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Moya Groza by freddie91
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types
29 Jul 2026
Tags
Summary
April 2017, Montreal. Shane is hit cleanly. Ilya drops his gloves, his stick, and his helmet; he is beside Shane before he has decided to be. He gets in the ambulance in his skates. He tells Hayden Pike why.
The bloodwork comes back three days later. Cancer.
What follows is the worst weather of their lives. They could crumble. They could run — they have both run before, they are good at it, and the year gives them a hundred reasons. Instead, they stand in it. They put their hands on each other and hold, and when one goes down, the other gets him up, and neither of them stays the strong one for long.
Around them, holding too: a mother who will not sleep, a best friend who has to learn how to be a good one, a teammate who picks up the phone at three in the morning, a man down the hall in a red silk robe who has been loved, unafraid, and out for longer than Ilya has been alive.
It takes a year. It costs them everything they thought they were.
They come out the other side. Still chirping. Still each other's.