Chapter Text
The doctor shines a light in his eyes—checks the reaction of his pupils.
He’s used to this happening after games sometimes. He’s not used to it happening in sterile white hospital rooms where he’s hooked up to heart monitors and seemingly being fed drugs through IV tubes.
He blinks his eyes shut tight when she pulls the flashlight away but she doesn’t appear too concerned with whatever she’s seen in his eyes, so he decides he must have passed her test.
Desperately wants to pass her test.
The doctor gives him five words to remember: Elephant. Harp. Candle. Apple. Elbow.
It’s a random list but he figures that must be the point.
“Do you think you can tell me those words when I ask for them again?” she asks.
He nods but she must be looking for verbal confirmation—must be looking to test the cadence of his speech, too—because she gestures towards him with her hand.
“Oh, um. Yes,” he tells her. “I think I can remember them until you ask.”
He repeats them to himself: Elephant. Harp. Candle. Apple. Elbow.
The doctor asks him his name.
“Shane Hollander,” he tells her.
And his age.
“Twenty-five,” he says and she makes a small note.
She asks the street he lives on.
“L'avenue Victoria,” he replies.
She makes another note.
“What is the date today?” she asks.
He thinks this over for a minute, settles on, “November 9, 2016.”
Another note.
“And where are we right now, Mr. Hollander?”
“Shane,” he corrects her. “We’re at a hospital.”
“A hospital where, Shane?” she clarifies.
“Montreal?” he says but he’s unsure this time.
She picks up her pen again.
“Can you remember the words I asked you earlier?”
“Elephant. Harp. Candle. Apple. Elbow,” he recites easily.
She nods encouragingly.
“And what’s the last thing you remember clearly?”
“Um… lacing up my skates, I guess. Getting ready for the game. This happened at a game, right?” he asks but she doesn’t answer the question.
A silence hangs between them for a minute as she scans her notes. She looks up at Shane and he isn’t sure what exactly to make of the look on her face. “Okay,” she says simply.
“Okay?” he repeats skeptically because ‘okay’ definitely isn’t the same thing as ‘good’.
“Okay,” she nods with a small smile pressed to her lips. “There’s someone here to see you, so I’ll send them in and I’ll come back in a little bit and we’ll talk some more.”
“Did I pass?” Shane asks. “The test, I mean,” he clarifies.
“I’m not your teacher,” she shrugs. “I am just here to establish a baseline.”
Shane examines her quizzically, noting the name tag on her lapel for the first time. “Okay, but those weren’t exactly subjective questions, Dr. Singh,” he tells her.
“That’s debatable,” she replies. “I mean I am sure the answers you gave me are all true to you, right?”
“Right,” he agrees, biting his lip. “But are they true to everyone else?”
She ignores him.
“Can you remember the words I asked you earlier?”
“But I…” he stammers. “What about… I…”
“Answer my question first,” she calls softly. “Then I’ll answer yours.”
He sighs. “Elephant. Harp. Candle. Apple. Elbow,” he says and he’s clearly annoyed this time.
“Good,” she replies and he’s relieved to finally hear the one word he’s been looking for this whole time.
“Did I get any of your questions right?” he asks.
Dr. Singh’s head wavers and she shrugs slightly but doesn’t look too concerned this time.
“Your name is Shane Hollander,” she tells him. “We’ll sort out the rest of it later. You’re not wrong, you’re just… right for you now, remember that.”
He really doesn’t think that’s how anxiety works.
//
When Dr. Singh tells him he has a visitor he isn’t expecting it to be: “Rozanov?”
Rozanov.
Shane watches the name turn through his rival’s head, like he’s confused, like he wasn’t expecting to hear this out of Shane’s mouth even though it’s the only name Shane has ever let himself call him in seven years bar one exception.
Rozanov.
Ilya attempts to hide the surprise away, his furrowed brow relaxing slightly. “Hollander,” he says slowly, like he’s testing it out, like he isn’t sure how it feels on his tongue.
Holl-an-der.
Shane blinks away his surprise.
“Sorry, I wasn’t… when they said there was someone to see me, I wasn’t expecting… I mean… I wasn’t expecting you, so.”
“Yes,” Ilya replies, crossing his arms in front of his chest nervously. He swallows and nods a few times, like he’s trying to think of the right thing to say or in lieu of that, to fit himself neatly into whatever brief Shane has unwittingly provided.
Like he’s not actually tongue tied, is just trying to be strategic.
“I can see how that could be confusing, yes,” he says, a nothing sentence—diplomatic.
Shane tries again.
“I guess I was just expecting my parents maybe, or?” he tries, unsure who the actual alternate would be here because his parents are all he really has. His parents and his team and his rival but his team wouldn’t… so, why exactly is his rival?
“They are on the way,” Ilya tells him.
“What?” Shane asks.
Ilya offers him a tentative smile.
“Your parents. They are on the way. Don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Shane nods and he’s momentarily relieved until he realizes the unsaid in that sentence.
His eyes go wide.
“Wait. You… you… you talked to my parents?”
Ilya sucks at his teeth and shoves his hands into his pockets awkwardly. He’s wearing a dark gray hoodie under a black overcoat. It’s a near identical outfit to the one he was wearing when the two of them first met at seventeen, even if this Ilya doesn’t quite feel the same as that one then.
No, this Ilya is older and he looks tired.
Tired in a different way than the Ilya in that Saskatchewan parking lot.
This is not the fatigue of young ambition or teenage angst. It’s sturdier, more solid, shows itself in the circles under his eyes, in the way he carries himself.
This older Ilya plays his game of mental chess again. “Yes… Sh… Hollander.”
Holl-an-der.
“I talked to your parents… but you don’t need to worry about that, da?”
“I don’t?” Shane gulps.
“No. Is okay,” Ilya assures him like it’s that simple, but it certainly isn’t that simple… can’t be that simple… not for Shane.
“How?”
The word tumbles out of Shane’s mouth high and frantic and clearly overwhelmed and it causes whatever facade this Ilya has put up to crack under its weight.
“Sha… Hol… Sh… I…” he stammers.
