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Shane wakes up slowly, like he’s surfacing through thick water.
It’s not a clean kind of waking. Not the sharp, familiar snap back to consciousness after a nap or a long night. This is sluggish and heavy and it leaves his brain feeling loose and disorganized.
His eyelids feel glued shut, his tongue dry. His thoughts come in fragments – half-formed, slipping away before he can quite grasp any of them.
There’s a sound, sharp and punctuating.
A steady, rhythmic beep…beep…beep.
It cuts through the murky silence, persistent and annoying, like it’s just waiting to be noticed.
Shane frowns.
He tries to move his hand to rub his face, to scrub at his face until he’s fully awake, but something is wrong immediately. His arm barely responds. There’s resistance – weight – something holding him in place.
He lets out a low, confused noise.
Pain is the only response he receives.
It’s not fierce at first. Just a deep, throbbing ache that blooms slowly from his shoulder and spreads outward, striking his chest, his back, his neck. It builds the more he tries to move, until it spikes enough to take his breath away.
“Mm–”
His eyes finally crack open.
The world is blurry. Bright in a way that just feels aggressive. White lights overhead that are too strong, forcing him to squint.
He blinks.
Once.
Twice.
The ceiling swims into focus – tiles, faint cracks, a panel humming softly. The stupid beeping gets louder.
Or maybe he’s just noticing it more.
He swallows, wincing at the scratchy dryness of his throat. His lips feel cracked and he longs for his Aquaphor. His entire body feels…wrong. Like it doesn’t belong to him. He shifts again, slower and smaller this time.
Still wrong.
There’s something tight around his torso. His shoulder is immobilized, pressed firmly against his side. His hand – his right hand – isn’t where it’s supposed to be. It’s heavy and useless under a blanket he can’t quite feel against his skin.
Confusion creeps in, slow and disorienting.
He attempts to form words, but it comes out as a croak and nothing more. The sound is rough and weak and nothing like his voice.
There’s a sudden scrape of a chair, then movement close by.
“Ilya?” Shane thinks.
“Hey– hey. Easy there, superstar.”
Shane turns his head towards the familiar voice, his neck moving like it’s made of sand. His vision is lagging, taking a second to catch up with the motion.
A blurry shape forms.
Then a face.
Not Ilya.
Hayden.
He’s sitting close to the bed, elbows on his knees, one leg bouncing lazily like he’d been doing it for too long. His hair’s a mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly. There are dark circles under his eyes.
He looks…releived? Annoyed? Both, somehow?
Shane stares at him for a long second, trying to place his swimming shape. Trying to connect why Hayden is here, why the room looks like this, why everything smells so aggressively clean.
“...Did we win?” Shane mumbles.
Hayden blinks.
Of all the things he was probably expecting, that was definitely not one of them.
“You got absolutely leveled into the boards,” Hayden says slowly, “and got knocked halfway into another dimension, and that’s your first question?”
Shane processes that.
Very slowly.
His brows pull together. “So…we lost?”
Hayden stares at him for a half a second. Then he lets out a snort, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable.”
Shane hums faintly, like he’s satisfied with that conclusion. He tries to shrug, and regrets it immediately.
The pain hits much sharper this time, bright and sudden, cutting straight through the fog in his head like a freight train. His breath catches, face twisting as his body tenses before he can stop it.
“Ow…ow,” he mutters.
“Okay, so don’t do that.” Hayden is on his feet instantly, one hand hovering uselessly near Shane’s uninjured shoulder like he wants to help but doesn’t know how. “The doctor said you’re supposed to stay still. Like, really still.”
Shane squeezes his eyes shut, riding out the wave of pain until it dies back down into something manageable. His breathing evens out carefully.
“That seems excessive.”
“It’s not excessive, your shoulder is fucked up,” Hayden shoots back. “You’re lucky it’s not worse.”
Shane cracks his eyes back open, unimpressed. “The doctor also said I’m brave and handsome.”
