Archive of Our Own

Ilya is pretty sure that LeClaire knows what is coming during his free agency. He’s probably heard that Farah has refused to give the front office direct answers about contract renegotiations, and it means that he is both pissed that he might lose the captain that got them a cup and unable to publicly retaliate because it isn’t UFA for several long months.

One thing that Montreal and Boston always have had in common is an Old Fucking Bastard at the helm who expects contrition for sloppy mistakes and losses.

“I almost slept on my couch so I didn’t have to go up the stairs,” Ilya confesses, his face still half-buried into his pillow. “My muscles are still twitching. I don’t know how the fuck I’m gonna do a double today.”

“I can’t understand you when you’re talking to your pillow, babe,” Shane says, pausing in his skincare routine to adjust how his phone is sitting on his bathroom counter. “Oh, you look wiped.”

“LeClaire has gotten worse with punishment conditioning,” Ilya explains. “We got booted off the ice so he put me on a treadmill and didn’t let me off until I puked for the third time.”

“Why? You’re still leading the division. Your team has looked good,” Shane sounds baffled. “Not even Thierault is throwing tantrums yet, and we’ve been playing a hell of a lot worse.”

“The rookies are unplayable still, and I think he knows that I’ve been dodging the front office about my free agency plans,” Ilya confesses. “He’s been making a lot of comments about the C and my dedication to the team. Cliff is shitting himself with fear that he’s going to have more responsibility if Coach actually follows through with his threats.”

“He’s not allowed to do that,” Shane says, in the tone of voice that means he understands that it is going to continue to happen. “Is he just taking out on you?”

Ilya shrugs. “The whole team is kind of a mess. The athletic trainers have never looked more stressed out by the sheer number of us being held together with KT Tape and Tiger Balm.”

“When do you have to be at the rink?” Shane asks, leaning over to splash his face with water. “You’ve got a home game tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. We’re not tapering,” Ilya answers the question Shane is actually asking. “We’re doing double doubles of off-ice and on-ice every day that isn’t a travel or game day right now.”

“Jesus. That’s a recipe for injury,” Shane says. “It’s fucking November. That’s just fucking stupid.”

“If we do not beat fucking Buffalo tomorrow, you will need to hire an exorcist for him,” Ilya says darkly.

“I’m sure you will. They haven’t won a game in over two weeks,” Shane reassures him. “Okay. I gotta go. Eat something with protein and make sure you’re doing your ice baths and massage sessions. Love you.”

When the Facetime call disconnects, Ilya just groans and sets an alarm for fifteen more minutes of rest. Breakfast isn’t worth another fifteen minutes of allowing his eyes to be closed.

“Is his wife leaving him?” Marleau mutters between panting breaths, his stick braced across the tops of his thighs as he glides back to the starting line. “Or did a rookie piss in his cornflakes?”

“Shut up,” Ilya forces out of the corner of his mouth. “If he sees you talking, he’ll add more.”

“We’re fucked anyway. Hammy just upchucked,” Cliff says, groaning.

“Again,” LeClaire barks. “Every rep that Hammersmith misses is two more. And if a fucking rookie is the slowest again, you better start praying to whatever gods you boys worship.”

Ilya knows exactly what he needs to do. He knows that Cliff knows it, too, and both of them take off at their normal speed until the last out and back, where they purposely stop and let every single rookie pass them up before they glide across the line themselves.

He tunes out LeClaire’s certified fucking tantrum, instead trying to physically punch some lactic acid out of his legs to prepare for the hell that he knows is coming their way.

The ice is clearing out, though, and that was the fucking goal. They do not need every single player blowing out their legs before the brutal road trip they’ve got coming up. The rookies have been crumbling for weeks, unused to this level of training—what’s worse is the vets are starting to fall with them. They’re all far too tired for November.

Ilya is their captain. He is the best fucking player in the entire NHL. He can handle some extra conditioning, if it means his teammates’ legs are just a little bit fresher.

“You fucking idiot,” Ilya says. “We both didn’t need to do it.”

