Chapter Text
Shane has this in the goal. He knows he does.
The puck is in his hands now, all he has to do is bring it home. His skates scrape and hiss against the choppy ice, an evident sound of his body that powers through the opposing team scrambling to block him and grab onto the puck to get a score of their own. He won’t let it happen.
They need this tonight. The Centaurs are leading the game by three, and if they could end the night with four, they could make this game a success.
He grips hard onto his stick as he maneuvers the puck through the gap of someone’s legs. He doesn’t know who it is because he doesn’t let his eye off of that puck. Shane keeps his eye on it until he’s right there before the goal, ready to bring the score home for the Centaurs and take the winning goal.
Before he can pull his stick and strike the puck through the opening the goalie has been distracted from, his stick slips from the hold of his gloves. Well, not necessarily slips, but rather is tugged from his grasp to clatter against the ice in a crash.
It all happens so fast. The stick is pulled out from his hands, and the puck just short from him is swiped away by another player. Shaken, he scrambles for the stick laying just before him, as if it’s luring him like the key to his treasure. He needs to gain the puck back before the opposing team manages to get a goal.
If they were to score a goal, it wouldn’t change anything. The Centaurs are still in the lead. However, Shane knows that if he can get the goal, he’ll do anything in his power to. So as he’s reaching for his stick, he has his eyes on the player who’s managed to swipe the puck right from his possession. They’re not that far, and his teammates are doing a fair job of keeping him wound up to try and snatch the puck for themselves.
He grabs onto the stick and before he can burst off to the other end of the rink, a body slams into him. It’s a force he recognizes. It’s not rare to be slammed around in this sport, so he doesn’t pay it much attention.
Except when the player doesn’t lay up, he flails and pushes against them, shoving the end of his stick into their torso in hopes that they give up in trying to deflect him from his pursuit. He can hear the player grunt before shoving harder, and before Shane can wiggle to take a look at the man’s face, he’s met with the harsh surface of the boards.
The player presses him into the stubborn surface, and Shane burns with how the crowd right before the plexiglass roars from the altercation. He thinks the other is going to let up and let the referees call him out, but he doesn’t.
This player pulls away, barely giving Shane a chance to squirm away before charging at him and throwing him into the boards once again. This time much rougher than the last. It’s a deliberate attack against him.
Shane groans, a weak “Umph!” leaving his lips as the back of his head whiplashes to bounce against the surface of the stiff plexiglass. The pain of the contact bursts throughout his skull and down his neck, a stark realization right there and then that he’s probably got some sort of concussion.
The crowd is blaring now. A deafening cry in Shane’s ears that are, for some reason, becoming sensitive. The player backs up from him as the crowd grows louder, so much that Shane is finding it to be extremely overwhelming as he braces himself against the boards.
He doesn’t know what he does. Okay, sure, the player threw him up against the boards a second time much too rough— so what? He’s been in this sport long enough to know how to deal with the consequences of being beaten and shoved around. Why can’t he handle a little bit of whiplash? He’s done it before, what makes it any different now?
The ice at his feet wavers and rocks his body, and he finds that it’s not the ice but his feet that are beginning to sway and writhe against the surface like a beginner trying to find their footing. He grips tighter onto the boards, willing his head that grows tense with pain to let up. Except it doesn’t, because his brain is begging to explode in the confines of his skull and his hands have completely let go of the boards.
With bleary eyes he scans the rink. His teammates have clashed with the other team. They’re tugging on each other’s jerseys and fighting with each other, throwing punches and spitting insults. Shane can’t see Ilya amongst the mass— He doesn’t even know if he’s right beside him, trying to stabilize him as the ice begins to come closer and closer to his face.
And that’s when he realizes his legs have failed on him and now he’s collapsing onto the ice head first. Another round of pain bursts throughout his skull when the force rattles into his helmet and across his head, hitting the ice by the front of his head and then slumping his entire body against it.
With his head on the side, his eyes half mast and poorly wide peek through his cage of the helmet. The Centaurs are still scrumming about, rage plastered across their faces. There’s something dribbling from his nose now, and his spine is on fire from the pain of knocking his head twice. Just before him he can see his stick, laying lonesome with the one glove he’d flung off to grab onto the boards.
