Chapter Text
Being away from Ilya on road trips has become even harder for Shane since Ilya moved to Ottawa. Yes, they were closer the majority of the time, but that made Shane rely on Ilya even more. The two or three weeks where they are both away are fucking awful, Shane’s miserable the entire time. He assumes Ilya is as well.
Shane is in Washington, where the Voyeagurs just lost in a fucking horrible game. The locker room was nearly silent, all of the men filled with defeat. It wasn’t uncomfortable silence, it was just an annoying loss. The silence was broken by JJ’s loud accent filling the room. “Holy shit! The Centaurs plane crashed!”
Shane’s head whips up from his skates he had just begun untying. Ilya. “What?” Other gasps and murmurs of shock come from his teammates. “Where did you see that?”
Shane rushes over to JJ and tilts his phone out of his hand towards himself. “This afternoon the NHL Ottawa Centaurs teams,” JJ begins, reading aloud to the rest of the room, “plane crashed on their way to Tampa, Florida. There is expected to be… no survivors.” The room is even more silent than before.
“Shut the fuck up!.” Shane rips JJ’s phone from his hand and refreshes the webpage over and over, as if it would change anything it said. “No. No,” he mumbles the word to himself over and over until he gives up on JJ’s phone and reaches for his own. “You’re not fucking dead, no fucking way.” He feels his teammates eyes burning into him, sharing confused glances back and forth.
He feels Hayden’s body next to him. “Shane…” he places a hand on Shane’s shoulder. He sounds like he’s sniffling.
Shane abruptly flinches and pulls away from his hold. “No.” Shane looks up to see other teammates in distress, a few actually crying. They fucking believe this. There’s no way this is real. “No fucking way, Hayden.” Shane opens his phone to google and searches for the crash. Every news article coming up had the words “NO SURVIVORS”.
Shane drops his phone, his hands are shaking. Hayden rushes to pick it up and glances at the screen. “Shane, look.” Shane turns his head to Hayden who has tears running down his face, then he looks down to his phone. Four new Instagram messages from Ilya Rozanov. Ilya never uses Instagram.
He rips the phone from Hayden’s hand and taps the notification.
Ilya Rozanov: Shane, you are the best thing in my life.
Ilya Rozanov: I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.
Ilya Rozanov: I am thinking only about you right now. A million memories. Thank you for those.
Ilya Rozanov: Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.
Shane drops his phone again. Hayden catches it before the loud, cracking noise from before could repeat. Those messages aren’t real. They can’t be. If Ilya is really dead, he’s not with him. He’s not with Shane, he’s not safe. He’s just fucking dead. He hears his phone buzzing in Hayden’s hands. “It’s your mom…” he extends the phone to Shane but he doesn’t take it.
Shane sits down on the bench in front of his stall. He’s not crying yet. Why isn’t he crying? Ilya is dead. The love of his life is dead. Or at least that’s what the news articles are saying. But there’s no fucking way, he can’t be dead, right? The buzzing in Hayden’s hands stop, he hadn’t answered in time and the call ended.
Call. He needs to call Ilya. He jumps from the bench and again rips his phone from Hayden’s hand. He opens the phone app and presses Ilya’s contact. “Come on, please,” he loudly tells himself while waiting for the ringing to end and Ilya to pick up. Then he hears, Hi this is Ilya I will never listen to your voicemail. No fucking way. Once the call goes to voicemail, Shane begins again. “Answer the fucking phone, Ilya. You’re not fucking dead I know you’re not.” He hangs up and calls again, the voicemail repeats. “This isn’t fucking funny! Pick up your fucking phone!” He hangs up and calls again. Voicemail. “Ilya, please…” his voice cracks on the last word, “please fucking answer me. Please don’t tell me you’re dead.” Nothing changes on the other line. Shane shakily sighs and hangs up.
