifully mischievous.
“I’m the mother of two of the biggest MHL stars,” she says, keeping her voice low as they approach the desk. “I know how to work my way around a few stupid rules, sweetie.”
***
Yuna’s determination pulls itself off effortlessly and results in all three of them in David’s room, talking in small voices, watching over his sleeping form as if it were exactly that: him just sleeping.
“Here, baby. Eat.”
She’s fishing out three chocolate bars from her purse, having clearly only gotten as far as a vending machine in her search for something to eat before she’d found Ilya in the state she’d found him in — she says nothing to Shane about it right now, and for that Ilya is grateful. That was a conversation for another day.
He takes it, a Snickers bar, with a courteous nod, only now recognising his own hunger as he pulls back the wrapper and takes a look at the chocolatey, nutty nougat.
Shane however isn’t so enthusiastic.
He glances at the chocolate bar held in his direction and then back to his mother. His eyes flicker towards Ilya for a fleeting second, before he looks away, back at his dad as he shakes his head.
“Oh. No, I’m not hungry. Thanks though, mom. You have it.”
Yuna frowns, her arm remains stretched outwards as if Shane might still take it.
“Shane, you probably haven’t eaten in hours. I know it’s not one of your smoothies but just take it? Please?”
Ilya takes a slow bite of his own bar, chewing carefully as he watches Shane’s shoulders tense. He’s since given up his chair for his mom, standing beside her looking like he’d perhaps want to switch places with Ilya on the other side of the bed.
“I’m not hungry,” he mumbles, and Ilya braces himself as he watches Yuna’s expression sharpen, contorting itself into something he doesn’t think he’s ever seen on her, ever.
“For god sake, Shane,” she grits, louder and perhaps sharper than she’d intended. He whips around and faces her, looking shocked.
“Take it. Eat something! I almost lost your father, I’m not having you waste away in here, too!”
It’s like all the air in the room is swept away, leaving nothing but the empty, cold chamber of nothingness in its wake, leaving Ilya feel like he’s free falling.
He watches Shane’s eyes well up with tears, his throat bobs with a half cut breath.
Then, gingerly, he takes the chocolate bar, holding it carefully in his hands.
“Sorry, mom…” he says in an almost whisper, and that’s when Yuna loses it.
Burying her face into her hands, it’s a half hysterical noise that escapes past her splayed fingers.
“God! Sorry. Sorry.”
Ilya moves back around the bed to reach them both and places a large hand on her tiny shoulder just as Shane crouches down beside her, a hand on her knee.
“What is word,” Ilya says, swallowing his mouthful with an audible gulp. “Hippo-crate?”
Shane’s head snaps upwards, looking totally perplexed. But Yuna just laughs, a little wet sounding but genuine as she eventually lifts her head from her hands.
“Hypocrite,” she corrects him gently. She looks to Shane and pushes her bottom lip out before cupping his face with a hand. “I love you boys, so much.”
It relaxes some tension in Ilya’s chest to see the small, shaky little smile scrawl across Shane’s face as he leans into his moms touch. He then makes a show to peel open the chocolate bar and take a bite.
“Thank you,” he says, mouthful, before he turns his head to kiss her hand sweetly.
The three of them finish their candy quietly, the sound of the machines around them serving as a looming background noise as they eat.
It’s Shane that speaks up first, balling up his wrapper and stuffing it into his pocket after a quick glance for a trash can.
“So… what exactly did they say?” He asks, tentative as if he wasn’t sure he really did want to know.
Ilya waits with him, holding his breath until Yuna exhales, taking the first breath for all of them.
“They called it a widowmaker,” she says, voice wavering slightly on the word. “It happened out of nowhere. He was totally fine this morning, fine all day, in fact.”
Ilya focuses his gaze downwards — how frightening how much had changed for them in a few short hours whilst Ilya and Shane had been celebrating on the ice.
Shane shuffles on the spot, the way he does when he was unsure and uncertain of his own feelings. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and brought his shoulders up. He looked like he needed a warm shower and a heated blanket as soon as possible, and as soon as it was in fact possible, Ilya would be happy to provide.
“Harris was working on a statement for us,” Shane tells her, voice flat, like hockey was the furthest thing from a conversation he wanted to have right now. “It should hopefully keep a little pressure off all this. Off you.”