Amongst all of this, he’s extremely tired. His eyes are growing heavy with lead as the crowd falls into an eerie silence. He doesn’t know if he’s imagining that? When his eyes shut, he thinks he’s just gone to sleep.
❧
Ilya will never get over his husband and his expertise on the ice.
When they bicker, he’ll never admit that Shane is better than him. Yet in moments like these, where Shane strides across the ice with a fervor brighter than anything else, Ilya finds that he’s much comfortable with Shane being number one.
He won’t ever let him know that though. Maybe. Who knows.
Shane has the puck now, and as he maneuvers through the opposing team, Ilya watches him with an awe only reserved for someone as good as him. He twirls and spins around players, reminding Ilya of those beyblade toys he would play with as a little boy, or even those spinning tops.
And he keeps a close hold of his stick all in the process. He’s brutal and swift in how he nudges players out of the way to get closer to the goal, poking the puck around and keeping his head low to track the trajectory of where it might end up. Ilya knows he’s probably never let his eyes up from the thing, because Shane moves as if he’s fixated on the puck only.
He’s going to get the score home. He always does. Whenever Shane has the puck, he always scores. Ilya can’t remember a time where Shane didn’t score for the team. He’s relentless in his obsession of getting a win, letting it consume how he plays and searches for a goal. It’s what Ilya admires most.
A player comes behind Shane and nudges at his stick, tugging it out from his hold and causing it to clash against the ice. Ilya rises from the bench, yelling and pounding at the plexiglass separating him from the ice.
“C’mon! Get the stick and go, Shane!” He roars, gloved hands banging. He watches as Shane scrambles to grab at the stick, barely missing it before latching onto it by its post. The other player has the puck now, and Shane needs to take it back or let someone else do it for him.
He watches as Shane clutches onto his stick and charges towards the puck. His eyes are then drawn from his husband to the blur of a large body flying at Shane, throwing themselves at him to deflect him from his path.
Ilya roars with the crowd, beating against the plexiglass as he watches the player push against Shane, pressing him further against the boards. The Centaurs have neglected their focus on the puck, rearranging it towards each other and beginning to scramble around for punches and tugs.
He takes himself towards the ice, equipment forgone as he charges for the man who’s pressing his husband up against the boards. Except he’s much too late, because he watches the player pull away before throwing their entire body against Shane once again. The crowd roars in the same time that Shane is squashed between the opposing teammate and the stiff boards, and Ilya is tugged off to the side by a random player who’s trying to start a fight with him.
He can’t tell what’s going on. There’s too many people on the ice and he can hardly make out Shane’s figure throughout the fighting players.
The random player gets shrugged off when Ilya realizes Shane is bracing himself up against the boards now. He’s hunched over, neglecting his stick which lays lonesome on the ice. The convicted player has scuffled off somewhere, most likely getting beaten up by a Centaur or taken away by a referee.
Ilya rushes towards Shane when he collapses head first.
Around him, the rink has grown quiet. The crowd has silenced themselves at the sight of Shane crumbling to the ice, officially signing off for the night. And Ilya knows how much of a spectacle it looks, to watch as he sprints towards his husband who’s sprawled across the surface. He’s probably going to see this highlighted somewhere online sometime in the morning.
When he gets to Shane, he scrambles to his knees and unclips Shane’s helmet. He instantly sees the blood dribbling from his nostrils, and begins to shake and rub at Shane to wake him up.
“Shane! Shane! малыш, Wake up!” He cries out, jostling Shane’s shoulders through the hockey gear.
From where Shane lays he hums and then lets out a god-awful groan that invokes the worst of emotions from Ilya’s chest. His face screws in, and that stream of blood from his nose catches onto his top lip to slip between the seam of his lips. They part around another groan as Ilya continues to rub and jostle him.
“Stay awake, Shane,” Ilya huffs, leaning down to press a kiss into his sweaty hair.
Shane lets out a whine, stirring slightly beneath Ilya’s ministrations before giving up entirely, “Hurts,” He mumbles, almost incoherent to Ilya’s ears.