He runs his hands through his hair and over his face. He looks up to see the whole locker room focused on him. He said Ilya. There is no going back now, everyone knows there is something going on between them. No way he’s going to give up, fuck that. He picks up the phone one more time and presses call. Voicemail. “If you can hear this,” Shane is sobbing now. He doesn’t know if it just started, or if he had been this whole time and hadn’t realized, but he can’t stop it, “please don’t be dead. I love you so much, you can’t do that to me, please. Ilya, please,” he waits on the call, only silence coming from the other line. For a moment he thinks he hears breathing, then realizes it’s Haydens, now standing next to him.
Shane didn’t notice Hayden had an arm wrapped over his shoulder for the duration of his failed call attempts. “Shane…” Shane struggles to turn his eyes away from the floor to Hayden. Once he does, more tears fall out. “I’m so sorry buddy. He’s not there.”
Shane loudly inhales and lets out a cry. Before hanging up, he needs to say one more thing. Even if Ilya is not there, he has to say something, his last sentence to him. But what could that be? How could he summarize everything Ilya means to him in one final sentence? “Ya,” he starts, his voice cracking so much his words are barely understandable, “tebya, lyublyu.” He leaves the phone to his ear for a few moments, then slowly pulls it away and hits the red button.
Shane turns and collapses into Hayden’s arms, letting out uncontrollable deafening sobs. He falls to the floor and brings Hayden along with him. They sit like that for a few minutes, the locker room eventually filling with more conversation about the crash. Shane tries not to listen, but he couldn’t help it.
“Are they sure there’s no survivors?” He hears Hayden ask, Shane’s head laying against his chest, arms wrapped around his body.
“I don’t-,” JJ starts, stopping after Shane lets out another abrupt sob. “I don’t know. It says so… but you never know! It just happened, they could be wrong.” Even not knowing Shane’s full situation, JJ still tries to reassure him.
Shane thinks about how JJ, one of his closest friends, is seeing him breakdown right now and he doesn’t even know why. Not fully, at least. Him and Ilya wasted so much time and energy in hiding themselves, and for fucking what? For Ilya to just die, no one except a few close friends knowing they were in love?
There’s no way he’s dead, Shane’s not believing that, no fucking way. “He can’t be dead,” he lets out against Hayden’s chest, the first words he’s spoken since sinking to the floor. “He can’t be.” He finally looks up to Hayden, their faces too close for comfort but neither caring enough to move back.
“I’m so sorry, Shane.” He feels his phone vibrate against his leg in Hayden’s hand. Shane whips his entire body around and grabs the phone from Hayden. Ilya, he thinks to himself. It’s Ilya. “It’s just your mom…” Hayden announces, destroying the little hope Shane had for that half a second. “You should answer, Shane.”
Shane lets out a shaky breath and nods his head. He answers the call. “Mom…”
“Oh Shane,” she starts, voice stuffy and cracking. “I’m so sorry, honey. Where are you, are you okay?”
“I’m- I’m with Hayden. At the arena, still. There’s no fucking way he’s dead mom, he can’t be.” He feels Hayden caressing his back, causing him to quickly glance up at him. JJ was mouthing something to him, probably trying to figure out what the fuck was going on without startling Shane. He looks back to the floor and shakes his head, directing his attention back to Yuna. “There’s just no fucking way.”
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry. Your father and I are driving up right now, we’ll meet you at the house. Can Hayden drive you home? You shouldn’t be driving right now…”
Shane scoffs into the phone and lets out a louder sob. “I can’t just-“ he throws his hands in the air as if looking for the words. “I can’t just go home. I need to go to Tampa, or Ottawa, or wherever the fuck he is. I need to see him. Am I even on his fucking emergency contacts? Does anyone know to call us? I mean what the fuck mom?” His voice is filled with more anger than he meant to show. “We wasted so much time…” his voice softens, then another sob is let out.
He hears a cry from his mother on the other side of the phone. “We’ll figure everything out, Shane,” his father starts. “Just go home, stay with Hayden, please. We’ll be there soon.”
“Okay,” he cries, then pulls the phone from his ear and hangs up.
