Chapter Text
Shane saw Ilya before he saw the puck. This was not, strictly speaking, helpful. It was also not unusual. Ilya was a dark streak cutting across the neutral zone, shoulders low, stick loose in one hand like he had all the time in the world. He did not. There were thirty-seven seconds left in the third period, Montreal was up by one, and Ottawa had pulled their goalie. Shane should have been watching the puck. He was watching Ilya’s hips.
Professional, he thought. Then Ilya looked at him. Barely anything. A flash of eye contact through cages and sweat and arena light. But Shane knew him too well. He knew the tiny lift of Ilya’s chin. The infuriating little curve of his mouth. Come on, Hollander. Shane hated him. Shane loved him so much it was frankly embarrassing.
The puck bounced off the boards near Shane’s skates, hard and ugly. He shifted, already calculating the clear, already hearing Theriault yelling from the bench, already aware of three Ottawa players collapsing on him. Ilya was one of them. Of course he was. Shane pivoted to shield the puck. His edge caught. For half a second, there was nothing but white ice and the sick, stupid lurch of his body going the wrong way. Then he was down.
The puck squirted loose. Someone shouted. Shane scrambled, glove sliding, knee slamming into the ice. He reached for it, but Ottawa was already moving. Too fast. Clean pass across the slot. One-timer. The horn went. The arena exploded. Shane stayed on one knee, breathing hard.
No.
He looked up at the scoreboard.
Montreal 3. Ottawa 3.
Twenty-nine seconds left. It had taken eight seconds for one bad edge to become disaster.
“Fuck,” Shane said, because there was nothing else to say.
A Montreal player skated past him without looking down. Not one of the rookies. Not someone who could pretend he hadn’t seen Shane on the ice. Shane pushed himself up. His face was hot under his helmet. The crowd noise had turned sharp and mean, every sound too bright. He told himself that was adrenaline. He told himself a lot of things. It was a trip. It happened. Edges caught. Pucks bounced. Hockey was a stupid game played by men with knives strapped to their feet.
He knew that. Everyone knew that. Ilya circled past him slowly, not close enough to draw attention. His eyes flicked down Shane’s body, quick and assessing. Are you hurt? Shane gave the smallest shake of his head. Ilya’s mouth tightened. Great. Now Ilya was worried, which was annoying, because Shane had other things to worry about. Like the fact that his entire bench looked wrong. Not angry exactly. Worse.
Cold.
“It’s fine,” Shane muttered, mostly to himself.
It was not fine.
Ottawa scored again in overtime. Of course they did. Because hockey had a sense of humour and it was a fucking asshole. Shane was on the bench when it happened, helplessly watching Ilya win a board battle and send a pass so perfect it made Shane’s chest ache despite everything. The puck hit the back of the net. The Centaurs mobbed each other. Ilya lifted both arms, grinning like a demon. For one awful, automatic second, Shane wanted to smile.
Then he remembered where he was. No one on Montreal’s bench moved toward him. No one said anything. Somehow that was worse than yelling. The handshake line was a blur. Gloves. Shoulders. Sweat. Stiff smiles. When Ilya reached him, he didn’t smile. His hand closed around Shane’s and stayed there half a second too long.
“What happened?” Ilya asked quietly.
Shane forced his mouth into something that probably looked normal if no one loved him. “Bad edge.”
Ilya’s eyes searched his face. “Shane.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are doing the face.”
“I have a lot of faces.”
“This one is bad.”
Shane huffed a laugh because Ilya was impossible, and because laughing was easier than whatever else wanted to crawl out of his throat. “I’m fine,” he said again.
Ilya didn’t let go.
Behind Shane, someone from Montreal said, “Hollander. Let’s go.”
Sharp. Public enough to be humiliating. Private enough to deny. Shane pulled his hand free. Ilya’s expression changed. Not much. Most people wouldn’t have seen it. Shane did. “Don’t,” Shane said softly.
“I did not say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I have innocent face.”
“You absolutely do not.”
For a second, just one, it was them. Normal. Ridiculous. Married and not married, known and not known, standing in a handshake line after a game like Shane’s stomach wasn’t full of glass. Then Montreal called his name again. Shane stepped back.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
Ilya didn’t answer. He just watched Shane skate away.