Yuna nods, grateful. It felt odd — Ilya couldn’t recount any time where he’d been in a room full of Hollander’s and hockey hadn’t been at the heart of their conversation. He couldn’t blame them, though. He’d barely remembered he’d even played a game today. He couldn’t even be bothered to check the score.
“Will you go back?” Yuna asks her son, looking to Ilya too to gauge his reaction. “When’s the next game again?”
It was something she should have known but Ilya couldn’t dare fault her for not knowing. Shane only thinks on it for a moment before answering.
“Two days. But I want to stay,” he says it quickly as if jumping ahead of any projections of protest. “I want to stay and help you, and dad.” He gulps. “Will… Will he be home, then, do you think?”
Ilya’s gaze rested upon the man in the bed. He wasn’t a big man by any means having spent the prime of his own life on the ice before setting into a comfortable job. But he looked thin, now. Gaunt in the face the same way his own father turned before his death.
He pushes the thought away from his head with a hard shove. He won’t allow himself to think that. He wouldn’t dare.
“They can’t say yet,” she says, tone tinged with unmasked sadness. “They said the next twenty four hours are critical no matter what — it was a big one, they’ll probably want to monitor him for a while. I’m glad they do, it’d be a relief to keep him here where it’s safe for now.”
Shane swallows hard and nods slowly, as if taking in her words bit by bit.
Ilya moves towards him and takes his hand in his, bringing it to his lips to press a long, warm kiss to his knuckles.
“We will stay, lyubímyy, as long as we need to, okay?”
He looks to Yuna for assurance who nods, a little misty eyed looking once more as she smiles at him, all of her love and appreciation worn on her face.
Shane twists Ilya’s hand around to rest his knuckles against his forehead, sighing deeply.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
The next few hours is a long, drawn out process of doctors coming and going, nurses in their wake, and Yuna dozing off in the armchair at her husbands beside whilst Shane and Ilya camp out on the floor, Ilya bracing himself against the wall with Shane slotted between his legs, his back fitted against Ilya’s chest as he held him there, sleepily tracing shapes with his thumb against Shane’s chest.
Since Shane’s phone had died hours ago and there was no movement regarding either of his parents, he’d wrangled Ilya into letting him borrow his so he could do a tiny bit of doomscrolling on social media to see what was being said, or what wasn’t.
True to his word, Wiebe had gotten a statement out fairly quickly following both their departure from the game tonight, keeping it short and sweet and unobtrusive to give away why they’d left in the first place.
A few more scrolls, both his and Shane’s name highlighted in bold indicated that he’d in fact gone off track of Ilya’s usually curated feed to search their names, he could see over his shoulder to see tweets from update accounts or random fans that had commented on the bizarre turn of tonight’s game.
He’d scrolled far enough to see a mixture of supportive messages that had respected their privacy as well ones that seemed confused and demanded explanation.
“Sweetheart,” Ilya had craned his head forward and pressed his lips to the exposed patch of Shane’s neck, keeping them pressed there as he spoke. “Let’s not look anymore, hm? It makes you have ant in your pants.”
Shane had scoffed, but he’d passed the phone back to him — the battery was yellow showing it was close to death now, so Ilya pocketed it and made a mental promise to keep it there until they went home.
“We won,” Shane says, voice scratchy. He seems to need to do something with his hands, so he rests once of them on Ilya’s knee, drawn up by his side, twirling a finger over the fabric of his jeans. “The game, of course. Goal from Haas, assist from Bood.”
Ilya grins, mouth still ghosting against Shane’s neck, neither of them making an effort to pull away from the touch.
“Of course we win,” Ilya says, voice quiet. “We wipe floor with Detroit. They play like loser babies.”
Shane snorts a laugh. It’s such a beautiful noise. He then sinks further into Ilya’s hold, as if they could possibly be any closer.
“That’s not nice,” he says. Then, after a beat, Ilya feels him tense just slightly, back muscles tightening against his torso. “I feel a bit bad, though. I was playing and celebrating when my dad was…”
His voice trails off, a little choked up, and Ilya’s hand move across Shane’s chest, large hands splayed across his perfect chest, holding him tighter than ever as he kisses his neck again, just underneath the back of his ear, letting it linger before he pulls away to speak.
“Shane. This is not your fault,” he tells him firmly, mindful to keep his voice level for a sleeping Yuna. “You know this? You could not have known. We left when we could. You did so good.”
Shane tips his head back, a little bit awkward given the angle, his silky hair brushed against Ilya’s cheek as he rests his head on his shoulder.