He looks up to Hayden who is mid conversation with JJ. JJ notices Shane looking up to him and gestures, Hayden turning and looking down. “Hey buddy,” his voice had gotten more stable. “I’m gonna take you home, okay? Can I help you up?” Shane nods and allows Hayden to take his hand and pull him forward. Once Shane is back on his two feet, he looks around the room and sees most of the guys have cleared out, leaving just Shane, Hayden, JJ, Miitka, and a few other veterans who looked just as concerned as the others.
Shane cries as he slowly packs up the few things he has, taking off his skates and the rest of his gear. He looks to Hayden to let him know he’s ready to leave, but he can’t help but fall into his arms again. Hayden wraps his body around him and holds him up, Shane’s tears soaking into his shoulder. He had already drenched his shirt from before, making a damp spot on his chest. “I know, buddy. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Each word someone lets out just makes Shane cry even more. The more it’s talked about, the more people get involved, the more real it feels. This isn’t just something Shane saw on his phone. JJ saw it, Hayden, Miitka, the entirety of the Montreal Voyageurs, his mom, his dad. He can’t step outside. Once he’s out there, everyone will know. Everyone will know all of the Ottawa Centaurs are dead. An entire NHL team is dead. Ilya Rozanov is dead.
The thought makes Shane let out one more loud cry, then let go from Hayden’s embrace. JJ and his other teammates say things to Shane, probably some form of apologies or “feel betters” (which, what the fuck do you mean feel better?) but Shane can’t acknowledge them. His mind had completely dissociated.
He doesn’t come back to reality until he’s just feet away from Hayden’s car. Their hands had been connected the entire time. Hayden lets go and opens the door to Shane, practically sitting him in the car like a child. Hayden hastily walks to the other side and gets himself in, starting the car. Once the car turns on, a loud Bad Bunny song blasts along with it. “Fuck!” Hayden mutters. He immediately turns the volume dial down all the way, the two in silence again. “I’m so sorry, fuck…” Hayden awkwardly buckles himself in and begins driving.
Ilya loves Bad Bunny.
Loved.
Something was weird about this. There’s no way Ilya is dead. He can’t be. Shane can feel it. He’s not. He thinks he’d be telling himself that either way, there would be no reasonable explanation for his 29 year old boyfriend to die randomly. But this. Shane isn't just telling himself this in denial, he’s not doing it as some form of grief. He knows it. “There’s no fucking way he’s dead, Hayden. There’s no way.”
Hayden nods, probably unsure of what to say. Shane is just as unsure.
But there is one thing he is sure of.
Ilya is alive.
Shane fucking knows it.
————-
Ilya doesn’t sleep on planes often. It’s not that he’s afraid to, he just never does. But on his flight to Tampa today, he did fall asleep, which is weird because he doesn’t even remember being tired.
He’s having a dream about his mother. There was a period of time where he would have dreams about her wanting to meet Shane, but Shane never made it in time. This dream was different. It was more of a memory than a dream, really. He was 10. His mom has taken him to a public pool near their house. His father was furious with her, saying Ilya needed to spend more time practicing hockey, not swimming.
They were swimming together, splashing each other. They would play a game where they would both go underwater and one had to guess what the other was saying. It was Ilya’s turn to guess. His mother runs her fingers through his hair and places his hand on his cheek. “Moy syn,” she says gently. My son. She quickly goes under the water, and Ilya follows.
She starts speaking underwater, but Ilya can’t figure out what it is. He’s laughing, his mother looking ridiculous repeating herself until he gets it. She’s giggling as well. But then suddenly- she stops. Her face drops and she quickly floats back out of the water. Ilya floats back up but… he can’t get out? He can see outside of the water but it’s as if there is a barrier preventing him from leaving.
This was not a part of the memory.
He raises his hands and pushes on the surface, his ability to breath quickly leaving. Then he hears his mothers voice. It’s not muffled from the water anymore, it’s clear. He looks around for her but is alone in the water. He’s not in a pool anymore, he’s in the ocean. He looks down at his feet, struggling to kick any longer, then notices the dark water beneath him. “Prosnut'sya.” Wake up, he hears. His mother has been repeating it, getting louder and louder with each word. Now she’s screaming. “Ilya! Ilya!” Ilya covers his ears hoping to drown out the noise, but nothing helps. Ilya closes his eyes and wrapped his arms around his head. The noise was getting too loud, deafening. It’s starting to hurt. He can’t breathe anymore, either. He's been under water too long. Now he’s screaming. He’s in so much pain.
