Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Shane Hollander was carted off of the ice on a stretcher, he accidentally took a bit of Ilya’s sanity with him. Ilya isn't sure how he misplaced that little tidbit of sanity; Maybe it flew out of his mouth in the spittle that came alongside his demands to know if Shane was okay. That small loss is the only possible explanation for what is happening right now: Ilya Rozanov, despite prior plans to break up with his long-term-no-strings-attached-turned-strings-attached-hopefully-monogamous situationship (for his own safety and sanity), has instead broken into said situationship’s home (for privacy) to plan a hospital break-in (for love).

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, Ilya had imagined something a little different when he fantasized about being in Shane Hollander’s real apartment for the first time. He imagined Shane pointing out each and every lived-in spot of the apartment like a tour guide. This is the chair I prefer to sit in when I eat breakfast. I like to cuddle this pillow when I watch games on my couch. I put my keys on this hook. Now if you look to your right, you can see my bedroom, where I recently fucked myself on my dildo until I cried. Any questions so far? He imagined eating dinner at a table across from Shane using Shane’s plates and cups. He imagined showering in Shane’s shower, finding strands of Shane’s hair stuck onto the wall, and sticking his own on the tiles right next to Shane’s darker strands. Sometimes, he has imagined running out of Shane’s apartment with the same efficiency and urgency as Shane when he ran out of Ilya’s home a few months ago, just to make Shane feel what it was like. Sometimes he imagines entering Shane’s apartment and just…staying there, possibly forever. He’d become furniture if he needed to.

Reality, as per usual, is far different than Ilya’s overactive imagination. The reality is that Ilya is in Shane’s real apartment for the first time, panicking and alone, while Shane is at the fucking hospital.

Shane gave Ilya his real apartment address and entry code not too long ago, all wrapped up in the implied expectation that he and Ilya would find themselves here after tonight’s game. Part of Ilya was ecstatic to receive the opportunity, eager to finally see Shane’s real, personal space and not the devoid-of-personality sex condo Shane usually invited him to. 

Another part of Ilya was terrified. Since All Stars, Shane has been ready and willingly allowing Ilya to insert himself deeper and deeper into his personal life. It’s starting to get dangerous. If Shane keeps letting him do this, Ilya might never leave. He’ll take up permanent residence in Shane’s ribcage, siphoning off nutrients from Shane’s organs like an unwelcome parasite. Shane will grow tired of his antics. He will have to go under major, invasive surgery to get Ilya out of there. The doctors will crack his sternum open to find the mysterious little creature sucking out his lifeblood and be shocked to find a fully-grown Russian man illegally residing inside. Then, they’ll abort him. He won’t survive it. 

This thought process grosses him out. Fuck his imagination. Fuck his imagination and all of the cute and disgusting things it conjured up that couldn't prepare him for reality.

In short: Ilya knows he needs to end this, and in fact, he planned to end it tonight. He steeled himself knowing that breaking up with Shane Hollander was possibly his final great trial in life. It has the potential to be the hardest thing he has ever had to do and the cherry on top of a lifetime of difficult trials and tribulations. Then, he made eye contact with Shane in the faceoff circle and remembered that he is a very, very weak man. His resolve crumbled into dust as Shane’s eyes traveled from his lips to his eyes, and he felt his own answering smile split his face in half. 

And then Cliff decided to send Shane straight to the hospital before Ilya even got the opportunity to wiggle his way in between his lungs. 

At least this way, Ilya won’t be aborted when the doctors crack Shane open.

Ilya’s eyes catch on a mirror to his left. He, quite frankly, looks completely insane right now. His curls have dried into a minor disaster after his frantic post-game shower. There are faint dark circles forming under his eyes that make the surrounding skin look even paler than usual, and his bottom lip is starting to glow bright red from worrying it between his teeth. He tries very hard to ignore the fact that his eyes are slightly wetter than usual. Behold: a man who is definitely capable of being normal and aloof.

He didn't even really think about what he was going to do when he finally vacated the Bell Centre. If he was a strong, smart man, he would probably have gone back to his hotel with his team as expected and worried himself half to death there. Perhaps he would eat some food to calm his stomach and wait for Shane Hollander updates to roll in his phone notifications. Then, he’d board their scheduled flight at 5:45AM and worry on the airplane instead. 

Ilya is not a strong or smart man. He called an Uber right outside of the back entrance of the Bell Centre and paid a hefty tip for the driver to speed towards Shane’s unfamiliar apartment. For what? Did he plan to wait there in case Shane was discharged and came home? Fuck, Shane was taken off the ice on a spinal board. There is no way he is getting discharged tonight. There is no use in waiting here.

Unless, Ilya thinks, unless he waits here for multiple days. He could set up residence here like he is attending sleepaway camp. He can clean and cook and generally prepare the apartment for Shane’s valiant return, eagerly waiting for him like a puppy waiting for his owner. 

This sounds insane even to him. He takes the idea and throws it in the metaphorical trash can in his mind. 

Ilya could, maybe, go to the hospital. He could see Shane for himself and confirm that he’s fine and functional, then board his flight with his team. Maybe he could leave a note asking Shane to call him when he can. Preferably, he could tell Shane himself in person, and Shane would be awake and coherent enough to respond and hopefully not in pain.

The issue is that there is a very large chance he won’t be let in. Why would he be? It’s the middle of the night and well outside of normal visiting hours. Maybe Shane is somewhere in the hospital where family and approved people can stay with him, or at the very least lounge anxiously in a dedicated corral alongside other equally anxious families of hospitalized people. Ilya is not family. Ilya isn’t even anything specific– he is something undefined and nebulous. Hospitals don’t tend to look kindly upon that sort of thing. There needs to be pre-approval, identification, and concise words. Ilya can’t give that. 

That’s just the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Ilya knows there isn’t much he can give to Shane in general. 

Ilya opens Shane’s refrigerator to find…something to settle his stomach. Mercifully, there is a small package of coca cola, seemingly heaven-sent specifically for Ilya to enjoy. Well, maybe Shane meant to drink them. Scratch that– Shane doesn’t touch coke. Maybe they’re for Hayden or someone else Shane brings around here.

Ilya steals one. Fuck Hayden Pike. Fuck Hayden Pike and his breeding kink and his constant, undeserved access to Shane. These cans of coke are for Ilya right now, not him. Ilya cracks open a can, settles into one of Shane’s barstool chairs, and tries to force himself to think of a better plan.

Ilya could wait until the morning and visit during normal visiting hours. He could convince the nurses that he’s there simply as a rival captain intent on expressing a get-well-soon in a moment of uncharacteristic sportsmanship. He could really sell the charade with an offering of flowers (no, scratch that…too romantic) or a card allegedly from the Boston Bears. He could even forge the signatures of everyone on the team if he really felt like it; He would just need to search online for examples of their autographs and produce something similar, maybe complete with little wishy-washy “sorry one of us tried to kill you! Feel better dude!” messages littered haphazardly across the card. Maybe one of the local corner stores has a selection of cute little cards Ilya could choose from– he would, of course, be obligated to choose a card with a bear on it. If he were to forge the signatures and well-wishes of his entire team, he knows he needs to make it believable, and that means purchasing a cheap greeting card with a bear on it…the uglier, the better. He knows that the team would probably want to choose something completely irrelevant to the situation, like a “happy birthday, grandpa!” card that plays Uptown Funk on a shitty little speaker when you open it. They’d cross out the happy birthday greeting with a sharpie and scrawl in “happy end of season, Hollzy!” or something else stupid.

The issue with this is that the Bears have a scheduled flight that takes off before normal visiting hours even start. Ilya is meant to be up in the sky hovering over American farmland when visiting hours at Montreal General begin. 

Ilya could, if he is smart about it, break into the hospital. Maybe he could bribe some staff members to let him in. Maybe a back stairwell door has a loose lock Ilya can brute force his way through. Maybe there is a small window somewhere where he can peek into and confirm that Shane is alive and well. Maybe there is– 

Fuck. Is he crazy? 

Shane’s oven has a clock nestled into it. 12:19am, the glowing-white digital display reads. It burns his eyes a little to look at. Your time is almost up, Ilya’s brain supplies. He doesn’t have much time before he needs to meet the rest of his bleary-eyed, exhausted team in their hotel lobby. 

He should leave. He should put his now-emptied coke can in Shane’s recycling bin, maybe use Shane’s washroom, and call an Uber to his hotel. He should try to get a few hours of sleep and board his plane in the early hours of the morning. He should content himself with receiving updates on Shane online. 

Instead, he grabs a second coke and opens Twitter. 

Of course, because Ilya is the universe’s favourite little whipping boy, the very first Tweet is just a video of Shane laying flat on the ice. It’s been clipped concisely to show only the initial blow and a few seconds of Shane’s unmoving body before restarting again, and again, and again. The caption on the quote retweet signals that something about the audio the editor chose is really funny, but Ilya can't think of a singular thing that could make that moment funny right now. 

Ilya scrolls.

RIP potential voyageurs playoffs run. cause of death: hollander getting his shit rocked, a Twitter user he does not recognize writes.

Ilya scrolls.

Admiralsnation I can practically taste the cup now

Has anyone edited shane hollander getting hit to the tune of mmmm whatcha say yet?