Shane covers his eyes with his hands like maybe if he does this Ilya will disappear, and then the hospital will disappear, and then the confusion will disappear, and he’ll suddenly be somewhere where anything makes even the slightest bit of sense.
“I am sorry. I am just confused, I guess,” he admits.
Shane isn’t sure what exactly he expects Ilya to say in reply to that but it certainly isn’t, “Breathe, Hollander. Just deep breaths, okay?”
Shane opens his eyes and finds that Ilya has stepped closer to him. Is no longer right in front of the door but standing near his feet now, holding on to the rail at his bedside.
He’s standing differently to how Shane is used to, not quite hunched but also not as tall, as straight. His stance a bit inverted, maybe? Like he’s jutting his hips out?
Whatever it is, it’s different—even if Shane doesn’t exactly have the words for it now.
He shakes the thought away.
“Maybe, we try it together, da? In for five and out for five, okay?” Ilya guides and it’s so alien a suggestion that Shane can’t help but look up at him like he’s grown an extra head. Can’t think of anything better to do though, so he nods and follows Ilya through his breathing exercise.
In for five.
And out five.
And in for five.
And out again.
He feels a bit more grounded after—the hospital more solid now, more real.
“Thanks,” he murmurs and his gratitude is real even if he can’t help but sound a bit skeptical.
“Of course.” Ilya replies and it looks to Shane like he’s struggling to blink away tears but that’s a crazy thought, he decides. Must be a trick of the light.
“You called my parents?” Shane asks again, trying to keep himself calm this time.
“Yes, but don’t worry. They know… I mean… they know I am hockey player obviously… they know we know each other… I just… I let them know like a concerned colleague, maybe…” he says unconfidently.
“Right,” Shane replies and it definitely doesn’t make any sense but nothing right now makes any sense and his head is so heavy it could burst. Can’t force himself to fight for clarity, not when clarity would mean even more work for his already tired brain. “Thanks, I guess?”
“No problem.” Ilya assures him and it’s only when he makes no moves to leave that Shane realizes he was expecting him to.
“You don’t have to wait with me,” he offers.
“Oh really, it’s no problem, Sha… Hollander.”
Holl-an-der.
“Okay, you should…” Shane gestures at him awkwardly. “I mean, you should take off your coat, at least? Get comfortable, maybe?”
Ilya looks down at himself and takes a series of quick breaths, like the suggestion is a puzzle he’s doing in his head, like he’s trying to figure out which two pieces fit together in real time.
“I am cold,” he says, still looking down, his voice slightly robotic. “So… I think I’ll keep it on for now but thank you, yes.”
Shane snickers, like he’s realized the whole situation is a little ridiculous: his concussion, his hospital bed, his secret fuck buddy calling his parents and making him breathe and talking to him like a fucking T-800.
“Okay, maybe you could sit down, at least?” he suggests.
“Yes,” Ilya replies with a snicker of his own. “Okay, yes, that I can do,” he says, walking to pull over the chair from the corner.
He doesn’t lift it, Shane notices, and he also doesn’t drag it with the ease he’s used to—certainly not with the gravitas he dragged a chair through that Las Vegas hotel room.
No, he moves the chair like it takes precious energy away from him; moves it like he can’t easily bench press over two hundred pounds.
When he sits down he looks more tired than he was before and Shane isn’t sure he’s ever seen Ilya Rozanov look as tired as he was before.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Ilya bites back a laugh. “I think I am supposed to ask you that, no?”
“Yeah, well. I am okay… I think. I don’t really… I don’t really remember what happened, so.”
“Hmmm.” Ilya hums, “Hockey happened. Bad hit like ‘lights out’.”
“Right,” Shane nods. “Our teams were playing each other then? Montreal and Boston?” he asks, even if it doesn’t really make sense to him that Montreal and Boston would be playing each other—not when he remembers them playing together last just a week ago.
“No, Boston.” Ilya replies carefully, “It was Ottawa and Montreal who were playing.”
“But you…”
“I was not playing, Hollander. I am just here, I guess,” he says pathetically, trilling his lips, looking away and muttering some Russian swear word under his breath.
“Yebat’?” Shane repeats.
“Yes.”
“That’s like fuck, right?” he asks, unsure how exactly he knows that. Must have searched it once, just… can’t remember ever searching it.
“Yes, Hollander that is like fuck.”
“So you’re saying: you were at my game but you weren’t playing and you called my parents and it’s you who is here and not one of my teammates.”
“Yes, Hollander. I guess this is what I am saying,” Ilya shrugs.
“You can see my confusion.”
“I can, yes,” he agrees earnestly and the acknowledgment is something at least, even if he isn’t sure exactly where they go from here.
“Okay.”
Ilya scrubs a hand over his face and then rests it on his chin. Hums into his palm for a minute as he tries to think of something—anything—to say that might put Shane a bit more at ease.
“The doctor said you would be confused and so it’d be best to go slow but… it is hard to go slow when you are you and you ask questions…” he admits eventually, that tentative smile back at his lips.
Shane nods slowly, like he’s processing Ilya’s words more than just agreeing with them.
“Your parents know we are friends now though… if that helps… they know we are friends,” he offers and it’s the understatement of the century, but it still isn’t actually a lie.
“Friends?” Shane repeats.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees.
Shane bites his lip. “Friends or… friends?” he intimates.
Ilya doesn’t answer the question, lets it hang between them as he racks his brain for what to say next.
“Look,” Shane sighs when the silence has lasted a beat too long. “Whatever they know or don’t know, it’s okay. You don’t have to stay, Rozanov. I can wait for my parents myself. I’ll be fine.”
Shane isn’t sure he actually will be fine—isn’t sure anything actually will be fine—but it feels important to offer Ilya an out right now for reasons he’ll have to unpack later.
Ilya shakes his head skeptically. “I am not leaving, Hollander,” he tells him and his voice leaves little room for debate.
Shane tries anyway, “Okay, but…”
“Whatever you say,” Ilya interrupts him. “I’m not leaving. I am just not, so maybe just save your breath. You’re supposed to be resting.”