Hayden snorts again. “He did not.”
“Fine. He implied it.”
“He absolutely did not imply it. You’re high, Shane.”
Shane considers arguing further, but decides it’s too much effort. His brain feels funny. Instead, he lets his eyes drift closed again, head tipping slightly to the side as heaviness begins to pull him back under. The beeping finally starts to fade back into the background where it belongs.
For a second, Hayden thinks he actually fell back to sleep.
“...Water.”
It’s barely more than a whisper. Hayden exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Hang on.”
He grabs a plastic cup from the tray beside the bed, peeling the wrapper off the top of the straw. There’s a moment of awkward maneuvering as he tries to figure out the best way to sit Shane up without jostling him too much.
“Alright, just– no don’t help, Shane!” Hayden reprimands quickly as Shane instinctively tries to wiggle upright again. “I’ve got it. Just…be useless for now.”
“Rude,” Shane grumbles.
“Accurate, actually.”
Hayden carefully slides a hand behind Shane’s neck, lifting him just enough to angle the straw towards his mouth.
“Slow,” he warns.
Shane takes a small sip. Then another. The water hits his throat and it’s like something inside of him resets. The dryness eases and the world sharpens just a fraction more.
He sinks back against his pillow with a soft exhale.
“Five star service,” he says faintly.
Hayden rolls his eyes, setting the cup back down.
“Yeah, well I expect a great review. And a tip.”
Shane giggles softly and there’s a pause as the room settles around them. The machines keep their steady rhythm and the lights continue to buzz overhead. Somewhere out in the hallway, a voice calls for a nurse, desperate and distant.
Shane’s gaze drifts, unfocused, tracing the edges of the room. The IV pole, the monitor, the stiff white sheets tucked too tight around his legs.
“Where’s my phone?” he asks, suddenly.
“You’re not allowed to have it right now, bud.”
Shane frowns. “Why?” he whines.
“Because,” Hayden says, dragging the word out. “You are concussed. And also extremely drugged. And also you already tried to tell Siri to text Theriault – and I quote – that you died but will still be at practice in the morning.”
Shane absorbs this information. “That’s responsible of me,” he decides.
“No, it’s not. It’s stupid.”
Shane presses his lips together, like he’s thinking of something very important. “I had something I had to do,” he tries.
“Oh yeah?” Hayden crosses his arms. “What was it?”
Shane opens his mouth then closes it and furrows his eyebrows.
“...I forget,” he whines.
Hayden huffs. “Right.”
Shane ignores him, eyes drifting back to the interesting ceiling tiles. There’s something there. In his muddled brain. A feeling more than a thought. Like he’s missing something important but he can’t quite put his finger on what. Or, more accurately, who.
“Someone,” he mumbles.
“What?”
Shane frowns deeper. “I was–” he trails off, frustrated. “I wanted to–” He exhales sharply, annoyed with his stupid, broken brain. “It’s gone.”
“Probably wasn’t that important then,” Hayden tries to console.
Shane goes still for a second. “I think it was.”
Hayden glances at him, his expression shifting slightly. But before he can ask anything else, Shane’s attention shifts off of the ceiling and onto the door.
Even Shane’s not quite sure why he’s staring at the door. There’s nothing spectacular about it. A neutral color, a small window, the same sterile hallway just beyond it with shadows passing every so often. But something in him latches onto it anyway, like a thread he can’t quite see but refuses to let go of.
“Someone,” he murmurs again, much quieter this time.
Hayden doesn’t glance up.
But then, the boring, neutral door opens just enough for someone to slip through. And Shane, drug-addled and all, just lights up.
“Ilya!”
The name bursts out of him, bright and certain and right in a way that he hasn’t felt since he woke up.
Hayden’s head snaps up. That sure got his attention because standing just inside the doorway is Ilya fucking Rozanov.