“Yes, I know. No, keep your eyes open Shane,”
“It hurts,” Shane huffs, eyes fluttering. They’re glassy as they peer up at Ilya, with eyelashes that are coated with building tears.
“I’m sorry, милый,” Ilya sighs and glances up to see the medical team that grows closer.
Shane only lets out a weak moan of pain as Ilya is somewhat ushered away by the medical staff. He lurks off to the side, peering over their shoulders with Shane’s equipment in hand as they assess him. There seems to be no rush, which gives him a lick of faith. Yet it all goes down the drain when one of the staff members mutter into their walkie-talkie about a stretcher
“Wait—“ He tries to push through the medical staff, but none of them are having it. They’re all busy with Shane’s blood pressure and temperature and pupil tests to even acknowledge him. It takes for him to nudge one of them before they actually realize Shane’s husband is an actual thing.
A woman glances up at him from where she’s cradling Shane’s head, waving a torch across his eyes, “He’s being taken to the nearest hospital,” She then says, brief and snippy with how she then lowers her head to continue with her tests.
It all happens in a blur. A pair of staff members come out with a stretcher, and two from the original group work on getting Shane onto it. Ilya wants to squeeze in and say he can get him on there, but it’s no use because he seems to be doing much more work from where he stands at the sidelines, useless with Shane’s helmet, gloves, and stick tucked into his arms.
And he’s just as silent as the crowd as Shane is hoisted up in the stretcher, body jostling around by the force of the two men carrying a bulky hockey player that is very much Ilya’s husband away from the ice. This entire video is going to be on twitter somewhere, and Ilya is going to see it and wonder about how much more he could’ve done. How he could’ve stopped all of this entirely with some idea he doesn’t know quite yet.
The medical team leaves with Shane, and Ilya dashes for the team’s side with Shane’s equipment. He needs to go and be by his husband’s side. The Centaurs can figure out how they’re going to win this— which is absurd for a captain like him, but at this moment he finds that it’s the least of his worries.
Before he can make his race down the tunnel, Coach Wiebe halts him.
“Hey—“ He grapples Ilya’s shoulders, “Is he okay?”
Ilya can’t say anything. He doesn’t know. His mind wanders back to the pained groans and whines, and the blood that ran a weak stream down the slope of Shane’s top lip.
“I don’t know— I need to go,” Ilya stirs from his coach’s hold and charges down the hall, gripping onto his husband’s equipment tighter when it threatens to fall.
“Let me know if he’s alright!” Coach Wiebe hollers from where he stands, and Ilya fails to reply.
❧
When he gets to Shane’s room, Yuna and David have already beaten him there.
He’s sweaty and hastily dressed as he sits down on the chair right beside Shane’s hospital bed, scooting closer towards his husband to grab at his hand which has an oximeter clipped onto his finger.
The room, like all hospital rooms, is drab and plain. The walls are a depressing beige that almost invokes a sob out of Ilya’s chest as he glances away from them to peer at his husband, who sleeps in the equally boring and visually uncomfortable bed. When he looks up at Yuna and David, his eyes latch onto the white curtains behind them that do nothing to soothe the bare traits of the room.
Everything in this room is boring in the way Ilya dislikes.
“The doctor said he has a concussion,” David speaks up over the soft whispers of Ilya’s shaking breath, “Said not to worry and give him a moment to wake up.”
Ilya wants Shane to wake up now. He wants to see that he’s alive and well, because the last time he saw him collapse like that was when he fractured his collarbone, and it reminded him too much of memories he’d do anything not to unpack in this moment.
He doesn’t ever want that to be a possibility for Shane. That at one moment he will find his husband sprawled on the floor, body bare for the world to take over.
He sighs, a soft shuddering sound that sounds weak and futile in his ears, “Okay.”
Ilya grips tighter onto Shane’s hand, listening to the beeps of the machine play a steady beat of Shane’s heart. He wants to lay his head on his chest and listen to that heartbeat instead, the one that’s authentic and free from digital burden.