Shane’s face heats and he looks at Ilya with rancor. Sputters through a few attempts at reproach but gives up eventually and just slaps an exasperated hand to his forehead and groans.
“It used to help with my father to meet him where he was a bit,” Ilya offers eventually, a weird geriatric olive branch. “Maybe we could try that before your parents get here? Get our bearings a little.”
Shane shakes his head against the pillow. “What do you mean: it used to help with your father?”
“He had dementia,” Ilya explains.
“Had?” Shane asks, confused because he remembers Ilya’s dad in present tense not past.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“For years before he died, technically,” Ilya shrugs. “But it got really bad around 2014, I think… Yes. 2014 is when we first got the diagnosis.”
“2014?” Shane repeats and he might be overthinking things but it feels like there’s something telling in the way Ilya says that—not a nod to the recent past like ‘two years ago’ but a hard figure, distant: 2014.
“Yes.”
Shane bites his lip. “The doctor made it seem like maybe I had the year wrong earlier… she didn’t say that but, I guess, she just…”
“Wanted you to go slow?”
“Yeah,” he agrees.
“And you’re terrible at that,” Ilya notes.
“No, I am—“
“Yes, Hollander. You are. Is okay. I am not.”
“You’re worse than me, Rozanov,” Shane scoffs.
“About some things, yes,” he admits. “Not this. I know how to do this. Let me, maybe? Just… tell me what you remember about the last time you saw me.”
Shane’s lip quivers and he looks at Ilya with a mix of something like apology and panic. “I don’t really want to think about that,” he confesses.
Ilya keeps his voice steady. “Why not?” he asks.
Shane closes his eyes. “Because I regret it, I guess?” he whispers.
“You regret it?” Ilya asks.
“Yeah. I… I freaked out…”
“Oh,” Ilya nods knowingly. “Yes, okay, I think I know then maybe… it was Boston? You remember Boston?”
“Yeah.”
“Us at my house in Boston… the time I asked you to stay?” he asks dispassionately.
Heat flares in Shane’s chest again: embarrassment, regret, frustration.
“Yeah, Ilya, the time you asked me to stay,” he says scornfully.
“Sorry, I just. I want to make sure I have the time right, okay?”
“But there was only one time!” Shane snaps.
Ilya doesn’t confirm or deny this, just wets his lips and looks away.
Shane takes a deep breath in. “Sorry,” he says smacking his head against the pillow again. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
“It’s okay,” Ilya assures him, turning back to meet his gaze. “It’s understandable. It’s been a big day.”
“You’re being very nice to me,” Shane murmurs.
“Did you want me to be mean?” Ilya jokes.
“No, I just… I wouldn’t probably.”
“Hmm?” he hums.
“If someone left me like that… I probably wouldn’t be nice to them, at least not the next time I saw them.”
“Yes, well, luckily it isn’t the next time for me,” Ilya explains softly.
Shane lets out something almost like a sigh of relief. “It isn’t?”
“No,” Ilya says simply, leaning in to squeeze his hand. “It isn’t, Shane. Not for me.”
“Okay,” Shane nods. The sigh again, relief again. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, whispers, “Okay, Ilya. Okay. I see, I see.”
They sit like this for a minute.
Ilya’s hand covering Shane’s own, his thumb strumming the back of it while Shane grips his eyes shut, tries to look for a little bit of land across a deep blue sea.
“Ilya,” he whispers a few times like he’s trying the name on for size, attempting to commit it to memory as the one to say. “Ilya. Ilya.”
There’s a knock at the door.
The kind of knock that doesn’t require an answer—a warning knock, a look-alive knock, not one actually asking to be let in.
A nurse enters.
She’s five foot nothing and she’s got a cheery voice that Ilya is well acquainted with by now.
He likes to think she’s good at her job but that might just be because she’s kind and genuinely seems to care, which is what he has always been told nurses should be like despite being overworked and disrespected and underpaid. Might be his metrics for quality are actually sexism but he’ll have to unpack that later.
“I see Sleeping Beauty is finally awake,” she notes and her voice has the type of lilt that makes everything sound a bit like a song.
Ilya’s mom had a lilt like that but if he thinks about that right now he’s going to start crying, which he’s used to lately, but knows would put Shane even more on edge.
He wipes at his eyes prematurely, as if the gesture will let his body know it isn’t allowed to cry right now.
Not that his body seems to listen to him much lately.
“Yes,” Ilya murmurs at the same time Shane asks—
“Finally?”
“Body just needed a bit of rest clearly but Ilya here has been doing a very good job looking after you,” she informs him before moving along with the brass tax. “Are you in any pain, Mr. Hollander?”
“Uh… not really… I am on some meds right?… my head feels…”
“We hooked you up to a very nice little morphine drip so you shouldn’t be in much pain or discomfort but you also shouldn’t be… high as a kite…”
“I definitely don’t feel high as a kite,” Shane tells her. “But I also… I don’t feel in pain, no.”
“Then it looks like we found a good combo of meds for the minute. If that changes, call the nurse’s stand and we’ll see what we can do.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shane nods.
“I know Dr. Singh was running a few more diagnostics. She’ll be back in a bit to go over all that with you but for now I take it we’re just easing you back into the land of the living?”
“The land of the living?” Shane repeats incredulously. “I wasn’t dead, right? Someone would have told me if I had been dead… like even just for a minute dead?”
“Bad expression,” she apologizes. “I just meant you’re waking up. No death, I promise.”
“Okay,” Shane breathes.
“Can I get you anything while I am here? Want to try to eat something, maybe?”
“No, I am… I am okay, for now, but thank you,” he says.
“What about you?” she asks Ilya.
Ilya points at his chest skeptically. “Me?” he inquires and Shane watches as the nurse’s eyes flicker over him—a language there he can’t quite read.
Ilya must be able to read it though.
“Oh,” he nods in understanding. “I am okay, thank you.”
“You’re sure?” she presses.
“I promise,” he tells her.