And then.
He’s awake.
He’s not with his mother. Not in a pool, or an ocean. He’s back on the plane.
Except the plane is sinking, water rising almost up to his chest. “Ilya! Wake up! Fuck Ilya!” Troy lets out a sigh of relief, frantically shaking Ilya with both hands. “Get the fuck up!”
Ilya's head is pounding. He raises a hand to it and touches it, then pulls back his hand to see blood.
Troy moves his fingers across Ilya's lap trying to find the seatbelt. “Fuck!” The seatbelt is stuck. Ilya is going to die. He is going to drown right here, stuck in this fucking plane. Troy looks down the aisles of the plane, something catches his eye. “Wyatt! Give me those scissors.” Wyatt runs over, holding Luca, unconscious, under one arm. He hands Troy the scissors with the other. “Fuck, fuck,” he continues mumbling profanities to himself while searching the water over Ilya for the seatbelt. He cuts it, allowing Ilya’s body to slightly float. The water has now reached the middle of his chest.
He stands up and jumps to run out of the plane, but he can’t. Something is pulling him back, sending a sharp pain through his arm. “Ilya?” Troy questions, wondering why the fuck Ilyas not trying to evacuate the drowning plane. “Holy fuck. Ilya don’t look.” Of course, Ilya looks. The water around Ilya's right hand begins to turn red. A large piece of metal debris, from god knows what part of the plane, has impaled Ilya's hand into the seat. It’s hard to see from under the water, but it doesn’t even fully look like a hand anymore.
Before Ilya can make any more assumptions of what is or isn’t left of his body, he passes out and falls back into his seat.
———-
Ilya’s body is burning. Not hot, like the sun burning. Like pain. His body feels like it is being lit on fire. His eyes shoot open, quickly closing them from the sun. Once they accommodate to the brightness, he fully opens them. He’s laying straight on his back, looking up at the blue sky and the trees covering most of it. He looks to his right to see Harris sitting against a tree with an arm wrapped around Troy, both their knees pulled up to their chests. They make eye contact. “Fuck, Ilya.” Ilya doesn’t respond. He can’t open his mouth. Harris stands up and gets onto his knees at Ilya’s side. Ilya turns to his left to see Luca laying next to him on a bed of grass asleep. Or unconscious. Or maybe dead. Ilya doesn’t think he’s dead though, he knows he’s not, he can see his chest moving up and down. Ilya's eyes drift lower.
Luca’s left leg is fucking gone. A white bandage is wrapped around what’s left of it towards his knee. Ilya hears Harris call his name again and place a hand on his shoulder. He slowly turns his head away from Luca and back to Harris and Troy.
The burning sensation is coming back. It feels strongest in a certain part of his body, though. Ilya slightly leans forward to look towards his right hand. He needs to make this burning stop immediately. Except his hand isn’t there. Not really.
His hand is fucking gone. Just like Luca, what’s barely left of it is wrapped in a white bandage. “Ilya, it’s gonna be okay.” Ilya's chest is moving up and down quicker. His breaths are getting faster, so fast that he’s barely breathing at all.
Now he can’t breathe. He fully sits up and props himself up on his elbows, then reaches his left hand towards his throat. He couldn’t open his mouth to say the words. “Fuck! Ilya, breathe, it’s gonna be okay I promise!” He's hyperventilating. He looks up from Harris to Troy and Zane who are standing above him, looking at each other with worry over their faces. Troy looks down to Ilya's arm, then rubs his hand over his face and turns away in distress.
Both men have cuts across their arms, bandages similar to Ilyas wrapped around them. Only their bandages aren’t holding their limbs together, they’re just covering temporary scars.
