Chapter Text
The kitchen table in Shane’s Montreal apartment never usually saw much use. With a highly specialized diet and most of his time taken up living and breathing hockey, Shane didn’t spend much time experimenting in the kitchen. His meals were usually quick and eaten to the sound of game reviews or sports commentary, the crumbs hastily wiped away afterward and the table left barren and spotless until the next time.
Now, it was strewn with sheets of paper, all printed with dry legalese. Risk assessments, medical history, physical exam results—it was all standard procedure, and Shane filled it out the exact same way every year.
He only paused when he reached the section titled DESIGNATED HEALTHCARE PROXY/SURROGATE.
It was sensible, as a hockey player, to have someone to make healthcare decisions for you in the event you couldn’t make them yourself. Hockey was a dangerous sport with a high risk of head injuries, and with so much time on the road, Shane’s parents couldn’t be there at every game just on the off chance he got hurt and they had to intervene.
Automatically, Shane’s pen moved across the page, filling in the obvious choice.
Hayden Pike.
It made perfect sense; Hayden was his best friend. They shared hotel rooms on the road. Hayden was in constant contact with Shane’s parents and could keep them updated on everything. Shane could trust him to make decisions that would be best for his career and his wellbeing. It was only logical to choose Hayden. Pragmatic.
But as the ink dried, something about it didn’t feel quite right. The black lines of Hayden’s name felt cold. Rigid.
Shane’s mind couldn’t help but drift, memories coming back to him unbidden. He felt the phantom pressure of Ilya’s face pressed into his shoulder in a hotel room in Tampa, soaking his shirt with tears. He heard Ilya’s voice, muffled and tinny over the long-distance phone line as he poured his heart out in desperate, unraveled Russian after his father’s death. Shane may not have understood the words he’d spoken, but there had been no mistaking the raw, bleeding emotion in his voice. Ilya had been completely undone, and Shane had been the one he reached out to in that moment. Shane had been the one allowed inside his walls.
Still in emergency-planning mode, he summoned up a worst-case scenario, his heart hitching uncomfortably in his chest. If Ilya were the one to take a bad hit on the ice in Boston, Shane would be trapped in some hotel room miles away, watching the news like a hawk, desperately scouring social media for an official statement by the Raiders just to know if Ilya was still breathing. He’d be sending message after message to ‘Lily,’ staring at his screen, knowing there was no way for Ilya to reply. If Ilya was hurt, Shane would be the last one to find anything out, because on paper, they were nothing to each other. Less than nothing. Officially, they hated each other.
The thought of Ilya in that position—trapped on the other side of a locked hospital door, frantic, blind, and treated like an intrusive stranger—made his stomach twist with a violent wave of unease.
He couldn’t do that to him. He wouldn't.
Before his rational side could talk him out of it, Shane pressed his pen to the paper. With three thick, heavy strokes, he crossed out Hayden’s name. In the blank space above the scribble, his handwriting was tight but resolute as he wrote:
Ilya Rozanov.
Seeing Ilya’s name there on the legal form, printed in his own steady hand, settled something profound deep inside Shane’s chest. The panic vanished, replaced by a quiet, grounding warmth.
With any luck, this would never come up. The form would be tucked away in a filing cabinet in the team office, and Ilya would never need to be contacted. But if the worst happened, Shane could at least rest assured he wouldn’t be abandoning Ilya to the dark. Ilya wouldn’t be panicked somewhere in Boston, left to wonder if Shane was alive or dead. He would be right there.
Shane tapped the papers into a neat stack, slid them into his team gear bag, and zipped it shut. He walked to the window, looking out over the quiet, glowing grid of Montreal. He had no idea what the future held for them, if they would ever find a way to make ‘us’ work–if there was even an ‘us’ to make work–but as he turned off the kitchen light, Shane smiled in the dark.