She nods at Ilya reticently, like she’s willing to switch topics for the moment but isn’t quite ready to drop the whole thing just yet. “My shift ended before I could get things sorted yesterday but you shouldn’t sleep in that chair again tonight.”
“Chair is fine.” Ilya shrugs.
“You slept here?” Shane asks and he’s surprised.
“Yes, I slept here,” he says dismissively. “It’s fine, Hollander. Not a big deal.”
Holl-an-der.
“I know I am not your nurse but it can’t be good for your back that chair,” she chides gently.
“I have been playing professional hockey since I was nineteen, Alice. My back is fucked. I promise, it’s fine.”
Alice’s eyes flicker over him again. The language again. The confusion mounting in Shane’s brain.
“Well, fine or not, Nurse Meadows, who is relieving me later, knows to get you a cot,” she explains, patting Ilya’s shoulder in a familiar way. “Ask him for the cot, please.”
“Anything for you,” Ilya drones and he shifts in his chair like he’s ready to get comfortable, like he’s prepared for that to be the end of that and for Alice to go on her merry little way but she just stares down at him. “Yes?” he grumbles.
“How’s your head?”
“Fine. I am not patient!” he exclaims.
“Dr. Singh said you maybe got a little lightheaded when the two of you were talking earlier?”
Ilya sighs. “Do you put all your non-patients in the hot seat like this or just the vaguely famous ones?”
“Don’t suppose you’d let me take a little peak at your blood pressure while I am here, would you?” she asks, ignoring his question.
“That’s not necessary but thank you,” he replies quickly.
“It’d make my life a lot easier later when I get asked about the patient and non-patient in room 203. You’d be doing me a favor,” Alice notes, the song again—seductive as a siren.
Ilya looks between her and Shane and he seems torn, Shane thinks, even though he can’t exactly understand why.
“It’s really not—“
Shane cuts Ilya off. “Come on, Rozanov. It’ll make her life easier, she said.”
Ilya looks up at Shane nervously. His brow furrows. His teeth clang. He moves to speak but the words don’t come. “I…”
“Like you said, you’ve been playing professional hockey since you were nineteen. No way you don’t know your way around a pressure cuff by now,” he teases.
“He’s right,” Alice tells him and she’s no longer his favorite nurse.
“Okay, yes,” Ilya agrees. “We can go…”
“Everything I need is right here,” she shrugs. “No reason to leave unless Mr. Hollander wants us to, that is?”
“No,” Shane shakes his head. “Stay. It’s fine. Doctor said no screens, right? Better to keep the company I have than to get stuck counting the dots on the ceiling tiles.”
Shane watches Ilya for a moment. His brow still furrowed. His jaw still clenched. The expression on his face a little panicked, like he can’t seem to do his mental chess fast enough—like he has backed himself straight into a corner.
“Okay,” he nods reluctantly, his cheeks paling a bit. “If you’re sure then… okay,” he sighs.
“I’m sure.” Shane assures him watching as Ilya stands up and takes off his jacket, folds it neatly and lays it over the back of the chair.
It occurs to Shane that in all their years of knowing each other, he has never seen Ilya fold his clothes as carefully as this before: practiced, measured, slow.
No, has always just watched him carelessly crumple them till they’ve littered the floor of every single hotel room they’ve ever met in.
They have met in a lot of hotel rooms.
Without his jacket on, Ilya’s body looks a bit different to the meticulously rendered picture Shane has in his head. He’s stockier, maybe—not as chiseled as he was, as he’s always been.
When he’s set the jacket aside, Ilya reaches for the hem of his hoodie. Makes eye contact with Shane briefly in the process and then quickly averts his gaze.
His cheeks flush and he turns toward the window, suddenly timid, as he lifts it up and spends just as much time meticulously folding it and resting it on the back of the arm chair.
Takes what feels like forever for Shane to finally see.
The curve of his abdomen.
The tilt of his lower back.
The set of his hips—different to what it was, to what it’s always been.
Shane swallows tightly, clenches his eyes shut and then looks again.
It’s impossible, he thinks. Even if he knows it isn’t objectively.
They first discovered the gene mutation in the nineties; remembers seeing a pregnant man for the first time on the cover of something like Time Magazine at a grocery store when he was still in primary school.
Possible or not though, it isn’t exactly common; at least not in the world he’s used to.
Can probably count on one hand the number of pregnant men he’s seen in passing and none of them have ever been this close to him and none of them have ever been as statuesque as this. This ready built to either model underwear or die on the battlefield.
No, none of them have ever been Ilya Rozanov and he certainly never, ever expected them to be.
Alice readies the pressure cuff as Ilya rests his hands on his lower back and stretches. Grunts and groans like he’s needed to do this for a while now but hasn’t let himself out of fear of hurrying things along, of disorienting Shane any more than he absolutely has to.
Shane should appreciate that probably, but he resents it. Hates being a thing that needs to be managed. Stares at Ilya wide-eyed and then moves his mouth to speak just for no words to come.
“151 over 100,” Alice tells Ilya.
“That is very high,” he admits and his hand moves reflexively to his abdomen, to that bump Shane never expected to see.
“Has it ever been that high before?”
“No,” he says firmly. “Is good usually. It’s all been… it’s all been very good, so far.”
“Probably just stress.”
Ilya laughs without humor. “Yes, it’s been a very stressful few days,” he agrees, his hand running up the curve of his belly.
“Have you noticed any changes in fetal movement?”
“No, she’s very active. They said early on that I might not feel her till late because well… because I’ve spent my life carefully crafting abs of stone… but she decided to say hell with that pretty early on. Has been pretty dead set on making her presence known.”
“That’s good,” Alice tells him encouragingly.
“Yes.”
“Can you feel her, right now?” she asks.
“Yes,” he nods, rubbing along the top of his left rib cage. “She seems to have decided it’s a good place for her foot right here.”
“Ouch.”
Ilya scoffs. “Tell me about it, upryamaya devushka.”
“And you’re how far along—second trimester, right?”
Ilya nods. “Twenty-seven weeks.”