He freezes like a deer in headlights the second Hayden’s gaze lands on him. It’s as if he hadn’t expected to be caught this quickly. Or at all. He’s dressed in a dark hoodie, sleeves pushed just enough to show his wrists. A cap pulled low, hooding his eyes, though not shadowing the tension in his face.
His gaze goes straight to Shane and stays there. For a moment neither of them speak. Shane just sits there, grinning. Like actually grinning – unfiltered and wide and open, something soft and purely genuine lighting up the entirety of his face.
And Ilya, he looks relieved. It’s quick and it’s barely there, but it’s a crack in the composure he’d walked into the room with.
“I was just–” he starts.
“You came!” Shane says, because to him, that’s the only part that actually matters.
Hayden looks between them, brows knit tightly together. “You– don’t you hate him?”
Shane drags his eyes away from Ilya just to look at Hayden like he’s deeply disappointed in him. “Hayden,” he says, his voice thick but certain. “I do not hate him. I love him!”
Ilya’s breath catches as he shifts from one foot to the other, angling himself slowly back towards the door. “I can just come back later,” he mumbles. “I did not know–”
“No!” Shane cuts in. It comes out sharp and raw. His good hand lifts off the bed clumsily, fingertips shaking. “Don’t leave.”
Ilya stills.
Hayden just stares at Shane’s hand. At the tremble in his fingers.
The room is silent sans the beeping from the monitor in the corner. Someone's feet shuffle past the door. Then Shane pats the edge of the bed, determination flooding his features, bleeding through the heavy haze of the medication.
“Come here!”
Ilya hesitates. It’s not just a pause, but instead, a calculation. A visible, internal back-and-forth playing out in the slight tightening of his jaw and the wandering of his eyes. He glances quickly at Hayden, who still hadn’t moved since the door clicked shut. Then he looks back at his Shane. And the way he is currently looking at him – open, expectant, certain. The way he only looked at him when they were alone in the cottage.
Ilya exhales quietly.
Shane tracks his movements with sluggish, glossy eyes, like he’s afraid he’ll disappear. His smile doesn't fade, not even a little, as Ilya crosses the small space between them.
Up close, the tension that has settled in Ilya is clearer. His shoulders are tight, his posture careful, like he’s trying not to take up space. His eyes flick to the sling and the IV, taking everything in. Assessing. Cataloging.
“Are you okay?” he asks carefully.
Shane nods, then winces immediately at the motion. He still manages to whisper, “Better now.”
Hayden leans back in his chair, observing. “Okay,” he mutters. “Sure.”
Shane squints up at Ilya, like he’s trying to make his face focus. “You look nice,” he observes.
Ilya blinks. “What?”
“You always look nice,” Shane continues, completely serious. “But, like, extra nice right now.”
Hayden makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. He seriously considers jumping out the window. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, “what is happening right now?”
Shane waves vaguely in his direction without looking away from Ilya. “Oh, yeah, Hayden.”
Hayden stares at him. “Yeah, Hayden. Hi. I'm still here. Watching whatever this is.”
Shane nods like he’s remembering something important. “This is my boyfriend!”
Hayden freezes. “Sorry, what?” he sputters.
There’s a beat where no one breathes. Ilya remains frozen at Shane’s side, Hayden is still stock-still in the chair.
“My boyfriend!” Shane repeats, frowning slightly at the confusion.
Ilya still hasn’t moved. When he slipped through the door he was not expecting his world to be blown wide open.
Hayden points between them, movements jerky and disbelieving. “You two…are dating?”
“Yep! Dating!” Shane supplies, thinking he’s being helpful.
“Rozanov. You’re dating Rozanov.”
“Yes, Pike. He is dating me. I know you are fifteenth best hockey player on Montreal but now you are stupid too?”
Hayden just gapes like a goldfish. “This is a joke. This is a joke, you’re fucking with me, right?”
Shane just looks at Hayden, confusion painting his face. “Why would it be a joke?”
His stupid brain makes him feel like he’s going to cry.