A tweet that is just a blurry screenshot of Montreal’s coach with his hands gripping his own hair in anguish, captioned 🙈.

If hollander’s neck is broken im going to send a nuke straight to faneuil hall

Roz was really sitting there realizing live on camera that maybe they could have won a few more cups if they started trying to kill hollander earlier LMFAOOOO

Shane Hollander has been admitted to Montreal General Hospital. His current condition is unknown, the only account on his feed right now that Ilya recognizes and actually follows, ShaneHollanderUpdates, posts. 

When he followed ShaneHollanderUpdates a few years ago, fans noticed immediately. Apparently there is a tracker that monitors following activity of MLH players on social media. Ilya follows a lot of accounts that no one gives a shit about. People, however, really gave a shit about him following ShaneHollanderUpdates. They cared so much that their discourse and in-fighting spilled onto Ilya’s Twitter feed and alerted him of the existence of the tracker in the first place.

General consensus on hockey twitter: Ilya knew about the tracker and followed the updates account just to fuck with everyone. Ilya accepted the grace the universe afforded him and kept following the account.

Montreal Voyageurs announce that Shane Hollander will not participate in upcoming games. Shane’s return to play timeline is currently unknown, ShaneHollanderUpdates’ next post reads.

Ilya exits out of Twitter and tries Instagram instead. The first post he sees, posted one day ago, shows Cliff Marlow’s stupid smiling face at a bar with a woman Ilya faintly recognizes as his girlfriend of three weeks. The photo has that awful, desaturated and overly-bright Rio de Janeiro filter that should have died in 2013 on it. Ilya had A Moment with that filter back in 2012 and has since deleted every photo he posted with it in shame. Ilya makes a decision while staring at the spot on Cliff’s face where he knows there currently is a massive pimple that isn't visible in the photo due to the smoothing power of overexposure: It's time to deploy Cliff.

I need to call in the favor, Ilya texts him.

Cliff has owed Ilya a favor since 2011 (after Ilya bailed him out of a holding cell, no questions asked, and managed to keep the entire fiasco far away from both their team management and the press with some effort and two bribes), a fact that Cliff is deeply aware of (given that Ilya reminds him ominously once every few months like clockwork. Cliff doesn’t know this, but Ilya has a calendar reminder set on his phone to remind Cliff that he still owes him The Favor) and Ilya never actually planned to use. He prefers being able to lord it over Cliff. The satisfaction lies entirely within having the power of The Favor, not actually using it. 

Ilya has already decided to throw away that power for the opportunity to see for himself that Shane is okay. He needs to…do something. He can’t board that flight with his team and pretend everything is normal right now. He briefly imagines himself trying (and failing) to watch some airline-provided garbage like La La Land or Sausage Party while eating a tiny bag of tiny pretzels, willing himself to not lose his mind in front of his hungover teammates and a group of innocent flight attendants going through their motions. Yeah, that’s not fucking happening. 

After a tense few minutes, Ilya’s phone chimes.

What do you need bro, Cliff asks. 

Need you to cover for me. I dont care what the excuse is. I need to stay in montreal a few days

Dude, Cliff writes, and then he is calling Ilya. Ilya heaves a deep sigh before sliding his finger across his phone screen to answer the call. 

“What,” Ilya says with a hint of frustration. 

“And here I am trying to do you a solid,” Cliff mocks. 

“The favor,” Ilya reminds him. “You must do this.”

“Dude, really, what’s going on?”

“It’s Jane,” Ilya says. “She has a family emergency,” he makes up on the spot. It’s not his best work, but it will do. Cliff doesn’t need any more details. This is a simple transaction. “I need to stay for her.”

“Shit, that sucks,” Cliff says. “I know this isn’t the time, but I’m glad to hear you’re serious with her now, not gonna lie.”

“What does that mean, Marly?” Ilya huffs. 

“You’re staying in Montreal for a few days because your girl needs you,” Cliff explains carefully. “Boyfriend behaviour,” he continues, in a sing-songy tone. Ilya doesn't have fucking time for this. He’s going to reopen Instagram and report Cliff’s Rio de Janeiro-coated post for inciting terrorism if he doesn't shut the fuck up.

“Ugh, fine, whatever,” Ilya huffs. “I need you to cover for me with coach and everyone.”

“Got it,” Cliff says before hanging up.

You coming back tonight? Cliff texts Ilya while Ilya is washing his hands in Shane Hollander’s washroom. Without his permission, a small part of his brain reminds him that he could have had Shane pushed up against the tiled wall this evening if Cliff hadn’t completely bulldozed over their plans. Another, more evil voice reminds him that he was supposed to break things off with Shane tonight, which means Ilya was never meant to press him up against those tiles and lick shower water from his collarbones. The first voice comes back with a sharp laugh and says: You were deluding yourself.

llya decides on the spot that he won't step back into his hotel room tonight. No, i am not, he responds to Cliff.

Cool, Cliff shoots back. I’ll bring your bag down to the concierge so you can pick it up later.

Thanks, Ilya says before pocketing his phone again. 

Ilya runs a hand, still slightly damp, through his curls and tries not to revel in the smell of Shane’s soap now clinging to his hands. Fucking hell. There really was no way he would have been able to break up with Shane tonight. He is a weak, weak man. He is a weak man who needs to get the fuck out of here before he goes back on Twitter and causes problems, or before he does something else insane like sniffing through Shane’s underwear drawer or running a reverent hand across his yoga mat. All around him is Shane Shane Shane and Shane is not here. Shane is at Montreal General Hospital in unknown condition, possibly alone.

Ilya is putting his shoes on before he fully realizes that he’s decided to go to the hospital. He finishes lacing his second boot when his phone chimes again.

All done cap, i told everyone you got food poisoning 🫡🫡🫡, Cliff writes.

Ilya cannot physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes in front of his audience of no one. This absolute fucking moron. Ilya handed him an excuse on a silver fucking platter. All he needed to do was confirm that Ilya was experiencing a second family emergency, yes, a second family emergency has hit the Ilya Rozanov towers, coach, he won't be traveling with us, yep, he needs a few days off. Cliff did not do this. Instead, he has elected to add another storyline to the pile of bullshit. 

Food poisoning! Ilya wouldn’t be taken out by weak Montreal food. Now his entire fucking team thinks he’s puking and/or shitting his guts out right now. They might even be sending stupid fucking gifs of Ilya in their team groupchat captioned shit like “me when the salmonella hits” followed by a grainy video of Ilya writhing on the ice after being knocked down. 

He switches over to the team group chat and– yep. It has already begun. St-Simon just sent an old, blurry photograph of Ilya face-down on a sidewalk hastily edited to include “when you get medium salsa instead of mild” written on it in comic sans. 

Why did you not say i have a family emergency, Ilya responds after flipping back to his chat with Cliff.

You just pulled that card two weeks ago dude it didnt sound believable

You also literally just said you didnt care what the excuse is

Family emergencies can happen any time, Ilya responds. Its possible for my dad to die and for jane to have emergency in the same month

I already told them all you have food poisoning, Cliff writes back. 

As Ilya begins to type out a i know. what the fuck, Marly, Cliff adds on more insanity: And maybe I already made myself sick just to sell it because we ate the same food earlier

Cliff and Ilya both ate chicken burritos before the game. It’s a pre-game ritual: for the past several seasons, every time they go to Montreal, Cliff and Ilya peel off from the rest of the team and grab chicken burritos from a shitty hole-in-the-wall place they both have come to love. It’s not even a Mexican restaurant, so Ilya has no idea why on earth they’ve got burritos on the menu. Their order is nestled in-between chicken pad thai and chicken a la king on the incomprehensible menu. The questionable authenticity of the place doesn’t matter, not when they’re more than willing to give Cliff the downright unsettling amount of extra cilantro he wants and heaping globs of extra sour cream that Ilya asks for. Cliff likes to wash his down with a cherry limeade while Ilya usually opts for plain water, although on occasion Ilya does find himself ordering a ginger ale despite not liking the drink at all. Cliff always shoots him a weird look when Ilya visibly gags at the taste of bubbling ginger, but at least he never asks why he ordered it in the first place.

Ilya really likes that about Cliff: he never pries. He knows when to press for more information and when to let a line of questioning go unanswered. Ilya does not like some of the stupid fucking choices Cliff makes, however. 

What, Ilya responds.

yeah man i just guzzled a gallon of milk from a corner store and that did the trick, Ilya watches his phone screen in horror as Cliff’s responses pour in. Toilet’s under fucking attack. Lactose intolerance is coming in clutch. 

“Marly,” Ilya says out loud despite knowing Cliff can't hear him. “What the fuck.” 

Why the fuck would you do that when you could just tell them im sick or that my girlfriend is sick or something, Ilya types instead of “what the fuck.”

Felt stronger if i really sold the food poisoning angle. 

Then, immediately after: and if i said jane was sick everyone would start asking questions about her and i know youre cagey AF about that chick. 

Anyways i gotta go back to the shitter

there is something wrong with you, Ilya responds.