“Okay, well, I appreciate you letting me check,” Alice tells him softly. “The good news is that it’s high but it’s not ‘let’s admit you too’ high. Not yet. I am sure when Dr. Singh comes back she’ll bring you some aspirin, maybe ask a few questions. I know you’re not the patient but we also don’t want you to become one, so let us keep an eye on you, too, okay?”
“Okay,” Ilya agrees and his body decides it’s finally time to cry now—to hell with his previous interventions. “Thank you.”
Alice pats his shoulder again. “Of course. Take care of yourselves and let us know if you need anything, Mr. Hollander,” she calls and then she’s gone.
Ilya sits back down in the chair as Shane stares down at him dumbfounded.
“Ilya?” he calls eventually and the name still doesn’t sound settled on his tongue but then there might be other reasons for that right now.
“Yes,” Ilya replies attempting to keep his expression blank.
Shane isn’t sure if that’s the yes of ‘yes, you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing’ or of ‘yes, that is my name’.
He tries again.
“What the fuck?”
“Yes.” Ilya repeats, neutral expression beginning to crumble under the weight.
Shane swallows.
“Am I hallucinating?” he asks.
“I don’t think so, no.” Ilya tells him, his hand resting on the top of the curve of his belly which sans jacket and hoodie is pretty impossible to miss now.
“You’re pregnant?” Shane says the words carefully like he’s testing them out, like as with Ilya’s name, he’s not quite sold on them just yet.
“Yes,” Ilya replies and just so there can be no confusion, he adds. “I am pregnant.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Shane asks.
It’s a reflexive question, Ilya knows. Comes out frazzled without a second’s thought.
“I’m kind of past the point of doing anything about it, Shane,” Ilya laughs. “If I was going to terminate I would have done it back when she was making me puke everyday.”
Shane’s voice softens a little. “She?” he repeats.
“Until she tells me otherwise, yes. She. Docha.”
“Daughter,” he translates and it’s only when it’s out of his mouth that he realizes he’d know the word even without the context clues.
“Yes.”
“There’s adoption,” Shane says flatly.
“Not for her but yes, it does exist.” Ilya notes but he’s not offended; is aware that laying out the facts and collecting all the figures is just one of Shane’s coping strategies.
Certainly can’t blame Shane for trying to cope right now.
“Aren’t you scared?” he asks. “That people will know… that your team will know?”
“My team already knows, Shane,” Ilya shrugs. “They have known for months.”
“And they’re okay with it?”
“Yes, they’re okay. They might even be a little happy for me, if you can believe it. I know it is hockey and there is stigma about all of this,” he notes, circling a hand over his belly. “But she is a good thing.”
“Okay, sorry,” Shane sighs apologetically. “I am just… confused.”
“I would imagine so.”
He takes a deep breath. “You just… you don’t… we never… you’re not…” he stammers, embarrassed about his inability to get the words out.
Ilya nods in understanding anyway. “Ah. Not usually but it can be fun sometimes to switch, yes? If you have the right person—if they make you feel safe.”
“And do you?” Shane asks, squeezing his eyes shut. “Have the right person, I mean?” he clarifies, suddenly concerned that Ilya indeed has the right person and that person isn’t him.
“That is big, big question,” Ilya murmurs. “We should probably start small, da?”
“Small,” Shane repeats.
“Maybe, yes,” he nods.
“Okay… what year is it?”
Ilya looks at Shane skeptically. “Time is not small, milyy,” he quips. “Time is so big. The biggest. But I will tell you this one thing and then maybe we reel it in. Yes?”
Shane nods.
“It is 2026,” he says.
“2026?” Shane repeats.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m thirty-five then?” he asks, gripping to the figure like his only lifeline.
“No,” Ilya tells him. “But you will be soon.”
“Did you call me milyy just now?”
“Yes.”
“That means sweetheart, right?” Shane asks and it’s another word he isn’t exactly sure how he knows just yet.
“Sweetheart. Darling. Something like this, yes,” Ilya admits bracing himself for follow up questions that thankfully don’t come.
Shane nods.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “You spent the night in that chair?”
“Yes.”
“You’re like super pregnant, Ilya.”
“Hmm. I’m only like medium pregnant, Shane, unfortunately,” Ilya admits. “But I am on my way there.”
“I guess, I am just a little confused,” Shane says again.
“We have established this, yes,” Ilya snickers and Shane shoots him a look he knows means ‘okay, asshole’.
“I just mean, you said we were playing Ottawa,” he clarifies.
“I said Ottawa and Montreal were playing, yes.” Ilya corrects, unsure if Shane will pick up on the distinction of this yet or not.
“And Ottawa and Montreal are two hours apart,” he notes and it’s a new figure for him to clutch on to.
“I am painfully aware of this,” Ilya sighs.
“So they should be here by now, shouldn’t they?” Shane presses. “My parents.”
“Probably,” Ilya admits.
And they’ve suddenly found themselves at an impasse, just look at each other waiting for something to give.
“They were here earlier,” Ilya manages eventually. “But you were asleep and not everyone needed to be here for that, so…”
“So they had you stay instead?” Shane asks and he’s skeptical.
“More like they couldn’t make me leave and there was only one good chair and as we have established I am medium pregnant, so I was already in it.”
“I am not stupid, Ilya,” Shane tells him.
“Oh, I know that, Shane,” Ilya drones. “I just don’t see the point in overloading you right now. I think maybe a little slow and a little subtext is okay. We have time.”
“But it’s mine, right?” he lets out a long exhale. “The baby… she’s… mine?”
“Yes.” Ilya says and he’s crying again, unguarded tears quickly lining his cheeks. “She’s yours.”
“But… how?”
“Mmm…” Ilya hums, considering the question carefully. “Imagine Boston but in reverse, maybe? Happier Boston but you on top… well, I was on top but…”
“My dick was in your ass?” Shane deadpans.
“When you put it like that… romantic,” Ilya teases.
Shane bites his lip, his brow furrowing into something like a scowl. “But we don’t do that… why would we do that?”
“Time,” Ilya shrugs easily. “We have a lot of time now. Sometimes you try things. Sometimes it’s fun. This was fun, for both of us.”