He scans his husband’s body. They’ve dressed him in a gown and thrown the blanket high over his chest. His other arm lays over the blanket, and an IV tube has been inserted into the vein at the bend of the inside of his arm. Ilya travels the tube until his eyes meet the bag. He can’t read the writing from here, so he doesn’t know what they’re putting into Shane’s body right now. He wouldn’t have a clue either way.
He lets his eyes run over Shane’s face. The blood has been wiped from beneath his nose, now only showing the smooth skin of his top lip. There's a bruise on his forehead, one that’s beginning to grow rosy and purple beneath the milky skin. Under Shane’s freckles is a soft flush which nearly soothes the ache in Ilya’s gut.
Raising a hand, he runs his fingers over Shane’s freckles. His eyelashes catch onto the tip of Ilya’s fingertips as he nears his eyes, and his skin smooths out and shines against the stark lighting of the room.
“Ilya, honey, get some rest,” Yuna hushes from where she has her head resting on David’s shoulder, “We’ll wake you if the doctor comes in,” then gesturing, “Or if he wakes.”
Ilya pulls away from where he was caressing Shane’s face to glance at Yuna with a tight smile. He nods, stiff and stunted before leaning back into his chair.
With his hand holding Shane’s limp one, Ilya lets his eyes shut and tries to tug himself into a short nap.
❧
When Ilya wakes it’s from a groan that’s so distinctly Shane’s, that Ilya jolts from his chair and forwards all of his attention to his husband.
He’s begun to stir in his bed, face pinching in and expressing the pain that must be rattling through his brain. He must’ve hit his head hard, because Ilya catches onto a lonesome tear that dribbles from the corner of Shane’s eye. He reaches over with a hasty hand and swipes the tear away before it can dribble off somewhere onto the side of Shane’s head.
Swiping his thumb across the hinge of Shane’s jaw, he hushes him, “Shh, It’s okay.”
Shane mutters out some curse from his lips as his eyebrows screw into a furrow, and Ilya peers over to Yuna and David who quickly come to Shane’s side to comfort him as he rises from his fifty minute shut out.
“Should we get the doctor?” David hums, and Shane shakes his head.
“No—“ He gasps before coughing, then groaning from the force of the cough against his brain, “I’ll be fine.”
“The doctor said to call her in when you woke— Ilya, press that button,” Yuna points towards the remote beside Shane’s bed.
Ilya fumbles at the remote, shakily pressing the button and listening to the soft beep the remote lets off when he does so. He hooks the remote back onto the side of Shane’s bed, and leans over to take his hand in a firm grasp.
He pulls Shane’s hand up to his lips to give his palm a brief kiss, peering at him through the spaces of his fingers. His eyes are squinty as they watch him, glassy beneath the astute lights of the hospital room. Ilya lets his lips brace themselves upon Shane’s palm after initiating the kiss, simply feeling the warmth on his lips.
Shane smacks his lips and then lolls his head to glance at his parents, “So what happened this time?”
“What do you mean?” Yuna frowns,
David braces a hand over her shoulders, rubbing the space between, “He must be confused— You know how he is, honey.”
Shane’s hand shifts up from Ilya’s lips as his husband sits up just a little with a stifled groan, “What do you mean confused? I— shit, I got concussed. So?”
Is it the anesthesia? Shane always acts a little funky on anesthesia. He’s much more brazen and insistent with what he wants and thinks about. It makes Ilya chuckle as he drops Shane’s hand, watching his husband frown at his parents.
His head swivels slowly as he turns to face Ilya, “What? What’s funny?”
Ilya grabs onto his hand again, heart rocking against his ribs as Shane squeezes back with a tender grin, “Nothing.”
Then Shane’s face falls flat in a split second before he faces his parents again with a wince from turning his head at such a speed, “Seriously. What happened?”
Yuna peers at him with an amused smile, “What do you mean, love? You got thrown at the boards.” She reaches to squeeze at his bicep before patting his shoulder lovingly.
Ilya watches as Shane’s face screws into a state of pure confusion. His eyebrows almost fuse into each other with how they furrow at the middle, and his lips pull taut with a dense frown. His eyes, once glassy and light with anesthesia and the pain from a lingering concussion, glaze over with bewilderment as he peers at his parents.
“What?”