Tell Jane I said hi from my poop throne and I hope everything's okay with her

Ilya sends back a photograph of himself flipping Cliff off. He will not tell Shane that Cliff Marlow housed an entire gallon of whole milk in an effort to give himself the runs just so he could method act his way through a completely unnecessary lie. Shane would probably just stare at Ilya in complete disgust and make silly statements like “Lactose intolerance isn't a joke, Ilya. Cliff really hurt himself,” and Ilya would get half-hard from just simply listening to Shane discuss the importance of maintaining a healthy gut microbiome.

On second thought, maybe Ilya will tell Shane once he is awake, safe, and coherent enough to be disgusted by the story. 

Ilya stands outside of the hospital stupidly as his Uber skids away into the cold Montreal night. He was picked up by a gruff, older man who reeked of cigarette smoke. The driver took one look at Ilya’s grave frown and red-rimmed eyes and simply turned the radio volume up and minded his own business. It was a small mercy. Unfortunately, because all small mercies delivered to Ilya Rozanov must be wrapped in barbed wire and then thrown directly at his head, the driver forced him to listen to one of the worst upbeat playlists he has ever heard as he spiraled in the backseat. Ilya had to listen to all 3 minutes and 55 seconds of Pharrell Williams's "Happy,” a fate possibly worse than death. Pharrell Williams announced repeatedly that can't nothing bring him down and Ilya thought Cliff Marlow could if we got you on a rink. He’s good at that kind of thing. That, and having a weak stomach that cannot tolerate milk.

Now, standing outside the hospital and overwhelmed by possibilities before him, he has realized the faint glimmer of a plan he formed in his Uber (in between Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber) to scale the building’s sides and break in through an unlocked window is…stupid as fuck. To start, this building is tall as hell and Ilya has never climbed the side of a building in his life. He may be a high-level athlete, but his attentions have always been focused on the ice beneath his feet. Ever since the day he grew slightly taller than his father, he hasn’t had much of a reason to be concerned with whatever goes on above his head. Besides that, what would happen if he was caught creeping up the brick walls? He can imagine the headlines now: Boston Bears Captain and violent criminal Ilya Rozanov caught on CCTV breaking and entering hospital mere hours after Montreal darling brutally attacked on the ice! Maybe at least one commenter would commend him for his incredible Assassin’s Creed-style moves, if he somehow managed to get past the first floor level.

Ilya wouldn't even be able to call in The Favor and try to get Cliff’s bumbling, stupid ass to cover for him somehow. Cliff is out of commission for the rest of the evening, shitting his guts out in a Marriott hotel room downtown. If Ilya is arrested and thrown in a Montreal holding cell, he would need to call someone else to come pick him up. Hammersmith might be a good option if he isn’t completely passed out. Connors could be a backup, if only Ilya had his phone number memorized. He could call his coach if he develops a death wish. 

The main entrance of the hospital mocks him. It looks warm and inviting, like it is beckoning him with a soft, soothing voice to enter and make an absolute fool of himself in front of some unsuspecting hospital employee. It encourages him to prostrate himself on the vinyl flooring and beg for entry while the staff looks at him in disgust from behind their plexiglass barrier. He supposes that maybe they’ve seen worse in their time, given their field of work. Maybe his worst, most pathetic moment– him crumpled on the floor and pleading to see a man who might not want to see him– is just a regular Tuesday for them. Maybe they’ll just scoff and ask a security guard to escort him out, and then his life will blow up on TMZ.

Instead, Ilya decides to go back to one of the ideas he half-formed in the comfort of Shane’s apartment: finding a side door left unlocked. Ilya walks along Cedar Avenue, fiddling with any and every thing that looks remotely like a doorway as he goes.

These people are professionals. Every door and window is locked tight, probably to keep prying freaks like him out. Only the best for Shane Hollander. It should comfort him, knowing that he is safe inside. It doesn’t.

By the time he reaches the area where Avenue des Pins and Chemin de la Cotes-des-Neiges morph together, his hands are bright red, shaking, and ache from the cold. He needs to stop this madness. He needs to go back to his hotel. He needs to get some sleep before he boards the flight with his team. He needs several days off. He needs to see Shane. He needs a better plan. He needs.

He needs to have a cigarette. 

Montreal General Hospital is halfway up the godforsaken mountain Montreal is named for, a fact that normally would spark mild interest in Ilya, but right now it just pisses him off. It’s cold as all hell here– Ilya loathes to admit it, but Montreal is fucking cold, even for a Russian. He suspects the elevation is making it feel even colder. The last vestiges of wintertime are still clinging to the city and Ilya’s jacket is far too thin for the weather. There is no good, unselfish reason for him to be standing outside while shivering in his coat fashionably cut for something closer to Montreal’s springtime weather, completely out in the open for anyone walking down Ave des Pins to view. He isn’t even sure how he’d explain himself if any of the passerbys recognized him and dared to ask why he’s just standing there being weird in Montreal at one in the morning. Granted, none of these people look like the type to recognize him nor have the guts to say anything; he’s only seen medical staff with bags under their eyes and students lugging cheap wine bottles and backpacks wearily. His fucking lighter, a ridiculous metal thing custom-engraved with Rozanov in neat, cursive script that Cliff gave to him as a birthday gift three years ago, isn’t working. Ilya isn’t sure if it’s out of lighter fluid (he has a tendency to forget to refill the thing and often ends up buying shitty little plastic lighters at corner stores to make up for his failures), or if there is something wrong with his thumb. Off in the distance, the glowing, LED-covered cross that lives near the summit of Mount Royal looms over the city like an omnipresent and omniscient watcher. It’s unbelievably gaudy to the point that it strikes Ilya as downright gauche. At least where he is from, the crosses aren’t covered in LED lights that burn your eyes if you stare at them for too long. 

Ilya is staring at the LED lights for too long. Maybe he deserves the searing pain in his eyeballs right now. It’s the cherry on top of the freezing-your-hands-off-so-badly-you-can’t-even-operate-a-simple-lighter cake. The unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth flops uselessly, shaking a little in his field of vision as he shivers. Fuck. He could probably ask a passerby doctor or med student or whoever the fuck these people are for a lighter. In his experience, everyone in the medical field smokes like chimneys. They’ve always got a lighter on them, hidden away in a pocket while they tell you that you should consider quitting smoking because it is bad for your health. The problem with this plan is twofold: talking to one of them might invite questions (Are you Ilya Rozanov? What are you doing bumming a lighter outside of Montreal General Hospital in the middle of the night? Did you get lost on the way to a strip club? Are you trying to get a late-night emergency STI test? Are you, perhaps, secretly fucking your rival and waiting desperately to see if his brain is still functioning?) or they might speak fucking French.

Shane speaks French. He’d be able to translate for Ilya if one of the doctors who definitely have lighters in their pockets responded in French to Ilya’s pathetic plea.

Fuck.

Ilya tries his lighter again, which is still refusing to eke out a flame. It’s probably empty. The cross on the hill watches him struggle. Maybe there is a corner store nearby? Or if he is truly desperate, two sticks he can rub together like a fucking caveman? 

“Hey there,” the voice of a man appears behind Ilya. Ilya turns around and sees…a man he does not recognize. He isn’t wearing a lab coat or scrubs, nor does he seem to be schlepping around a book bag or cheap wine. He does, however, have eye bags. He looks exhausted, actually.  

This soothes Ilya. He’d probably be more wary of the man if he looked well-rested and chipper. You can't trust well-rested and chipper people outside of a hospital in the middle of the night.

“Need a light?” the man, who is quite possibly an angel sent down from heaven specifically to save Ilya, asks. Ilya nods silently. The man-slash-angel, an older guy with a somehow familiar….something (Face? Demeanor? Ilya is too tired to figure it out right now) and a thick, weather-appropriate puffer jacket pulls out a cheap lighter and a box of cigarettes of his own. The man grabs a single stick from his box and pops it into his mouth before holding up the lighter to Ilya’s face. 

“Thanks,” Ilya mumbles around his own cigarette before accepting the flame. The other man nods and lights his own cigarette. The first inhale of hot smoke hits the back of Ilya’s throat like a warm hug. He really fucking needed this. 

They're quiet for a few moments.

“I used to go to school around here,” the man says casually. Great. He wants to chat. Ilya’s night is going so great. What a wonderful time to be social. “Never liked this hospital much. I still don’t.”

Ilya responds with an uninterested hum. 

“I try not to smoke. My son hates it, but,” the man gestures towards the imposing building behind them. “Sometimes you need it.”

“Sometimes you need it,” Ilya gruffly repeats in agreement.

“You okay?” the older man asks.

“Maybe,” Ilya says. “As good as I could be, I think.”

The other man nods understandingly. “That’s a good way to think about things when you’re standing outside of a hospital at night.” 

“You are okay?” Ilya asks, mostly out of a sense of obligation. He may not be known for his manners, but he has them. His family made sure respect your elders was beaten into his psyche at a young age, both literally and metaphorically.

“As good as I can be,” the other man says through a small, somewhat tense smile. “Who are you here for?” 

Ah, shit. “Someone I care about,” Ilya says after a moment. 

“And how are they doing?” the man asks. 

Ilya shakes his head twice, then stops and moves his head side-to-side in an unsure motion. “I am not sure,” he says as an explanation. “Not yet.”

“That must be stressful,” the man says. “You’ve got anyone in your corner right now?” 