Shane nods, even though he can’t imagine himself being a very good top and finds it hard to believe he’d find fun in something he wasn’t good at. But then, sex is sex, and all Ilya really is telling him is that they found a way to have even more of it.
He rubs at his neck awkwardly.
“Can I…” he starts unsure what exactly he wants or why. “I mean… can I see?” he manages eventually and he’s a little embarrassed though there definitely is no reason for him to be.
“Of course,” Ilya agrees easily, gripping the arm of the chair as he stands.
Walks to the edge of the hospital bed and takes Shane’s hand in his. Holds it a minute and then rests it on his belly. “However you want to orient yourself, it’s okay,” he says, brushing Shane’s hair with his fingers, down to his neck and back again. “She lives in me but she is her own thing to wrap your mind around, yes?”
Shane nods, walking his fingers down to the hem of Ilya’s shirt. It’s a plain white tee that was surely loose once but fits tight around the curve of his belly now. He lifts it slowly, tentatively, examining the changes to Ilya’s body. His deep abs now just faint outlines—an afterimage, a memory. His external obliques drawing his bump in and then out.
He still looks strong, just full now and Shane isn’t used to the ripeness.
He runs his hand over the taut skin. “Oh,” he murmurs. “Oh.”
“Yes,” Ilya nods, still running his fingers through Shane’s hair. “Big oh,” he agrees.
“Did we know… that you could… that this could happen?”
“Uh-huh,” Ilya drones. “There was a rise in like 2018 or so, in cases of paternity like this. AMAB birthing parents, that sort’ve thing. Not a ton but enough that something that was like one percent of babies born became like two or point-five became like one. I don’t know. Still very small, but enough of an increase that they made an accessible test for the gene readily available pretty quickly. Men can be babies about this sort of thing, especially when there is surgery on the other side.”
“Yeah,” Shane agrees, would certainly be a baby about this himself.
“If you move your hand to the left and up a little bit, you should be able to feel her if you want to. But only if you want to,” Ilya tells him softly.
Shane isn’t sure he wants to but he also isn’t sure he doesn’t. Hesitates a moment and then lets his hand slide up despite the fear and confusion in his chest and in his head.
“Oh wow,” he whispers and his eyes start to glisten. “Wow.”
“Yes,” Ilya nods.
“And your team knows?” Shane asks. “Boston knows?”
“My team knows, yes,” Ilya replies and it’s a careful answer again, calculated.
Shane catches on this time. “Not Boston then?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me?” he asks, his eyes still glued to Ilya’s belly.
“If you want me to,” Ilya tells him. “If you’re sure it’s not too much right now.”
“I am okay. I think,” Shane replies and it’s not quite as certain as Ilya wants it to be but he answers honestly anyway.
“I play for Ottawa. I am a Centaur or a Beaver or whatever the fuck, I don’t know. I have been playing there eight years and it all still feels a bit ridiculous.”
“Eight years?” Shane repeats skeptically.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You said it yourself: Montreal and Ottawa are two hours apart.”
“We’re two hours apart then? During the season?”
“We were. Not anymore. Not in a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Five years or so.”
“I play for Ottawa,” Shane surmises.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees.
Shane considers this a moment, his thumb running soft lines up Ilya’s stomach as his face struggles to settle on an expression. “Are we good at least?” he manages eventually.
“Very. Two Cups in the four seasons since you’ve joined the team and we’ve been on a tear lately, though you might be out for a while now and I am,” Ilya gestures to his midsection and then reaches a hand down to cover the one of Shane’s resting there. “A repeat performance might be out of the cards until next season, but never say never.”
“You said they were happy?” Shane asks, looking up at Ilya. “The team?”
“Yes, they knew how badly we wanted this,” Ilya agrees.
“She was planned then?”
“Sort’ve,” Ilya shrugs. “We weren’t trying to try properly—like timing things out, the way you are supposed to. We just started switching a bit and said fuck it with precautions and then a few months later, there she was.”
There she was, the words hit Shane like a bolt of lightning. He isn’t sure why but something about them shoots through him. He covers his eyelids with his hands and rests back against the pillow again.
“This is very weird, Ilya,” he murmurs.
“I know,” Ilya agrees. “I can give you a bit of a break if you want: take a walk, or sit in the waiting room, or the cafeteria, or something,” he offers.
“Or home, you could go home,” Shane suggests, unsure where home for them is exactly but trusting it must be here somewhere in Ottawa—a house they share together—fuck. “Have a shower or take a nap.”
“I am not leaving, Shane,” Ilya tells him simply. “I can’t leave but I can give you a break, if you want.”
“I don’t need a break,” Shane sighs.
“Okay then.”
“You should sit back down at least, maybe,” Shane says, rubbing at his eyes to prevent having to contend with the slight annoyance he can feel radiating off Ilya’s expression. “Please?”
“Okay.”
“How are you so calm about this?” he sighs when Ilya sits back down.
“Hmm?”
“I mean, you’re telling me I can’t remember like ten years or something and this all feels like a dream to me a little bit. Like I know I am here but everything just feels so distant that I can just focus on the facts for a minute… avoid spiraling a little… but it’s not a dream for you, it’s your life, and you’re just, you’re handling it so well. I wouldn’t be handling it this well.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Ilya agrees plainly.
“So, how?” he asks, even though Ilya isn’t sure it’s something that can be that easily qualified.
“I know what it is like to take care of someone who has lost track of time and you’re a much easier patient anyway,” Ilya shrugs.
“A much easier patient than your dad, you mean?” Shane inquires.
“Yes, my dad.”
“What was he like… we’ve never really talked about him at least not—“
“You don’t have to say that part every time, milyy,” Ilya chuckles. “I am aware you can’t remember.”
“Okay,” Shane notes.
Ilya sighs.
“My father was… well, he was a father not a dad… an otets not a papa. We were not close. He was not kind. Sometimes he was the opposite of kind, in fact. He was not proud of me. He did not want me even, maybe. I was a spare for a family that didn’t need one—but at the end I was the one he remembered most.”