He grips onto his husband’s hand, swiping his thumb across the back of his hand, “You uh— As you say, you got your bell rung.”
Shane turns to study him. His eyes wash over Ilya, with his lips flitting into a soft smile as he latches onto his eyes, then his hair, lips, mole, and ears. Ilya grows warm and fuzzy from Shane’s sight, letting himself run bare for his husband who seems to be entirely fascinated by him.
Of course he is. He’s high on anesthesia and a bit delirious. Ilya will let him look all he wants.
Except Shane begins to giggle— a cheery little thing that slips out from his chapped lips. It brightens up this sterile room as Shane fails to contain his humor, eyes flitting at his parents with mirth as he gestures over to Ilya,
“He’s funny, right? My Ilya is so funny!” Shane cackles, throwing his head back against the pillows before groaning when his head presumably pounds. It doesn’t stop him though, because he continues to giggle some more when his eyes fall on Ilya once again.
Ilya doesn’t see what’s so funny, but he’ll let Shane have it.
He raises Shane’s hand to kiss the backs of his fingers and Yuna has her phone out.
“Guess you guys won the game,” Yuna shares aimlessly, and Shane snaps his head up to peer up at his mother.
“What game? What are you talking about?”
Everyone besides Shane falls silent. He’s still trying to contain his giggles and whatnot as Yuna, David, and Ilya all share a look of the same meaning. Their faces all share that same expression of bewilderment as they glance at one another before looking down at Shane, who is clueless to the world with his humor. He lets out a hushed groan when he rocks his head a little too harshly, and Yuna winces when the thoughts become a bit overbearing.
Ilya takes on the courage between them and braces, “The game we played tonight?” He pushes through, slightly wincing as Shane faces him with wide eyes.
Shane gapes at him. He blinks wearily before smacking his lips, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ilya peers up at Yuna whose face is pinched into a level of intensity he didn’t even know was possible. He watches as she leans over the bed to get closer towards Shane, determined in her pursuit for whatever she must be getting out of Shane who is clearly up with the rainbows and clouds.
Then, in the sweetest yet most feigned voice he’s ever heard come out of that woman’s mouth, “Yes you do, love! You play hockey!”
Shane rears into the pillows, a double chin almost appearing as he backs up from his mother to gauge the entirety of her face. His eyes almost go crossed eyed, and they glaze over as they latch onto her for just a moment without blinking a bit. Then, he leans forward, forcing Yuna to step back and allow Shane to adjust himself and stir around in the hospital bed.
When he’s done shifting around, he faces his mother and gapes at her one more time as if he’s remembered her statement again.
His face begins to squirm and pinch, a sort of expression Ilya recognizes as Shane trying to remember something. It’s not often that he does it, as he has the memory of someone with magical powers or something. Shane is a powerhouse when it comes to remembering things and keeping up with topics from the past. It doesn’t take much mental power out of him.
Except at this moment, it seems to. Ilya doesn’t know if it’s the anesthesia or the concussion.
“What are you talking about?” Shane croaks from where he lays in the bed, “I don’t play hockey?” His face screws into that judgey look he makes when he’s questioning your entire existence and ability to breathe.
The room stills. Ilya flinches in where he sits in the rackety chair, and across from the bed, he watches how David pulls taut from the statement falling out of his son’s mouth. Yuna grips onto the railing bed tighter, and the room is immediately doused in the energy of her distress.
It must be the anesthesia. Or the concussion. One of the two. There is no way Shane Hollander, hockey prodigy or better known as the hockey legend, states he doesn’t play the damn sport. It’s all the man ever knew! How could he lay in this bed and make such a statement? It’s a hypocrisy within itself, one that Ilya never found Shane to be capable of.
Ilya pushes forward, desperate to have Shane pull back his words, “You have many trophies from hockey!” He almost cries out.
Shane peers at him, frowning as he scans Ilya’s distressed face, “Good for me then…?” He chirps before glancing back at his parents, who are gaping at him with utter horror etched across their faces,
“What? Did I say something?” He faces Ilya, “Baby— What did I say?”
Ilya gulps before plastering a fake amused expression across his face, “You said you didn’t play hockey!”