“Ah,” Ilya says. “I am alone.” He immediately regrets the response; what if the other man wants to fucking mug him? Ilya knows better than to tell a complete stranger on a side street in a city he barely knows that he is completely and utterly alone in this world. This is a recipe for disaster. He should probably get out of here. He should probably go back to his hotel room, where he is supposed to be. He should probably be getting ready to board an airplane in a few short hours, where he will be taken far away from Shane Hollander’s hospital room, Shane Hollander’s apartment, and Shane Hollander’s life. He should probably not be smoking. There are a lot of things he should probably be doing right now that he won’t do. 

“I am sorry to hear that, son,” the man says softly. Hearing the word “son” out of the older man’s mouth does something funny and somewhat upsetting to Ilya’s brain, like he’s taken a chisel to Ilya’s walls and put a nice, new crack in it. Ilya needs to patch that crack immediately. 

The other man seems to notice the way Ilya stiffens and immediately tries to backtrack. “Sorry, I’m just– I’m here for my son, obviously, and you know,” the man gestures to Ilya. Ilya does not know. His face must clearly show that he does not know, because the other man just looks at him appraisingly for a few silent moments before taking another drag. 

“So, this person you care about, are they, uh, in surgery or…” the other man awkwardly asks. 

“I don’t know,” Ilya says truthfully. “Honestly, I…” he stops himself because his voice wobbles far too obviously, and he does not want to cry in public in front of a complete stranger who just put him on edge by calling him son of all things while his own son sits in a hospital bed. 

“We don’t have to talk about it if it’s too much,” the man informs Ilya softly. “Sometimes it’s nice to have the option.” 

Something about that makes the freshly-chiseled crack in Ilya’s walls fracture deeper. His own exhaustion and stress are probably contributing factors in this. Regardless of the reason, Ilya finds that the floodgates open just a small bit, ready to let a steady stream out. He’s about to spill his heart out to this random kind man with his shitty lighter and respectable puffer jacket. 

Fucking whatever. He’ll allow himself this one personal failure. He has a whole pile of them already. Why not add one more right now?

“I don’t know what we are to each other,” Ilya begins, trying very hard to force his voice steady. “This person…and I,” he takes in a breath. “We’re something. I love them, I think.” The other man remains quiet, taking a small drag of his cigarette and watching Ilya closely. “Sometimes I think I need to stop this so we both can move on. Most times the idea of doing that makes me feel like I’ll die,” he says. “No one knows I am here,” he says quietly. “They can’t. Not for this person.” Ilya takes a deep breath and stares at a stained patch of concrete directly next to the other man. He can't bring himself to look in the other man's eyes right now, nor can he bring himself to look at the foreboding hospital or the stupid, tacky LED cross in the distance. The stained concrete seems like a safe alternative.

“Tell me about them,” the man asks quietly, once Ilya falls silent. He stubs out his cigarette on a stone wall. Ilya is content to let the rest of his own cigarette burn out by itself. 

“He–they–they’re boring,” Ilya says flatly, which seems to surprise the other man into a shocked, short laugh.

“Wow,” the other man says. It’s not judgemental, just surprised. 

“This is a good thing, believe me,” Ilya adds, and then the little crack in his wall fractures even more and begins to let out another steady stream of words. “They– fuck, he, you already heard me say it, whatever. He understands me in a way no one else does. He challenges me. He is beautiful, and he says it's weird that I call him that, but he is. You'd agree if you saw him. He is the most beautiful. He has freckles on his cheeks that are like nothing else I've ever seen. He…” Ilya trails off for a moment, watching the way his cigarette ash falls to the ground. 

“It scares me, how much I want a future with him,” he continues in a whisper. “Even if it’s impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?” the man asks. 

“Because of us,” Ilya continues. “Because of who we are. We started…this, knowing that we can’t have anything else. We meet. We spend an evening together. We go back to our lives. It’s simple. It’s been like this for seven years.”

“Seven years is a long time,” the other man says. “And it doesn’t sound so simple.”

“It has to be,” Ilya says defensively. “If I start to think it’s possible, I might do dangerous things, like imagine future together. It won’t be so simple then.” Ilya sighs. 

“You are freezing outside of the hospital waiting for him,” the man says carefully. 

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I’ve been bad at simple tonight. I've been bad at it for a while, I think. I told myself I could end this and move on, and then he got hurt, and now I’m here, and not knowing if he is okay is killing me.” More cigarette ash flutters to the ground. “Stupid,” Ilya says, mostly to himself. 

“Hmm,” the man hums. “And what does he think about…everything?”

Ilya shakes his head. “I can’t speak for Sha- for him.” The man makes an aborted noise of acknowledgement. Ilya would probably respond the same way if he asked a stranger if he is okay and the stranger whispered a love confession back. What a shit show. This guy just wanted to be nice and smoke his cigarette while his son is in the hospital. “I don’t know. I’m scared he feels the same way, I think.”

Suddenly, Ilya laughs. “Sorry, sorry, I just…I just realized I never got your name,” Ilya says, embarrassed, reaching his hand out to offer the older man a handshake. He’s forgotten his manners. His father would be so, so disappointed in him if he hadn’t been buried underground two weeks ago. Knowing Ilya’s luck, maybe heaven and hell are real and Grigori Rozanov is watching this interaction with pure, unmitigated disgust. When a parent dies, people love to tell grieving families that their loved one is watching them always from above. He’s been told this more times than he can count on his hands since he arrived back in Boston after he buried his father. He thinks it’s meant to comfort him, but he isn’t really sure. Perhaps other people are comforted by the idea of their dead parents staying with them at all times. Ilya would prefer if his father fucked off forever and left him and his mother alone.

If Grigori is watching right now, he’s definitely looking upwards. There’s so way he made his way past heaven’s pearly gates. No, he’s being punished in hell. Maybe this is his cosmic punishment: for his crimes, Grigori Rozanov is condemned to watch his youngest son flout the rules of etiquette and fall in love with a man.

“I have been talking and talking and never asked for your name. I haven’t asked about your son. I’m sorry for being rude.” Ilya thrusts his hand slightly closer to the man, encouraging him to take it. “I’m Ilya.” 

The other man makes a very, very strange facial expression. 

“I know,” the man says. Ilya’s heart sinks to the bottom of his pelvis. Fuck. He just spilled his heart out to someone who knows who he fucking is. He just told this person that he loves a man. He nearly said Shane’s name out loud, for fuck’s sake. He’s so fucking stupid. The man slowly reaches his hand out to grasp Ilya’s still-waiting hand as Ilya’s face surely morphs into something resembling dumb shock. “I’m David,” he says. Then after a few silent moments of holding Ilya’s hand, David tacks on: “Hollander.” 

It lands a little like a hydrogen bomb aimed directly at Ilya’s apartment.

“I don’t want to make any assumptions,” the man, David fucking Hollander, says as Ilya suddenly becomes nauseous. “But I think we might be here for the same person,” he adds cautiously, like he is talking to a deer about to bolt.

“Uhm, no,” Ilya says. “I should go now, yes?” Faintly, through the sound of blood rushing to his ears and alarm bells going off in his brain, he registers that David Hollander is gripping his hand tighter now, holding him in place. Ilya’s screwed. He’s dead. He’s fucked up beyond belief. His father must be laughing at him in hell right now. “I'm not here for– Hollander, I’m here for–”

“Stay,” the man pleads softly, fucking, holding Ilya’s hand. He has a killer grip. His eyes are completely different from Shane’s own eyes yet the heaviness of the gaze pins Ilya down just the same. Fuck, no wonder he thought the man seemed familiar. Ilya has seen that particular intent set of the jaw in a million contexts since 2008. He’s seen face muscles working over a strikingly similar jawline on the ice, behind rinks, in a smattering of hotel rooms across North America, and in his own home. Even the cadence of their voices are similar.

How the fuck did he not see this a few minutes ago?

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Ilya says. He can feel himself start to sweat despite the cold. 

“Ilya, son,” Fuck, there it is again. Ilya is a weak, exhausted man. “Come with me,” David pleads.

“I am not on the visitor list,” Ilya protests weakly. “And it is not visiting hours.”

“We can fix that,” David says before tugging Ilya towards the hospital’s brightly-lit entrance.

Ilya knows that something has gone off-plan when David Hollander’s eyebrows climb towards his hairline while talking to hospital reception. Maybe David’s easygoing plan of just throwing Ilya onto the list and getting him in, somehow, had met its natural end. Maybe David will turn around and give Ilya a typical Canadian apology, something along the lines of “Gee, Ilya, sorry. They said there’s nothing we can do. Maybe you can come back later?” and Ilya will have to force himself to pretend that his heart isn’t ripping in half. Maybe someone will take pity on Ilya and hit him with their fucking car when he leaves.

David waves him closer to the reception desk and Ilya inhales a deep, grounding breath. 

Ilya receives a clipboard slid across the laminate surface. The receptionist silently gestures towards a pen chained to the desk, urging Ilya to take it, then points to a space where Ilya is meant to sign his name.

They didn't need to fix anything.