He shrugs, “Maybe he felt bad, maybe he wanted to go into the afterlife remembering himself a bit softer, maybe brains are fucked. I don’t know.”
“What do you know?” Shane asks.
Ilya murmurs. “That I will be nothing like him.”
“No, you won’t,” Shane agrees and he might not know a lot right now but he is confident of that. "Why won’t you go home?” he asks, not judgmentally but certainly confused.
“I just need to be able to check that you’re here. That you’re okay.” Ilya explains. “It’s important to me. It’d be a bit counterintuitive maybe, at home. Okay for my body, yes, but… just very, very bad for my head.”
“Okay… but you’ll tell me if,” Shane says, gesturing at him vaguely, like it’s enough of a sentiment.
“Of course,” Ilya agrees.
It’s enough.
“I am sorry I got hurt,” Shane muses.
“It’s very much not your fault,” Ilya reminds him.
“Still… it must have been scary.”
“It was very scary, yes,” he admits. “And I feel everything a bit bigger right now but that is not on you… well, maybe a little.”
Shane chuckles. “Yeah, maybe,” he murmurs, taking a deep breath and saying the thing at the forefront of his mind before he loses his nerve. “I am sorry about the last time I saw you, too… about Boston, I mean. That was my fault and I’ve just… I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s maybe all I’ve been thinking about outside of hockey, actually,” he notes earnestly.
Ilya nods a few times, a smile breaking out across his lips. Covers his mouth with his hand and it looks to Shane like he’s trying hard not to laugh, which certainly isn’t the reaction he had expected.
“What?” he asks self consciously.
“Nothing. It’s just um… it’s a bit like apologizing for losing something you borrowed a decade later? I mean, it’s not. It was big,” Ilya admits, struggling over the words. Hates English the most in moments like these, even though they’ve never had a moment quite like this before and he hopes they never do again. “Boston… it was big for us. I had a terrible few months… but it’s small now, maybe? For me? That sounds weird to say but…”
“It worked out okay?” Shane offers on his behalf.
“More than okay, yes,” Ilya snickers. “I mean, I would do it all again and I like to think you feel the same… or that you did, maybe... I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” Shane nods knowingly. “It’s weird.”
“It’s very weird, yes.” Ilya agrees.
“Did the doctor tell you anything? I mean is this…” Shane closes his eyes and shakes his head gently, tries to knock a bit of clarity loose. "Is this normal? Is it permanent? I don’t… she didn’t tell me…”
Ilya’s eyes go soft—heartbroken by the look of confusion on Shane’s face. The grief he’s unequipped to do anything about. Knows death; does not know this.
“She said you’d be confused,” he explains. “That your memory was off, your timeline. She didn’t say for how long it would last but she seemed happy you could make new memories and that you understood where you were and why a bit. She said she’d be back to talk more but that a familiar face might help in the meantime.”
“Right.” Shane nods, his eyes still clenched shut.
Ilya scoots the chair forward and reaches for his hand. “I guess that’s not very reassuring,” he notes.
“I mean, it’s not nothing but it’s not exactly reassuring, no.”
Shane looks at Ilya, a hesitant smile pulling at his lips as he laces their fingers together. It’s the smile of reassurance—the smile of it’ll be okay—and it’s a smile he only feels comfortable giving right now because he knows neither of them actually know if it will.
“I don’t think she realized what it would actually be like for you with me,” Ilya admits, offering Shane a smile of his own to match: in on the joke, the ridiculousness, the shared desire to fake it. “I mean, of course, she didn’t. How could she? It wouldn’t have stopped me anyway but I’m probably a more complicated familiar face than she expected considering.”
“Considering what?” Shane asks, squeezing Ilya’s palm.
“Well… I mean…” his gaze goes cautious, “considering that we are married.”
“We’re married?” Shane repeats.
“Yes, I am very traditional, Hollander,” Ilya japes. “You really think I’d have a baby out of wedlock?”
Shane rolls his eyes and looks down at his hand. “I am not wearing a ring,” he notes.
Ilya nods. “You wear it on a chain when you play. They took it off on the way here. It’s in my jacket pocket.”
“You’re not wearing a ring,” Shane observes, another detail for his game of detective.
Ilya reaches into his shirt and pulls out the gold chain and crucifix Shane knows well by now. The one whose weight he has no problem imagining against his tongue.
Ilya picks up the edges of a black wedding band, a new edition to the gold links. “It doesn’t really fit right now,” he says simply.
“Right.” Shane squeezes his eyes shut as he nods. Opens them again and finds himself once again staring at Ilya’s belly. “Who proposed to who?” he asks.
“You proposed to me,” Ilya tells him, a new fact for his collection. “It’s a long story though. A few long stories probably,” he says and it’s too many details maybe and it’s also not enough.
Shane bites his lip and rests his head back against his pillow, looks up at the ceiling and starts counting the dots on the tiles to make up for the fact that he can’t picture any of this at all.
“You can see why I didn’t want to shock you when I came in,” Ilya murmurs eventually.
Shane isn’t sure exactly how much time has passed but he knows that it’s certainly been long enough; knows he’s ashamed of how long it’s been. He covers his face with his hands. “It’s still a shock, Ilya,” he admits.
Ilya lets out a wrenched sigh.
“There’s not much I can do about it, Shane,” he whispers and his voice sounds so small it makes Shane’s heart hurt.
“That’s not what I meant,” he tries, looking back nervously at the man he apparently married; at his husband delicately wiping away the tears from his eyes.
“I know, I am sorry,” Ilya says apologetically, trying to downplay his emotions. “It’s hard,” he admits, gesturing around him like his hormones are floating—like Shane see them in the air.
“I am glad it was you.” Shane tells him, a half finished thought he’s too afraid to lose.
“What?”
“Who came in first,” he explains. “I am glad it was you who came in first. I thought I’d lost you in Boston. I thought I lost you and if my parents had brought you up, I don’t know what I would have done. I just… it was a relief to see you, I guess. I could breathe, maybe? It just would have been too much if I found out they knew about us from them.”