“Okay, if you’re dating then, how long have you been together?”
Shane squints like he’s trying to solve a complex math problem. “...a while?” he tries.
“Since summer before rookie season…technically,” Ilya supplies.
“Since– what?!”
Shane just shrugs, his gaze still on Ilya, eyes unbelievably fond and soft. He fumbles around, desperately trying to grasp even just one of Ilya’s fingers. Ilya watches him, as his fingers curl and reach, trying to graze even a section of his skin. He steps closer. Close enough that Shane doesn’t have to reach. Doesn’t have to strain.
His fingers close around Ilya’s pointer finger.
“Yes,” Shane whispers in quiet victory.
Ilya lets Shane weakly tug him closer, so their palms are flat against each other.
“I like holding your hand,” Shane mumbles, already forgetting that Hayden is there, watching.
Ilya huffs out a quiet laugh, something soft breaking open in his chest despite everything that happened in the last ten minutes. “My Shane,” he whispers quietly, his voice low, almost like a warning.
“I’m injured,” Shane whines. “I deserve comfort.”
“You are high.”
“Two things can be true.”
Hayden drags his hands down his face. “I cannot believe this is happening right now.”
Shane ignores him completely, his attention steady only on Ilya.
The room dissolves into silence. Well, almost silence. The monitor still beeps in the corner, the lights still hum, people still shuffle in the hallway outside the door. Hayden has gone completely still. Which, honestly, is more alarming.
He’s still sitting in the corner, one hand pressed over his mouth, the other braced against his knee, fingers clenched like he has no idea what to do with them. He really should walk out, but he promised David and Yuna he’d wait with Shane until they could make it to the hospital.
His eyes keep flicking between Ilya and Shane then away and back again. Like if he looks too long, it might become more real somehow.
On the bed, Shane remains blissfully unaware. His attention remains locked on Ilya, who has perched gently on the outside edge of the hospital bed. Whatever fog was clouding Shane’s thoughts seemed to have cleared just enough for this – for him – to come into sharp, undeniable clarity.
Shane’s thumb is brushing along the back of Ilya’s hand in perfect time with Ilya’s thumb that is tracing along the delicate freckles dotting Shane’s cheek.
“You were watching the game,” Shane says. It’s not a question.
Ilya nods. “Yes. I was.”
Shane studies him in the too-honest way he only manages when they’re completely alone – or he’s high out of his mind on painkillers.
“How did you get here?”
Ilya’s expression flickers as he lazily shrugs. “Montreal is not that far from Ottawa.”
In the background, Hayden makes a noise that resembles a choking child.
Ilya exhales slowly, gazing at Shane. “You scared me. Do you know that?”
“Didn’t mean to,” Shane whispers.
“I know.”
Ilya’s eyes flick down to Shane’s shoulder, wrapped and immobilized. To the IV line and the hospital gown. Shane’s fingers tighten around Ilya’s.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Is okay, moy lyubov.”
Behind Ilya’s hunched form, Hayden slowly removes his hand from his face. He exhales long and measured. “Okay,” he says finally. “Okay, cool, right.”
Neither man acknowledges the grumbling.
Hayden nods once, like he’s agreeing with a statement no one else can hear.
“Boyfriends,” he mutters under his breath. “In love. Russian nicknames. That tracks. Totally tracks.”
He glances over again. He watches the way Shane’s thumb is still gliding across Ilya’s hand. The way Ilya’s grip is tight and secure. The way they’re angled towards each other like Hayden doesn’t even exist.
Shane shifts slightly against the pillow, wincing faintly before settling again. “Stay,” he says, the word slipping out like an instinct.
“I am not going anywhere for now.”
“No, I mean–” Shane swallows, like he’s trying to pick words out of the haze. “Don’t leave. Not when–” He trails off, frustrated.
Ilya leans in slightly, brushing away a rogue strand of hair. “When what, solnyshko?”
Shane frowns, searching. “For when I forget things again.”