Quietly, while Ilya shows the receptionist his ID, David alerts him that he is number #4 on the shockingly long list of Shane Hollander’s emergency contacts and approved visitors, listed alongside #1 Yuna Hollander, #2 David Hollander, and #3 Hayden Pike (something that Ilya tries very, very hard to ignore– at a later time, when Shane isn't lying in a hospital bed somewhere in the depths of Montreal General, Ilya will pitch a dramatic fit over being ranked below Montreal’s 15th best player). It's apparently extremely detailed and far beyond what the hospital typically sees, sent over automatically from some unknown and probably underpaid Voyageurs administrative worker. I didn't even know our system could handle so many emergency contacts on one file, the receptionist said conversationally while Ilya blinked at him stupidly. That's an interesting first name. How do you pronounce it? 

At some point, unbeknownst to Ilya, Shane went out of his way to make sure that Ilya was there right beside his own parents and (ugh) Hayden fucking Pike on his detailed list of Trusted People. He trusted Ilya enough to swoop in and be with him in the case that his own family and physically closest friend could not…Ilya, who lives in a different country and by all intents and purposes shouldn’t be anything to Shane beyond a competitor. 

When did he do that? Why did he do that? 

“Well then,” David Hollander, emergency contact #2 says with a small, knowing smile. “Not so impossible, eh?” 

Ilya shakes his head and tries to stop the ridiculous, goofy-looking from taking over his face and revealing even more of his secrets to Shane’s father. 

Shane wants him to be here.

“He put me on the list,” Ilya says with a tinge of wonder in his voice. The smile breaks through a little. He probably looks a little insane. Ilya will have to ensure he does not look into any reflective surfaces if he doesn’t want to see the full extent of his lunacy plain across his face.

"We shouldn’t be surprised. He likes to cover his bases," David says seriously. Something about the way he says it makes Ilya bust out in a helpless, somewhat hysterical giggle. He says it like he’s cataloging another chapter in a lifetime’s-worth of silly little instances where Shane’s obsession with planning have been the punchline in a series of situational comedies. There are countless stories behind the simple acceptance in David’s voice. Ilya wants to know them all.

"Let's go, son," David says, as easy as can be, like the fact that he is continuing to call Ilya that term after Ilya made a garbled, nicotine-filled love confession about his real son in front of him isn't making Ilya feel like he's shifted to a different reality. The word keeps coming out like David doesn't even have to think about it; there is no experimenting with the word, no tip-toeing around, nor an ulterior motive. It's just natural to him. 

Ilya follows David into the belly of the hospital.

David, unfortunately for Ilya, does not take him to see Shane immediately. Shane is undergoing some tests and has not been returned to his room yet, and even then, he'd probably be asleep. Apparently, he’s only supposed to be allowed one or two support people, but Montreal General is more than willing to allow Shane fucking Hollander any number of support persons at any time of the day solely by virtue of being Shane fucking Hollander. That being said, there are limits on even Shane fucking Hollander’s powers: he can’t have an entourage of people following him throughout the entire hospital as he is poked and prodded. For now, his people must wait for a more reasonable time to see him.

Ilya kind of wishes David communicated this to Ilya in some way, shape, or form. Instead Ilya follows the older man like an eager puppy on his way to play in the park, only to be severely disappointed when the car pulls up to the vet clinic. In this instance, David is leading Ilya directly towards a waiting room, population: Shane's mother. 

Ilya has heard some things about Shane's mother over the years. She was a talkative, ever-present shadow looming over Shane in their teenage years. Ilya's eyes would unconsciously seek out Shane, knowing full well that the other man would be seated somewhere in the rink watching like a particularly judgemental hawk while Team Russia practiced. Each time, his mother would be right beside him like a palace guard. Ilya isn’t really one to talk; he too had an array of palace guards trailing him in these years, looming over him like additional (and unwelcome) shadows. Sometimes, it was his father. Sometimes, Team Russia's coaching team. Sometimes, a particular no-name staffer attached to the team that Ilya was fairly certain was receiving cash from his father in exchange for updates on his behaviour, although Ilya has never been able to prove it.

Getting Shane alone was difficult back then. Their meeting in the gym after the draft was a gift handed to Ilya directly by angels. Ilya, not satisfied with waiting for the angels to grace him again, took it upon himself to organize the next instance, and even then, Shane's mother was there in the shadows watching over her son. The universe ensured that Ilya was constantly aware of her presence by way of forcing him into an elevator with the woman as Ilya attempted to reach her son's hotel room. He half expected her to read the intentions on his face and deny him access, closing the castle gates and throwing Ilya into the alligator-infested moat out front. It was a really heavy-handed reminder from the universe, Ilya thinks. Maybe the universe could have had an ounce of decorum and gone for something a little more subtle. The only thing that could have made the situation worse is if she had knocked on the door while Ilya had her son’s dick pressed against his tonsils. 

Around the time that Ilya managed to shake these shadows off of himself physically (albeit not mentally-- vestiges of them are still there in the form of memories that occasionally crawl into his mind and fill Ilya with unjustifiable guilt, like when he struggles to get up in the morning and can hear the disembodied voice of his father call him lazy), Shane too managed to mostly shake off his shadow. His mother spoke for him less at award shows and other major events, seemingly content to fade into the background and watch her son with pride. Both of their careers were transferred from their parents’ hands and delivered to capable (or capable-ish, in Ilya’s case) agents. They're no longer teenagers living underneath their parents' thumbs. 

The issue is that Yuna looks like the type of person who would have absolutely no problem snapping back into her former role if the situation called for it. Here, she has returned to being Shane's looming palace guard, blocking Ilya's entrance to the castle that is Shane's hospital room. Fuck, the universe really does not hold back on its punches. The only thing that could make this worse is if the universe decided to give her a sword this time around. 

Looking at her small yet imposing form sitting alone in the painfully-bright waiting room, Ilya realizes in horror that David Hollander has brought him here as a human sacrifice. He is being led like a stupid little sacrificial lamb to Yuna Hollander's altar where she will slaughter him with glee. Maybe this is why David approached him outside– somehow, he knew that Ilya was here for Shane, and decided right then and there that Ilya is a problem that must be dealt with. Before Ilya can turn around on his heel, mutter out a quick "sorry, sorry" in David's general direction and get the absolute fuck out of there...Yuna Hollander spots him. Her eyes glint under the harsh fluorescent lighting.

Ilya is supremely fucked now. He might as well hand her a knife and roll on his back willingly. Maybe she will be kind to him and plunge the knife in fast and efficiently. Maybe he doesn't deserve such mercies. Maybe his recently-deceased father is watching this happen right now, happily looking forward to seeing Ilya’s inevitable demise and already planning out the subsequent scolding he will unleash on Ilya’s ghost.

"Is that...?" Yuna asks, probably directing the question to David. 

"I found Ilya outside," David says casually, like he is describing a stray dog he just happened to stumble upon. In a way, this is accurate. 

"Ilya," Yuna repeats slowly and with confusion laced through her voice. "Rozanov," she says after a moment of tense silence, this time with more confidence behind her voice. She probably has much more experience spitting out Rozanov than she does saying Ilya. 

"Hi," Ilya says quietly, lifting his left hand in an approximation of a wave. 

"Hi," Yuna says, probably without thinking. He knows that Canadians are world-renowned for their unconscious streams of “please” and “sorry,” and maybe greetings are part of that too. His experience with Canadians has supported this hypothesis; Shane wields “please” frequently and eagerly. Please, please, please, more, Ilya, fuck, please. “Sorry” is a bit more rare from him. “Hi” is even rarer; Shane usually prefers to greet him with phrases like “fuck off, asshole,” and “what the hell are you doing?”

"Why are you here?" Her face is scrunched up in confusion and concern. Ilya notices that her eyes (Shane's eyes, a small part of his brain reminds him, as if he needed the fucking reminder) flick back and forth between Ilya and her husband, like she is trying to decide if what she is seeing is a hallucination. 

"To..." Ilya begins. What should he say to this woman? He can't lie outright. David knows too much already. David has watched him tremble like a leaf and declare that he is scared to imagine a future with his son. For fuck’s sake, Ilya’s pretty sure he told David outside that he thinks he loves Shane. That’s hard to back away from. He can’t make up a casual excuse. That ship has already sailed without him realizing he was supposed to be on the passenger manifest, and now he is staring at the crumpled, unused boarding pass in his hand. He can’t try to convince Yuna he is here on a strictly professional basis when he’s crashed into the room a quarter to two in the morning, hand delivered to her by the man Ilya just stupidly confessed one of his deepest secrets to.

The Hollanders are married. They probably, like, talk to each other. Couples tend to do that (although not always. His parents, for example, hardly spoke). Even if Ilya managed to wiggle his way out of this room unscathed, he’s pretty sure the truth would reach Yuna eventually. Then, she’d send him anthrax in an envelope. Like an idiot, he would open it. Ilya’s illustrious career and trainwreck of a life would come to a shocking and early end. Rest in peace, Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov. He died too young. Very few people mourn the loss of the terror of the ice beyond (maybe) fans of the Boston Bears and (hopefully) Shane Hollander.