His husband glances at his parents before facing Ilya again, “Right? I don’t.”
Yuna gasps from where she stands beside her son, and David is quick to tuck her into his side before speaking up, “It’s okay. He’s probably just a bit confused.”
Shane sits up at that. His face takes on a whole new meaning and fixates into a state of offense. He glares at his father, lips drawing into a frown as he grips into the blanket to keep himself stable,
“I’m not confused! I’m serious!” He grunts, wincing at the volume of his voice for which it irritates the pain of his head.
From where she’s tucked into David, Yuna croaks, “Ilya, get someone in here before I have a coronary.”
Shane makes some sort of rebuttal as Ilya rises from his chair to leave the room. Searching for the nurses desk, he’s met with a woman in a long white coat who must be Shane’s doctor for the night.
He approaches her with an awkward disposition, and she recognizes him almost immediately before dropping her clipboard onto the counter of the nurses desk and escorting Ilya back into Shane’s room. Her coat billows behind her from how swift she strolls down the hall, and it reminds Ilya a bit of a sorceress.
Shane’s in the middle of a light argument between David when Ilya and the doctor enter the room. Ilya takes his seat beside Shane instantly, pausing him in his argument because now he’s much more fixated on the side profile of Ilya; who’s peering up at the doctor with an eager expectancy that could rival Yuna’s or David’s.
“Shane, you’re awake, that’s good!” The doctor chirps from where she stands at the end of the bed, grabbing Shane’s folder to place it at the table and opening it up, “How are you feeling?”
“My family is lying to me,” Shane snaps before crossing his arms. The gesture fails because his right arm can’t fold completely with the IV stuck in it, so he gives up and shuts his eyes with a sigh instead.
The doctor glances over at David with a twinkle in her eyes before coming towards Ilya’s side. He scoots his chair back so she can get up to Shane’s head and do whatever doctor business it is that they do. He doesn’t know. He didn’t go to school to be one!
“Huh, that must totally suck, yeah?” She chuckles before sharing a look with Yuna and smiling, “Open your eyes for me Shane.”
Shane opens his eyes and immediately groans when the doctor whips out a pen and clicks a button, lighting it up and swiping a torch over them to look for something. His pupils, it must be. Ilya does know that one. Maybe he should get into medical school when he retires.
“Looks good over here,” She tucks her pen away and pulls away from Shane, still hovering at his side, “What day is it today?”
“Uh, Tuesday, why?”
“Nothing! Just making sure you still have your brain!” She giggles before coming back down to Shane’s folder. Ilya scoots closer once again.
The room falls silent as the doctor lifts her head and watches Shane’s monitors for a moment before jotting something down on the papers. Shane has occupied himself with Ilya’s index finger, which is hilarious yet strangely cute in its nature. Beside Shane, Yuna vibrates with a certain nervous energy that says everything.
“Um, Dr. Stark?” She squeaks, nails tapping along the plastic railing of Shane’s bed.
Dr. Stark hums from where she has her nose shoved in Shane’s documents.
“He says he doesn’t play hockey— Haha, and you know, professional hockey player and all— Is that normal?”
The doctor then raises her head to glance at Yuna and then Shane. Her eyebrows fall flat before settling into a slight furrow as she sets her back into the chest pocket of her coat, and slowly closes the folder containing Shane’s documents.
She hums, crossing her arms as she assesses Shane from where she stands, watching as he picks at the bracelet he made for Ilya.
“Shane! What score did you leave behind tonight?” She quips from where she stands at the foot of the bed.
Shane flinches, pulled away from the beads and ropes of the bracelet nestled around Ilya’s wrist. With the wrist cradled in his hand, he peers up at Dr. Stark, “Uhh… What do you mean?”
She inches closer to stand somewhere around his knees, “Your game tonight. What was the score before you came here?”
He drops Ilya’s hand and fiddles with the blanket. Ilya immediately takes his hand and begins to soothe him, running his fingers across his skin in an effort to keep him going and answer the question before he stops short at being put in the spotlight. He watches Shane as he glances up at the doctor, thoughts racking around in his brain yet one never really matching up.