Ilya stills. Hayden’s gaze sharpens. There’s no way Shane’s asking this guy to stay.
“What are you forgetting, Shanya?”
Shane huffs, annoyed with himself. “My head’s,” he gestures weakly, “Stuff keeps…going. I don’t know.” Shane looks at him with something almost uncertain creeping in around the edges. “I don’t want to forget that you were here.”
Ilya’s expression softens into something unguarded. “You will not forget.”
“But I might,” Shane pouts.
Ilya dusts a thumb over his jutted bottom lip. Shane presses a soft kiss to the pad of it.
“Then I will just have to remind you, yes?” Ilya softens his voice to a whisper.
Shane considers that option, then nods carefully, clearly satisfied. “Okay.”
“Oke,” Ilya whispers.
Hayden groans and then shifts his chair, loud enough that the cheap plastic legs scrape uncomfortable against the floor.
“Just to be clear,” he says, voice cutting through the moment. “I’m still here.”
Shane glances over at his best friend like he genuinely forgot. “Oh, hi!”
Hayden stares at him, almost in disbelief. “Hi,” he says flatly.
Shane’s attention drifts back to Ilya almost immediately.
Hayden lets out a breath through his nose. “Right, okay. I go with him in the ambulance, big, stupid Russian man shows up late and he gets all the attention.” He leans back and crosses his arms instead, resolving to just remain silent. It’s clear that any attempt at conversation with Shane was going to be ignored, and talking to the Russian…well, that just wasn’t an option.
Shane’s thumb continues to move in the same tired pattern across Ilya’s hand. Ilya continues to let him. And Hayden continues to sit there, watching the two of them like he’s trying to rewrite the last several years of his life with this new information slotted in.
“I can’t believe you’ve known him longer than you’ve known me!” Hayden suddenly blurts out.
“Yes, is so sad I have known your best friend longer.”
Hayden huffs. “I hate both of you.”
Shane smiles. “But you actually love me.”
Hayden rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately.”
The door handle shifts once more, and this time, all three of them notice.
Hayden straightens slightly in his chair, almost as if he’s bracing for impact. Shane’s attention drifts lazily toward the door again. Ilya goes still at the edge of the bed, spine rigid.
The door opens.
Voices filter in before feet do.
“...they said it was a major concussion…”
“...I don’t care what they said, I just want to see him…”
Shane’s parents step into the room.
Yuna is first. Quick, purposeful steps, eyes already searching. David follows behind her, steadier, but no less tense, gaze sweeping the room in a single pass. Both stop just past the threshold because what they walk into is certainly not what they expected.
Shane awake and propped up in bed, yes. Holding someone’s hand – holding Ilya Rozanov’s hand – definitely not.
There’s a beat where no one moves. No one breathes.
Then, Shane’s face lights up nearly as bright as before. Nearly.
“Mom!” he says, relief dampening his voice. “Dad!”
Yuna exhales sharply, like she’s been holding her breath for hours.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, crossing the small space quickly. “Oh, honey–”
She reaches his side, hands hovering carefully before settling – brushing his hair back, the other resting lightly on his arm, mindful of the sling.
“Are you okay? They told us it was your shoulder and your head, and –” her voice wavers just slightly even with her attempt to stay composed. “You scared us.”
“I’m okay,” Shane says, like it’s easy. Like it’s true.
David steps beside his wife, quieter but just as intense, his eyes taking in every detail – every strap, every wire, every sign of pain and injury.
“You don’t look okay,” he says.
Shane smiles faintly. “I’m okay.”
“That’s the drugs,” Hayden mumbles from the corner.
Shane ignores him. “Ilya came!” he says instead, like that’s the most important part.
Yuna and David both freeze, following the line of Shane’s good arm to where his hand is still wrapped securely around Ilya’s. And then, they land on Ilya himself.
Ilya straightens even more, instinct kicking in. His free hand drops to his side, posture polite. Ilya doesn’t do parents.