His last will and testament, something written and signed around the same time he signed his contract with the Boston Bears, states that Ilya is to be buried in Moscow. He does not want that at all. He never fucking wanted that, actually, but it felt necessary to specify at the time. He has since said his final goodbyes to the country he used to call home, laying a bouquet of twenty four gladioli flowers (the number was not on purpose– he intended to get just one dozen flowers, but once he held the twelve stems in his hand, he thought it looked too small. He picked up a second dozen and tried to stop himself from imagining a world where that second set of flowers was from Shane. Then, he combined the two and laughed over the irony of the final number being twenty four) over his mother’s grave (too close to his father’s fresh grave, which made Ilya’s skin crawl. Irina Rozanova does not deserve the hell that is an eternity buried next to her husband) as his final act before heading straight to the airport. 

His will also states that, in the event of his death, Ilya’s assets are to be handled by his father. Now that his father is gone, Ilya’s family would crawl out of the woodwork to chew at every bit of Ilya they could get their mouths on. Alexei would be happy, Ilya thinks. He’d probably be next in line to get the money, and all without having to go through the trouble of demanding it from Ilya. Maybe Polina would make out with a sports car or two. Hopefully Svetlana would be able to glean all of the bits and pieces no one else wanted– small tokens and little tchotchkes Ilya has gathered over the years that have barely any monetary value, like his mother’s old teacup he stole long ago, and shit like the engraved and forever-empty lighter Cliff gave to him. These are, after all, the most important things Ilya owns. 

He hasn’t had the chance to change his will yet. It’s another unchecked box on his long to-do list, nestled somewhere between “get back molar implant checked and maybe replaced” and “write really embarrassing speech for Carmichael’s wedding.”

"Did you know," David begins softly. He puts a hand on Ilya's shoulder. Ilya tries very hard not to stiffen under the touch. Shit, shit, shit, shit. He’s so fucked. David’s about to steer him closer to Yuna so she can more easily slide the knife between his ribs. "...that Ilya is one of Shane's emergency contacts?" 

Yuna blinks. "No, I didn't," Yuna continues with suspicion. 

"Number 4, right behind us and Hayden," David continues. 

Fuck Hayden Pike. If he survives this long enough to talk to Shane again, he’ll ask Shane to demote Hayden to #5. Ilya could be #3. He doesn’t give a flying fuck who takes his place as #4. It could be Rose fucking Landry, for all he cares. No, no, wait, he has spoken too soon. Rose Landry must be demoted to at least tenth place. Number 4 can be taken by anyone else. Slotted into numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 can be anyone at all– JJ Boiziau, Roger Crowell, the barista at Shane’s favourite cafe, fucking Scott Hunter, anyone. 

"Did the hospital call you?" Yuna asks, turning her confused and definitely trying-not-to-look-pissed-off face towards him. "Because they didn't need to do that. We're here."

"No," Ilya says. He feels like he is withering under her gaze. He knows that at full-height, she barely reaches his shoulders and yet he still feels like he is cowering underneath her sharp gaze. "I went to Shane's apartment after the game," he doesn't know why he is telling her this. He shouldn't be fucking telling her this. "But I couldn't stop worrying...so...I came here."

Yuna just watches Ilya for a few moments. Ilya shifts his weight from one foot to the other, nervous under her assessing gaze.

“Shane’s apartment,” Yuna repeats. There is a question there, although she doesn’t phrase it like one. “You went to Shane’s apartment.”

“Yes?” Ilya responds.

“You know where he lives and you know how to get inside of his apartment,” Yuna continues. 

“Yes.”

"What are you," Yuna says rather than asks. 

"Hockey player," Ilya stupidly blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. What the fuck was that answer? He even biffed the pronunciation of hockey, making the word sound closer to the Russian pronunciation than the English version he practiced over and over again as a teenager. 19-year-old Ilya would be disappointed by how his throat wrapped around the sound of that h just now.

Yuna raises a single eyebrow. She might as well just punch him, Ilya thinks. Her gloves are already off. 

"...to my son," she finishes her question. 

"Ah," Ilya says. "Uh." Excellent work, Ilya. Very coherent.

"Yuna," David says placatingly.

"Why is he here, David?" Yuna huffs, crossing her arms across her chest defensively. 

"I need to be here," Ilya says instead. 

“What are you to my son?” Yuna repeats, giving Ilya another chance that he doesn’t think he deserves. 

“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. He is not proud of the crack in his voice that snaps around the word “don’t.” 

“Yuna,” David says again. “Ilya would like to see Shane.” Yuna just stares at her husband in naked disbelief. “I have a feeling Shane would like to see him too.” 

Yuna scoffs before shaking her head. “You can’t see him right now,” she says. Ilya’s heart, still sunken to his pelvis from back when David introduced himself, threatens to drop further. Ilya half wonders if he’ll need to be hospitalized when his heart inevitably drops so low that it falls out of his ass. Maybe he’ll get a room near Shane’s room. “He’s still getting some tests done,” Yuna adds on. “But maybe they’ll let us see him again later.”

“What?” Ilya asks stupidly, voice continuing to crack. 

“Sit down, Rozanov. We’re gonna be here for a while,” Yuna continues, gesturing to an uncomfortable-looking chair. Us. We. Yuna’s voice using first person plural bounces around in his head. 

“It’s Ilya,” David reminds her softly as he sits down in his own chair. 

“Ilya,” Yuna repeats for the second time tonight, except this time it sounds more comfortable in her mouth. “Sit down, Ilya.”

“Thank you,” Ilya squeaks out before connecting his tailbone with a chair directly across from Yuna.

Ilya feels like he has been transported to another plane of existence. Maybe Yuna really did plunge a knife into his chest and take him out of his fucking misery, and now he’s been condemned to an eternity of awkward conversation in this room as his divine punishment. It's still better than being condemned to his father's ghostly criticism.

The only reprieve thus far came in the form of a nurse walking into the room like he was avoiding invisible land mines solely to alert the family that Shane was okay, but still getting some tests done, and they might not be able to see him for a few hours. He looked Ilya square in the face when he said it, which Ilya suspects is because Yuna’s piercing gaze is too intimidating to look at (and Ilya is seated closer to the doorway than David is). The nurse abandoned them almost as quickly as he entered the room with a quick, mumbled reminder that there are some vending machines and washrooms down the hallway if they need them.

Ilya is again left alone with Shane’s parents. Yuna watches him like he is a puzzle she’s been tasked with figuring out and hasn’t quite cracked yet. For a few minutes, she opens and closes her mouth periodically, like she is on the cusp of breaking the silence but is actively restraining herself. Ilya, meanwhile, looks anywhere but the woman seated across from him. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to reveal more about himself or Shane to Shane’s parents, Ilya offers to go find something for them to drink: coffee, tea, water, anything at all. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ve got it,” David says, putting his hands on his knees as he lifts himself off of his chair like almost all men his age do. “Coffee, Yuna?” 

“Black,” Yuna responds. 

“Ilya?” David asks. 

“What?” Ilya asks, again, because apparently tonight he cannot stop repeating this word. 

“Coffee?”

“I can get it,” Ilya pleads, eager to get the fuck out of this room and far away from Shane’s parents. Preferably, to go find a dark corner to sit in for a moment as he regains his bearings, or maybe a kind nurse who can be bribed into sedating him. 

“Sit,” David orders. Ilya feels like a stray dog at the vet again. “You played quite a game tonight. You've gotta be tired. Cream? Sugar?”

Fuck, he’s not getting out of this. “Yes, please,” Ilya says, resigned to his fate.

And then David leaves him alone in a room with Yuna Hollander. 

They stare at each other for a while. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya blurts out without really thinking it through. 

“For what?” Yuna asks, face blank.

Ilya could say a million different things. I’m sorry I’m here. I’m sorry I’ve interrupted your evening. I’m sorry my teammate hurt your son. I’m sorry I’ve hurt your son. I’m sorry that your son apparently cares about me and you’re finding out about it right now. I’m sorry I’ve been sticking my dick into your son’s ass for years. I’m sorry your understanding of your son is changing without any warning. I’m sorry that I might be part of your life forever if your son lets me. I’m sorry that I am making my pain your problem right now. I'm sorry that I smell like Shane’s soap and Shane’s lotion. 

Ilya decides on a simple one. “I’m interrupting,” he says. 

“Ro– Ilya,” Yuna says. Her tone is not angry, but rather something a little more careful than Ilya expected. For whatever reason, Yuna has relaxed into the weirdness that is the current situation. “You aren’t interrupting.”

“Yes, I am,” he says. “I just showed up and you weren’t expecting me.”

Yuna huffs out a small laugh. “That’s true,” she agrees. “But I guess Shane is. Expecting you, I mean.” 

Ilya doesn’t know what to say to that. 

“Boston has a good shot at the playoffs this year,” Yuna continues casually. 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees simply. God, he’s feeling so unmoored right now. Maybe he’s the one with a concussion. Shouldn't she be questioning him? Shaking him down? Demanding answers? If anything, she should be calling for security and emailing every reporter in Montreal to let them know that Boston Bears Captain Ilya Rozanov broke into Montreal General Hospital to finish the job Cliff Marlow started. 

“Can I just– can I ask–” Yuna begins. Ilya immediately feels himself begin to sweat again. He doesn’t think he can provide any answers that she’d find suitable, depending on what she asks. Ilya’s already trampled over Shane’s privacy enough tonight. “What the fuck is wrong with St-Simon this season? I mean, no offense, he’s a good player, always has been, but…” Yuna rolls her eyes. “It’s like he can’t see the effing puck anymore.”