“What game?” He replies, and Yuna sighs before resting her forehead on David’s shoulder. He’s gripping onto the rail now, eyes drilling into Shane.
Dr. Stark shifts, seeming to lock in on Shane and take the entire situation much more seriously.
“Shane, you know you play hockey, yes?” She then says, broad and definite in the drab room.
Shane gapes up at her. He only wears an expression of deep confusion as he faces Dr. Stark, deep in his eyes and evident in the pinch of his lips and eyebrows. Then, slowly and warily, he shakes his head.
Ilya wants to cry. His caresses on Shane’s skin have turned into rubs. How could Shane forget about hockey? The one thing he breathes for? The only aspect of his life that matters to him? How could he ever forget that? It’s so un-Shane-like. He would never forget about hockey— he reads books about the sport, listens to podcasts about it, goes on stupid tangents about the players and the system.
How could Shane Hollander possibly forget about hockey? When he was given the chance of life, hockey was breathed into him rather than his name itself.
“So you don’t know that you play for the Centaurs?” Dr. Stark continues. She returns to the table to open Shane’s folder once again, whipping out her pen to hastily write down something— most likely Shane forgetting Hockey.
“…No?” He winces, “Good for me though?”
The doctor hums, continuing to write, “Yes, very good for you. You are a professional hockey player for the MLH, you understand that, yes?”
Ilya watches Shane as he pulls short. His eyes roam around the room, catching onto his parents who study him expectantly, hoping that their son will jump and say “Surprise! It was a joke and I love hockey too much to forget about it!” His eyes latch onto Ilya, who only waits for any reply coming out of him. Anything.
“Is that my career?” Shane asks, weak. His cheery mood from before has shifted entirely. He’s grown stoic and tight as he faces the doctor, who looks up from where she’s writing the information down.
She clicks at the button of her pen, the click rattling throughout the room, “Yes, that is your profession.”
Shane hums and nods his head, before continuing once more, “So I can’t remember my career?”
Dr. Stark straightens up from where she’s leaning over the table. She splays her hands over the surface and glances at Shane, “Yes. But it will be okay!” She chirps before glancing at Ilya and then Yuna and David, “Family, give him a day or two— It’s just mild amnesia from the concussion!”
“Amnesia?” Yuna mutters, “He can’t remember?”
The doctor closes the folder, “Yup! Pretty common with concussions! Like I said; a day or two, and he should be good to go,” she clasps her hands together, “Any questions?”
Yuna, always prepared, speaks up immediately, “What if it takes longer than that?”
“I’ll give you my number. Consult him for a neurology appointment and we’ll take a look as soon as possible. However, it really shouldn’t be longer than two days,” She pulls out a note pad from her pocket and tears out a piece of paper before scribbling down the information and setting the paper down on the table.
“How soon?” Yuna pushes further.
The doctor huffs, inching closer to the door, “He’ll be priority.”
Yuna nods, and Dr. Stark shares that Shane will be kept in the hospital for one more day for observation, and then she leaves them. The door shuts with a soft click, and David rounds the bed to swipe at the piece of paper on the table.
He hands the paper to his wife who takes it. Her eyes scan it with scrutiny before rolling with a snotty scoff,
“I can’t even read her writing!”
Beside Ilya, Shane mumbles something about doctors and their handwriting, and pulls the blanket closer to his face before nosing into the fabric and falling asleep.
As Shane settles into slumber once more, Ilya watches him on his journey. He’s mortified. How could Shane forget about Hockey? Couldn’t the concussion pick anything else? Ilya would’ve taken Shane forgetting about him rather than hockey, because at least he would have his life’s work to focus on. Ilya definitely would’ve rather have that.
Because when he looks at Shane, he can’t see anything else. He only sees the eighteen year old who came up to him so many years ago with that goofy disposition and his polite attitude towards Ilya’s hockey expertise. He only sees Shane, who would challenge him each time on the ice; the only one who was on his level, because no one else managed to make it up to the top.
He really hopes it’s two days worth of this nightmare, because Ilya can’t wrap his mind around a Shane Hollander who doesn’t know hockey. Shane Hollander is nothing without hockey as much as Hockey is nothing without him.