“I know,” he says quietly. “I can’t help it. I just keep thinking about if it’d been different. If he’d… and I didn’t know and played the rest of the game not knowing.”
It was a fair enough worry to have play over in his head — just hours ago Ilya had been cycling through his own intrusive thoughts in the hallway before itd gotten then better of him.
He allows his hand to travel up over Shane’s chest, past his neck, thumbing over the jut of his Adam’s apple before he’s cradling his jaw, tilting his head sideward as best as he can to face him best he could.
“You remember your hit during Boston game? Marleau knocked the shit out of you?”
Shane smiles and huffs a laugh. His breath is sweet, evident of the chocolate bar he’d had earlier, making Ilya feel faintly hungry again.
“Of course,” he says, voice low. “Most of it, anyway.”
Ilya traces the shape of his jaw with his fingers, brushing against the grain of the rare fine stubble that now sprouted there, barely visible still.
“I had to play on,” Ilya reminds him. “They took you off the ice, down the tunnel, out of arena and they blew the horn and I had to keep playing.”
Of course, Shane knew this. Ilya knew Shane knew this. But his point still stood, or at least, he hoped it did.
“I wished so hard I could follow you, chase down that ambulance and be with you. It felt like… like I was torn in half,” he says, voice wavering as he allows himself to relive those memories.
Shane frowns. “Oh?” He says, voice scraping out of him, barely above a whisper.
“Yes.” Ilya says. “It hurt very much. I waited all day to see you. It felt like forever.”
He remembers the desperate relief he felt when he’d seen Shane in that hospital bed, loopy on pain medication, arm hung in a sling and smile wide and true. He’d never felt relief like it before, like coming up for air after an entire night sunk at the bottom of cold, murky water.
“There was nothing I could do, though,” Ilya tells him. “I could wait. I could hope. I could eat Snicker bar and have good cry.”
Shane laughs. It’s wobbly and wet and his eyes are sheening with tears again.
“I love you,” Ilya says, and finally guides his face sideways so he can kiss him, easing his lips onto his, slow and sweet, savouring every second of it.
They pull away, Shane’s hand since migrated from his knee to embrace his face, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone.
“I love you too,” he whispers, tears slipping over his freckled, rosy cheeks.
It’s then there’s the sound of movement — more so the sound of sheets rustling, and a deep, crackling sigh.
Yuna is awake in seconds, shooting up in her seat, the back of her usually sleek hair a little matted at the top of her spine as she bends over the bed, gingerly taking up her husband's limp hand.
“David?” She says, her voice feeling too loud for the quiet still of the room that had settled upon them in the last hour or so.
Shane and Ilya are on their feet too, hands having found one another, fingers knotted together, Ilya gives his fingers a squeeze as they watch David’s eyes blearily open in slow, languid blinks. Shane squeezes back.
It takes David a few attempts to fully open his eyes, trying a few times as Yuna softly encourages him telling him they were all here, his family was here, all of them being her, Shane and Ilya.
Eventually he’s able to open his eyes, sighing again, sounding a little wet in the chest, he turns his head to look at his wife, managing a very small smile for her.
It breaks Yuna a second time, her face crumpling before it's wet with fresh tears.
“Oh, darling,” she sobs, gently folding herself over him.
He hears Shane stammer on his breath as he watches his dad meekly lift a hand to cradle the back of his wife’s head, working lethargic fingers through the knot in her hair.
“I will get nurse,” Ilya suggests quietly to Shane, kissing him swiftly before he slips out of the room.
He takes a single look back as he stands in the doorway, watching Yuna attempt to straighten herself out as she blinks rapidly, mascara not at all salvageable as it streaks down her cheeks. But she’s smiling, despite it, she’s grinning ear from ear like her face might break in two.
He leaves the room and walks back towards the hallway before he runs into a nurse.
“Ah,” he says, stopping her in her tracks. “David Hollander has woken up.” He says it and immediately wells up, emotions bubbling up in his chest escape in the form of a hysterical half cry half laugh.
“Sorry,” he says to the nurse who looks a touch perplexed as she takes in what he’s trying to say. “Very emotional day.”
She gives him a sympathetic look, head tipped to the side and smiles. “I’ll grab a doctor” she tells him. Then, before she leaves, she says:
“You have a very lovely family, Mr Rozanov.”
Ilya represses the polite urge to correct her and say, Mr Hollander, actually, and instead fixes her with a watery smile and says,
“Thank you. I know.”