Ilya just stares at her for a moment. Yuna seems undeterred by his silence.

“And your coach keeps putting Kane in the net like an idiot when Koslov has such a higher save percentage–Kane’s been letting in shit that a 12 year old could save– it’s just, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth–”

Before he can stop himself, Ilya starts laughing. It’s a loud, guffaw-ing sound that he can’t really control that causes him to folder over in his own chair. Lack of restraint seems to be a general theme of the evening for him. He keeps laughing, probably a touch too long to be polite, made worse by the fact that his laugh takes on a hysterical edge near the end of his fit.

“You want…” Ilya begins through gulping laughs as he straightens up in his chair again. “To talk about my team?”

Yuna stares at him like she can’t comprehend what he finds so funny about this situation. 

“Well yes,” Yuna says seriously. Ilya tries very, very hard to control his face and squash down the second burst of laughter crawling up his throat, and then watches in shock and amazement as Yuna also begins to laugh. 

“Sorry,” she says through her own laughter. “This is just…weird, right?” 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees through a grin. Yuna smiles back and a small part of his brain lights up with the recognition that he might be bonding with his future mother-in-law right now. Wow. No. Slow down there, he reminds himself. He is flying too close to the sun. 

“How long is your team staying in Montreal?” Yuna asks, still smiling a little. 

“My team is leaving in…” Ilya glances at a clock hung above slightly off-centered the doorway. “About four hours,” he says. 

Yuna’s eyes widen. “Are you going to go straight to the airport from here?” 

“No,” Ilya says. “I’m staying here for a few days, I think. I told my team I have family emergency.” 

Ilya purposefully does not tell her that Cliff Marlow, the very same guy who ran over Shane at top speed and landed them all into this disaster, orchestrated a major bowel emergency just to method act food poisoning. He does not tell her that Cliff is probably still experiencing bubble guts as they speak if he was not lying about downing an entire gallon of milk. 

Ilya wonders if Cliff’s gonna make it onto that flight in his current state, and then he decides that this is not his problem to worry about. Cliff deserves to suffer for what he has caused this evening. Maybe if he hadn’t harmed Shane, The Hollanders would be comfortably asleep in their home and Ilya would be trying to weasel his way into napping in Shane’s bed.

For some reason, Yuna looks like she’s seen a ghost. Maybe it’s just a trick of the sickly-white light, but she seems like she’s gone pale. Ilya doesn’t know what he has done wrong, but he has definitely done something very, very wrong. Fuck, where is David?

“Family emergency,” she repeats in a whisper. 

Ah. It’s the fact that he used the word “family” that is making her stumble. Ilya ought to be more careful with his words– they aren’t family, after all. He and Shane aren’t anything, technically. He’s overstepping by several kilometers by trying to assert himself as anything resembling family. 

“Yes,” Ilya nods. “That is the story I used.” Maybe “story” can do some heavy lifting here. Maybe she’ll forgive him for overstepping if he sets that boundary. 

Yuna loudly sniffs once and schools her face into something that resembles a calm expression. Ilya watches as she scrubs a hand under one eye before tossing her head back and shaking her hair a little, like she’s trying to shake out whatever just came over her

“Are you going to miss a game to hang out here?” she asks once she’s finished. 

“I will not be able to play before seeing that Shane is okay,” Ilya shrugs. He casts his gaze downwards, not wanting to see Yuna’s reaction to that. 

Before Yuna can respond, David Hollander reenters the room carrying a small tray of drinks. 

“Sorry, took me a while to find it,” he says apologetically as he slides a paper cup towards Yuna, who grabs the offering eagerly. 

“And here’s yours,” David says as he offers a cup to Ilya. It smells burnt and way too strong, and Ilya is immediately overcome with embarrassment after he unconsciously grimaces as the scent punches the back of his nose. At the very least, the reaction makes David chuckle, which means Ilya hasn’t completely fucked up another part of tonight. 

“Thank you,” Ilya says seriously. He can still save this if he is polite enough.

David smiles and then begins to rummage in his pocket before depositing a massive handful of sugar packets and little cups of creamer directly onto Ilya’s lap. 

“Oh!” Ilya says, delighted this time. “Thank you. You are the coffee fairy.” 

God, Ilya is so fucking tired. His filter is shot. If Cliff heard him, he’d never let him live the coffee fairy thing down. Every single day for eight months straight Ilya would hear Cliff put on a shitty imitation of a Russian accent and say You are the [insert thing here] fairy! until he decides that the joke has run its course. Ilya wouldn’t be able to tell a singular story without someone on the team asking him, in a grave manner, if the coffee fairy was there. Then, once the joke dies and is finally put to rest, someone would use necromancy to unleash it again when the team is suitably drunk and not expecting it at all, and then Ilya would need to suffer through it all over again. 

He just finally got Ryan Carmichael to stop saying Russians do not blush after two full fucking years. Ryan’s Russian accent is so terrible that it sounds more Scottish than anything else. Ilya once tried to point out that Ryan’s impression of him sounded like Shrek, but all of the traitors on his traitor team ganged up on him and said “No, Roz, it’s a pretty good impression.” Some of the guys have taken to referring to Ilya’s apartment as his swamp. What are you doing in my hospital waiting room, the voice of Ryan Carmichael attempting an Ilya impression intones in his mind. 

“So, Ilya,” David begins, interrupting Ilya’s thought process. “I’ve been working on this crossword and I’d love to get some help.” 

Somewhere around number 43 down, Icarus, according to Daedalus, Ilya falls asleep. 

He wakes up slowly and confused, blinking sluggishly as his eyes readjust to the bright fluorescent lighting. His neck is killing him right now. He slept sitting up in the uncomfortable plastic chair, head thrown back and slightly to the side, and now his neck is throwing a fit about it. He can still taste the faint bitterness of his coffee, now stale and extra disgusting on his tongue. There’s something weird in his field of vision he can’t quite make out until he finally forces his eyes completely open. He blinks off the remains of sleep only to find that the “something weird” is Yuna Hollander holding up her phone directly in front of his face. 

“Oh!” she says, surprised to see his eyes staring at her through her phone camera. “Sorry, it was just kind of cute to see the two of you...” She gestures towards Ilya and slightly to his left before lowering her phone. Ilya’s neck is too stiff to turn normally, so he has to twist his entire torso to the side to see what she’s referring to: David Hollander, similarly positioned in his chair and still snoring. 

“Shane’s gonna love it,” she says. 

“Yes, he will,” Ilya agrees, if Shane doesn’t fucking kill him after all of this. If Ilya is to be killed by someone, he’d prefer it to be Shane. In his final moments he can drown in those furious brown eyes. His obituary would alert the world that Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov died doing what he loved: staring (lustfully) into Shane Hollander’s angry eyes. It sounds a hell of a lot better than being stabbed by Yuna Hollander or pummelled to death by some no-name enforcer goon being paid far too much money in exchange for poor hockey skills. 

He’s been thinking about death a lot recently. 

Yuna smiles, triumphant, and returns to her own chair where her laptop is waiting for her. She positions it on her knees once she is seated. Ilya watches her as she types, partially because he is interested in observing her, partially because there is nothing else to really look at in this room, and partially because she’s directly in front of him and he can’t move his neck without a sharp pain shooting down his upper back. Just like earlier, Yuna keeps pausing her furious typing to look at him like she wants to say something but is restraining herself again. 

“You have questions,” Ilya says eventually. It’s not a question itself but a statement of fact. He knows that she must have a billion questions bouncing around her mind right now, threatening to spill out. He’d have some questions if he were in her place, so he can’t fault her for it. 

To Ilya’s surprise, Yuna looks embarrassed to have been caught. The slight flush of her cheeks reminds Ilya of Shane. 

“It’s nothing,” she says quickly. “Well, actually…”

“You can ask,” Ilya encourages. “But I cannot promise to answer.” He is willing to answer as many questions as she has as long as they don’t brush up into Shane’s-private-life territory, which…probably rules out just about every question she has. It won’t be a very informative Q&A session. In a way, it will feel exactly like a post-game media scrum where Ilya artfully deflects and deflects until everyone leaves answerless yet satisfied. Ilya, there are now 28 Russian athletes under investigation for using performance-enhancing drugs during the 2014 Sochi Olympics amid accusations of a state-run doping program. Do you have any comments on this?

Only performance enhancing drug I know is Dunkin Donuts. That is why the team played so well tonight. Hammersmith’s goal was assisted by a Dunkaccino.

“You don’t really do many ad campaigns,” Yuna begins. Again, this is not at all where Ilya thought this conversation was going. He wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years. He’s burst into this waiting room in the middle of the night with red-rimmed eyes and told her he won’t leave until he sees that her son is safe and sound, and she wants to talk about his fucking team and his sponsorships? “You have the popularity, charisma, and the face for it. You could be everywhere. Just– why not?” 

Ilya tries to blink back the confusion that is probably visible on his face before answering with a shrug. Yuna does not look like she finds the answer to be sufficient, so Ilya adds “my agent says it is not necessary.” 

It’s Yuna’s turn to look confused. “Really?”

“Yes?” Ilya says. 