Ilyas elbows give in and he falls back to his original position, unconscious once again.
———
“Ilya.”
Ilya shoots up, sitting forward with his back straight. He turns to Harris who is sitting on his right side. “Hey,” Ilya looks down again, his hand is still barely there.
Fuck. He was hoping it was a dream.
He looks up to Harris and begins crying. “No, it’s okay. Ilya, I’m here. I promise it’s okay.” His breaths are getting heavy again, faster. No, Ilya. You need to be here. Harris places one hand on Ilya’s shoulder and another on his back, caressing him in both spots. “It’s okay, you’re safe. Everyone is good.”
Ilyas breathing settles. He tries not to look at his hand. He looks to his left and sees Luca still sleeping in the same spot he was in before. Evan is sitting next to him now, holding his hand. He didn’t feel Ilya's eyes on him as Evan's own couldn’t look away from Luca’s leg.
Ilya looks back to Harris. “What the fuck happened?”
Ilya's question causes Harris’s eyes to prickle with tears. “Our plane… it- it crashed.” He nods his head to the water. Ilya turns straight to see just the tip of the plane sticking out of the water, about 100 feet away from shore.
Ilya turns back to Harris. “Is everyone okay?” He asks frantically.
Harris sighs and looks down. “Everyone is alive.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Harris looks up, his eyes moving past Ilya behind him to Luca. “Luca’s leg is… gone. Nick's arm is broken, like, bad. Wyatt was helping him but I don’t know exactly what happened. There was too much blood and his bone was sticking out and-“ Harris winces and turns away. “I couldn’t look any longer. So I’ve been here with you. Your hand…”
“Is gone.”
“It’s not,” Troy interrupted. He had been sitting against the same tree as before behind Harris. “It’s just wrapped, Ilya. Don’t worry.”
Ilya scoffs and rolls his eyes. Don’t worry? Of course I’m going to fucking worry, Barrett. Ilya knows he is just trying to help. He turns back to Harris and wipes away the tears that had started to fall out. He brings his left hand to his head and feels a bandage wrapped around it. “My head? Is everyone else okay?”
“We think the metal that… impaled your hand… hit you in the head first. Or something did. I don't know. Something hit you and you were bleeding there, you probably have a concussion.” Ilya shakily inhales. “We’re all pretty banged up, some cuts and stuff, but for the most part everyone else is good. It’s a miracle.”
Ilya exhales out of semi relief. He lets out a sarcastic laugh, throwing his good hand in the air, then rubbing it over his face and through his hair. Miracle. “This is fucking unbelievable.” He shakes his head and looks down onto his lap.
Then he remembers.
“Shane.” He rushes to stand up, Harris holds him back with one arm. “No, I need to talk to Shane.”
“Ilya stop, you need to sit!” Troy stands up to help keep Ilya down, not pushing him, just placing a hand on him. Ilya looks around frantically, noticing Evan has finally directed his attention to him. “Shane? Who? Hollander?” Ilya turns back to Harris.
Ilya can’t answer. For a second he thinks he’s going to lose his breath again, but he’s not allowing it. “Ilya we don’t have a phone or anything, we can’t contact anyone.” Troy answers. He feels Harris turn to Troy and whisper something, he doesn’t bother to care what it is. “He’s okay, Ilya.”
“He thinks I am dead. That is not okay.”
“Once the rescue team gets us, he’ll know. I’m sure they’re looking for us right now.”
Shane needs to know Ilya is alive. As soon as possible. Shane cannot go on thinking that. “How long has it been since the crash? An hour?” Harris and Troy both frown and look between each other. They don’t answer. Ilya turns around to Evan who had been listening in. He immediately looks away from Ilya and back to his hand connected with Luca’s. Ilya turns back to Harris. “Well?”
“Over a day.”
Ilya knows how these things work. As soon as the world knows the plane crashed, helicopters and rescue teams are sent out to look everywhere. Or they say everywhere. And for those first 24 hours, yeah, they look. After that…
There’s no fucking rescue team coming.
A day.
A fucking day.