“Your brain would have gone to all the wrong places?” Ilya asks, his eyes glued to his phone as he types something out.
“Yeah.” Shane says, starting to feel like an idiot for attempting vulnerability when Ilya can’t even seem to stand to look at him right now. “Is that boring to you?”
“No, I am glad,” Ilya sighs, only briefly looking up. “I want you to breathe, milyy. It is important to me that you do. It’s important to me that I can still make it a little easier even when it’s this hard.”
Shane gestures toward the phone still clutched tightly in Ilya’s hand, silently scolding him as if to declare his actions and words aren’t aligned.
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Your mom is texting me. Her and David are here. They’re parking. I was just letting them know you think it’s 2016,” he says putting his phone back in his pant’s pocket and then raising his arms in surrender. “It felt important.”
“I don’t think it’s 2016,” Shane argues. “I just remember it being 2016,” he explains as if the distinction is important.
Ilya stares at him blankly.
“Oh, I am sorry,” he monotones. “I’ll try to get this impossible detail down next time you are concussed.”
“Shut up, asshole!”
“I think you like it when I talk to you,” Ilya tuts.
Shane nods. “Too much probably,” he quips.
“No.” Ilya says firmly with a shake of his head, letting them settle into silence for a minute. Shane reaching for Ilya’s hand. Ilya reaching back. Their fingers dancing against each other.
“I can’t really picture what our life is like,” Shane murmurs eventually, looking up at Ilya suddenly gravely seriously. “I don’t know what it’s like to have time with you. I can’t really imagine it. It’s too strange,” he admits.
“Yes,” Ilya replies softly, unsure what there is to say or do about that.
“Can you tell me a bit, maybe?” Shane asks, gently begging with his eyes. “Like… in another world, what would we have done after the game?”
Another world.
Ilya contemplates the question seriously, two fingers circling into a spot at the top of his belly as if to ground himself or else the fetus inside. “It was an afternoon game,” he says as if setting the scene; new details to guide the construction of the life raft Shane is slowly building himself. “The first one in a while.”
“Okay.”
“We always go out with the team when we play Montreal. It’s a tradition. Well—the tradition is to go out after we beat Montreal but we always beat Montreal now,” Ilya muses and the beginnings of a smile presses against Shane’s lips, even if he seems reticent to let it spread.
“They are not very good without you,” Ilya notes and the smile lets itself out, regardless his sense of allegiance to the Metros.
Shane gloats. “Best player in the league.”
“Second best,” Ilya corrects quickly.
Shane rolls his eyes but lets him have it this time.
“We’d have gone to this bar Monk’s,” Ilya tells him. “It’s the team bar. It’s shit but also perfect, yes? You would have had a beer to celebrate. Mostly because I would have begged you to have one on my behalf, even as I drank a Heineken Zero or some shit.”
“Right, so I’d have to have a beer to make up for the fact that your beer didn’t have any alcohol in it?”
“Basically.”
“I’m sure I would have been annoyed about that.”
“Yes, you would have, but you love me so you’d have done it anyway,” Ilya notes, brushing a finger the length of his lips contemplatively. “I am going to say some names now but I don’t expect you to know who these people are, okay? Not all of them at least. We can go over that later.”
“Okay,” Shane nods.
“Luca Haas would have fawned all over you at the bar and Harris Drover would have made you pose for a mini photoshoot you’d pretend to hate for Instagram. Troy Barrett and I would had have played pool against Zane Boodram and Evan Dykstra. We team up now because Bood plays by ridiculous rules and pairing off is the only way to make it make any sense. That was your idea… you are very smart.”
Shane blushes.
“You’d probably hang out in a booth with Wyatt Hayes mostly, be smart together, laugh at the idiots,” Ilya coos. “At least until two beers in when he’d have forced you to make a toast you’d also pretend to hate. We’d have probably left soon after that. We had a dinner reservation with the Pikes. We’d have gossiped for hours probably… Hayden would have hated it.”
“Ilya,” Shane scolds gently, silently marveling at how easily the name slides through his lips this time.
“And then near the end they would have started asking us about baby things and we’d have both gotten a little overwhelmed.”
Shane swallows. “You’re overwhelmed?”
“Of course.” Ilya scoffs like it’s obvious, gesturing toward the swell of his belly. “Anyway, we’d have gone home and you’d have spiraled a little, so I’d have suggested we take Anya for a walk.”
“Who is Anya?”
“She is our dog,” Ilya explains and Shane grimaces slightly despite himself.
Ilya laughs, “I know you’re not much of an animal person but it’s different with her. She’s a very sweet girl and very good at forcing you to take walks in the fresh air. Very good at forcing you to talk and get you out of your head a bit.”
Shane sucks in his lips. “Probably need that sometimes, yeah,” he admits.
“Yes, very much,” Ilya agrees. “When we’d gone back to the house, I’d have played a video game or watched a movie for a while or something while you’d have spouted off safety stats at me for a car seat or some shit and decided on the best one.”
“Because I am boring?” Shane hums.
“Because you’re you,” Ilya corrects. “We’d have celebrated by taking a shower together and I’d have blown you to show you my gratitude, probably, and then you’d have touched my dick and I’d have come too fast which is a fun new thing my body likes to do now apparently… in a slew of very fun new things my body likes to do.”
Shane arches his brow. “I’ll bet.“
“Anyway, we’d have gone to sleep after or I would have. You might read for a while, something boring… once I nodded off and woke up to you reading hockey stats to my belly.”
“Got to start ‘em young,” Shane jokes.
“Ah yes, still in utero and already able to recite the career goals and assists of Wayne Gretzky.”
“Shut up,” he laughs.
Ilya squeezes Shane’s hand and looks up at him seriously, hopefully. “Can you picture it?” he asks.
Shane closes his eyes and tries to piece together the details: the bar and the dinner and the walk and the blow job. Tries to cobble an image together in his head from his scraps; from fragments of hotel rooms.
“I don’t know,” he admits eventually, earnestly. “But it sounds nice.”
“It is,” Ilya agrees.
And it’s not much but it’s something—a starting place.