Yuna honest-to-god scoffs. It’s a full-body reaction that heaves her chest and comes along with a shake of the head. “Your agent sounds like shit,” she says with audible incredulity.

Ilya tries not to laugh. “Yes,” he says seriously. His agent is kind of shit. He’s had the same agent since it became apparent that Ilya was angling to enter the MLH instead of the KHL. Apparently he had an agent prior to this, too– all he can remember is that his father, one day, had a gangly, teenage Ilya sign some paperwork that said agent apparently needed from him. The paper was snatched away from Ilya’s face before he could even read it, which is partially his fault for stupidly signing before laying his eyes on the opening paragraph (not that it would have changed anything. He was far too young to protest his father’s choices). Ilya’s father had similarly handled the transition from old agent to new agent, one who is Russian but based in the United States, without any input from Ilya. The way his father told Ilya that this agent is trustworthy and worth every penny made Ilya believe that he was chosen primarily based on his connections and willingness to listen to Grigori over Ilya. This current agent is mostly hands-off, contacting him for only perfunctory duties and a once-in-a-blue-moon sponsorship (but only for hockey equipment, and once, an electrolyte powder). Once in a while, Ilya gets a text message reminding him to keep his mouth shut about anything that is not hockey, which comes in intervals Ilya has never been able to figure out. He knows better than to make or even breathe in the general direction of any political statements (well, except with the whole doping thing). Perhaps his agent wants to remind him specifically so he never crosses the invisible line. 

Remember to just keep your mind on hockey where it belongs, his agent texted him unprompted on June 26, 2015. For most of the day, Ilya had no clue what that meant until he glanced up at a gym television screen blasting a rundown of today’s news, and then he spent the rest of the session desperately hoping that it was just a coincidence that his agent decided to text him a reminder on the day Obergefell v. Hodges was decided. 

His agent really is shit. 

“You let me know if you want to find a new one,” Yuna continues, brows furrowed and gravely serious, just like Shane when he’s spotted a problem and has decided it’s his job to fix it. “Someone who really understands your potential. I mean, you could be everywhere if your agent just put in some fucking effort.” 

“You sound like you’ve thought about this before,” Ilya says lightly. 

Yuna just shrugs. 

“Believe me, she’s thought about it a lot,” David Hollander’s scratchy, sleep-laden voice rasps beside Ilya. He clears his throat and winces as he readjusts his neck, which makes Ilya’s neck throb in sympathy. “Talked about it a lot, too.” 

Yuna grumbles something under her breath that is too quiet for Ilya to hear properly. 

“Honey, have you slept at all?” David asks Yuna. 

“No,” Yuna says. Ilya finally notices the sleep-deprived bags forming under her eyes that match his and David’s. Someone could walk in right now and say “wow, I see the family resemblance!” and the three of them would laugh awkwardly. No, wait– there’s that family word again– Ilya needs to be careful with that. He isn’t family. His tenuous connection to these two people relies entirely on his connection to Shane, and they aren’t anything at all.

“You should go to Shane’s place and sleep a while,” David says. “Ilya and I will hold down the fort here.” 

“But–” Yuna begins, looking between her husband and Ilya.

“We’ll call you if anything happens,” David promises. 

There is some sort of unspoken communication between them, a back-and-forth volley of blinking and eyebrow movements Ilya does not understand, and then Yuna Hollander is packing up her laptop and standing up. As she leaves the room, she drops a small kiss onto the top of her husband’s hair before stepping towards Ilya. Silently, she places a hand on Ilya’s bicep and squeezes once before disappearing through the doorway. 

Embarrassingly, Ilya’s vision begins to swim. 

“She can’t sleep in a chair,” David explains once Yuna has left the room. Ilya is relieved that David isn't commenting on the wetness of his eyes. “She’s never been able to. She needs a mattress and a blanket, always has.” He chuckles softly under his breath. “Years ago, we flew to Japan to visit some family. It took 23 hours with a layover in Calgary. Yuna didn’t sleep a single wink. We arrived at Narita International and she was so delirious that she kept accidentally speaking French. Shane– he was 4 at the time– kept trying to ‘help,’ but the only words in Japanese he knew were food and ‘thank you.’” Ilya can’t help the smile breaking out on his face as he listens to the story. “I talked to the border officer in English and Shane got upset because that was ‘cheating,’ apparently. Then he started listing all of the words for fruit that he knew.” 

Ooh, he can imagine a tiny little Shane being so excited to help. He probably put on his most serious face to talk to the person at the immigration counter. Ilya imagines a shrunken-down Shane in little overalls frowning slightly as he approaches a group of uniformed adults, muttering about peaches and apples. He’s going to have to ask David if he has any photographs of little Shane. He is too weak of a man to resist the temptation now that David has given him a glimpse.

“Mr. Hollander, I am sorry to interrupt–” Ilya begins, which causes David to look at him with concern. “but, I need to know, do you have any photos of little Shane?” 

“Oh…oh, buddy, do I,” David says with a conspiratorial grin. He takes out his phone (at maximum brightness, so bright it hurts Ilya just like the goddamn fluorescent lights above them and the giant LED cross looming outside of the hospital, but it’s fine because he’s perfectly content with suffering a little if it means he gets to see teeny tiny little Shane Hollander) and begins to swipe through his photo gallery. “Buckle up. This is one of my favourites…we took Shane to the beach for the first time when he was about a year old. He kept trying to eat the sand.” 

“This is still the same,” Ilya says without thinking about it. “His smoothies look like wet sand.”

David barks out a laugh. If he had wanted to comment on the fact that Ilya knows what the texture of Shane’s smoothies looks like, he did a great job of hiding it. 

Hours later, after Ilya is more relaxed and full of images of tiny little Shane (including one of him suited-up in full hockey gear at just 3 years old, which made Ilya involuntarily release a really embarrassing squeal before he begged David to send to him…and, well, now Ilya has David Hollander’s phone number. What an odd evening) and another large cup of awful, burnt hospital coffee, a nurse enters the room. 

“He’s up for visitors, if you want,” she says, looking between Ilya and David. There’s a strange look on her face that leads Ilya to believe that she recognizes him and is baffled by his presence, but her professionalism is overriding any urge to comment on it. 

“You should go first,” Ilya says to David. 

“We can both go, Ilya,” he responds. 

Ilya shakes his head. “We might give Shane a heart attack if we walk in together,” he says. He imagines walking into Shane’s room side-by-side with David and the way Shane would absolutely begin to freak out. Maybe he’d try to put on some sort of an act, telling Ilya that it was a clean hit, Rozanov, Marlow doesn’t have to worry like it isn't too late for him to ham up the rival captains act. Maybe he’ll jump out of his hospital bed and run through the doorway in fear of what Ilya has said to his father and what that means for their future. Maybe he’ll panic so intensely that he’ll decide that he should test his place on the Kinsey Scale again, just to confirm with 100% certainty that he and Rose Landry aren't compatible. “Maybe we…ease him into the idea that we have met,” Ilya suggests.

“And ease him into the idea that you’ve seen about two hundred of his baby photos?” David smiles, seemingly unaware that Ilya is attempting to defuse a bomb before it blows up in his face again. 

“Yes, definitely,” Ilya nods.

“If it makes you feel better, he is probably too high to think about much of anything,” the nurse, still in the doorway, supplies. “And…Mr. Rozanov, uh, he’s been asking for you?” 

Ilya has no fucking idea what facial expression he is making, but whatever it is, it makes the nurse drop the professional mask and let out a little giggle. David must see it too, because he also lets out a short laugh. 

“He has?” Ilya asks. God, he hopes the nurse isn’t just saying that to mock him right now. That would really suck. 

“Oh, yes,” she says, still laughing a little. “Every time he’s regained consciousness, actually. He’s been really insistent that we all tell iiiilllllllllyyyyuuuuuuhhhhhh that he is okay.” The nurse flashes him a small smile. “He tried convincing my colleague to give him his phone so he could call you and tell you himself. He got really upset when we told him we don't have his phone.”

“Go first, please, please,” Ilya orders David, all but pushing him through the doorway. “I need a moment, I think.” 

The nurse wasn’t exaggerating with the iiiilllllllllyyyyuuuuuuhhhhhh comment.

“Ilyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” Shane breathes out happily when Ilya enters his hospital room and finally lays eyes on Shane’s mostly-fine, mostly-functional self. 

“Shane,” Ilya breathes out shakily, just watching him from the doorway. Shane smiles in response so wide that his eyes crinkle. God, like this, Ilya can see the little lines that will become crow’s feet someday. He really, really fucking hopes he gets to see them through the years as they carve deeper into his skin.

“Hey,” Shane says, starting to beckon Ilya over with a flap of his hand. “Heeeeeey.” 

When Ilya finally reaches his bedside and takes his hand, Shane smiles even wider. There’s bruising under Shane’s eyes that must hurt, but based on the way he’s smiling, maybe Shane can’t feel anything at all. The nurse wasn’t lying about him being very, very high right now. Ilya feels similarly.

“Wow, wow, you’re my second visitor after my dad,” Shane says with wonder. “That’s crazy. You beat my mom and she’s soooo competitive.” 

Ilya’s smile turns helpless. “I see where you get it from,” he says.