“Mr. Hollander,” he says, voice tight. “Mrs. Hollander.”
Shane beams like this is all going according to some plan. He lifts their joined hands, not enough to be dramatic, just obvious.
“Boyfriend,” he gloats.
Hayden makes a pained noise. “Oh dear God,” he groans, not wanting to relive the nightmare again.
Yuna blinks a few times, eyes flicking from their hands, to Ilya, to Shane, and back to their hands again. “...boyfriend?” she repeats.
Shane nods, unbothered. “Yep!” he replies, popping the p.
David’s brows are knit together as he observes the scene in front of him. Trying to process the scene in front of him.
“So, uh…how long?”
Shane considers this question. He thinks he’d been asked that already today but he can’t remember. His brain feels like putty. His gaze drifts back to the ceiling tiles, maybe hoping the answer was written somewhere up there.
“...a while,” he says finally.
Yuna is still looking at their joined hands. Ilya looks like a deer in the headlights, but he is refusing to let go. Refusing to be the reason Shane gets that sad puppy-dog look in his eyes.
“Summer before rookie season,” he murmurs. “If that helps.”
“Summer before–” Yuna’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline in surprise. She falls quiet for a second. “Did– did you move to Ottawa for Shane?”
Ilya nods slowly. “Yes.”
“Well, I think that explains a few things,” Yuna says slowly.
Shane looks at her, tilting his head. “Like what?”
She gives a small, amused smile. “You only smile like that when your phone buzzes.”
Shane grins. “Yeah.”
Ilya ducks his head slightly, a quiet breath escaping his lips.
David studies his son. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Shane shrugs carefully. “Dunno. Didn’t come up.”
Yuna shakes her head. “Of course it didn’t.” She shifts her attention to Ilya now. “You were watching the game?”
Ilya nods once. “Yes.”
“And you came straight here? From Ottawa?”
“Yes.” It’s simple and honest.
“Thank you,” she says finally. “For coming.”
Ilya blinks, caught off guard at her kindness. “Of course.”
Shane squeezes his hand, proud, like it’s the exact response he expected. “I love you,” he murmurs.
Ilya can’t help but beam down at him. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”
Shane giggles. “Ya tib-e-ya loo-bloo.”
Silence blankets the room once more and the initial shock settles. The questions don’t disappear, and they probably won’t for a while. But they quiet, becoming filed away for later, when Shane isn’t high on painkillers and clinging onto Ilya like he might disappear into dust if he let go.
Right now, Shane is okay. He’s in pain, but he’s awake and smiling. He’s holding on to someone who matters. Who loves him. All of him. And that’s enough.
Yuna brushes her thumb lightly against his arm. “We’ll talk later,” she says gently. She dusts a hand along Ilya’s shoulder. “All of us.”
“Okay,” Shane whispers.
“Oke,” Ilya says quietly. He’s still unsure how to talk to Yuna.
David gives Ilya one last look. “Good to meet you,” he says.
Ilya returns it. “You too.”
Hayden exhales deeply. He really should’ve left as soon as Yuna and David got here. Looking back, he’s not sure why he didn’t. He slumps further into his chair. “So, just to recap – Shane gets blown up, ends up in the hospital, wake up and casually reveals he has a boyfriend and he’s in love with him – him being fucking Rozanov – and we’re just supposed to what? Move on?”
Shane smiles, eyes drifting shut. “Yeah.”
Hayden stares. “...cool, cool, cool.”
Shane’s grip on Ilya finally loosens as sleep begins to pull at him again. His thumb swipes once more, brushing delicately against Ilya’s skin.
“Go to sleep, moy lyubov. I will stay here.”
Shane hums softly in response, contentment settling on his face as he drifts further into unconsciousness.
And Hayden, watching it all from the corner, shakes his head slowly. “Unbelieveable,” he says under his breath.
No one argues.
Because honestly, it kind of is.