“No one skates alone. Not even you, Cap,” is all Marly will grace him with, before they are back on the godforsaken line.

It takes two trainers each to get them out of their skates, after it’s all said and done. Ilya would be more helpful, but he’s too busy heaving into a Home Depot bucket and trying not to do something embarrassing like cry from the pain as his pads are pulled off of him.

“All done?” A trainer asks clinically, and as soon as Ilya nods the bucket is gone and he is being lifted in his soaked underlayer straight into an ice bath.

“Blyat,” Ilya forces out, immediately trying to climb out of the painful, freezing water, but hands on his shoulders easily keep him down.

“Ten minutes,” Jacob says. “We gotta get some of the lactic acid out this way first. It’ll feel better soon.”

Ilya glares at the trainer, his teeth already chattering far too much for a dignified response. To his left, Cliff is not faring at all better. “We’re so fucked for Montreal,” Cliff moans.

“We’ll be fine tomorrow, you big baby,” Ilya manages. “Did the rookies come through already?”

“Your ducklings are the ones who warned us to be ready for you two idiots,” Brian, the team doctor, says, already preparing two tables with all of Ilya’s least fucking favorite torture implements. “I’m going to need to up my ice and tape budget at this rate.”

“Something has crawled up Coach’s ass and died there,” Cliff huffs out. “We’re off to our best start since 2014, and he’s acting like we’re duking it out with Ottawa for last place.”

“Do I need to have a word with him?” Brian asks. “We are barely a quarter of the way into the season.”

“No,” Ilya dismisses immediately. “It will have to get better on the road trip—less training time with all of the travel. Hopefully some road wins improve his mood.”

“Don’t be martyrs,” Brian orders. “I know you both still think you’re eighteen and made of fucking elastic, but you’re not. Your ice minutes are creeping up, and this hero bullshit is just going to take you off the ice with some kind of overworking injury.”

“Do not talk to him,” Marleau agrees with his captain. “We tried that, and it’s why your office has become a goddamn zoo after practice.”

“After we try to work out some of the lactic acid, I want you both off of your feet the rest of the day. Legs elevated and as much ice as your calves and thighs can tolerate,” Brian orders. “And you’re both coming in for another round before morning skate tomorrow.”

“Aye aye,” Cliff agrees, groaning as he shifts a little in the ice bath. “Figuring out if my feet can move enough to drive my car is going to be a goddamn adventure.”

“Connors stuck around to give you both a ride.”

“Best fucking draft class.” Cliff pumps his fist into the air. “My fellow A can take the heat next time.”

“If we skate better, there won’t be a next time,” Ilya grumbles, fully relaxing into the ice bath as his muscles finally give up.

“On the line,” LeClaire barks, as soon as a rookie misses one fucking pass on a power play drill.

“We’re so fucking cooked,” Marleau groans.

“And since you all want to fucking hold hands and sing in peace and harmony and love, you’re all fucking skating until I’m convinced you’re all sorry. Anyone who lets up to let someone pass them earns the whole group five more. Now get on the fucking line.”

“Shane,” Ilya says miserably, hoping that his voicemail does not pick up on the fact that Ilya is largely speaking into the toilet bowl. “I don’t think I can meet you before the game. LeClaire has us in tape review from hotel arrival straight until curfew.” What he cannot tell his boyfriend is that he feels like absolute horseshit, because most of the team is run down and exhausted, and he would rather fucking die than give Montreal insider information. “I will see you after we win. Okay. Love you. Bye bye.”

Ilya has never felt so exhausted in his life. His muscles are in perpetual agony, heavy and clumsy and uncooperative and painful even doing the most benign tasks. The nausea is new, but he’s willing to bet it’s just a product of his overtired body throwing any emergency switch it can find than an actual illness.

Packing his suitcase feels like an impossible challenge. He doesn’t even know how long he has before he has to be back at the facility for the team bus, but even crawling the handful of meters from his bathroom floor to his bedroom feels like a herculean task.

At least when his phone starts blaring it’s Marly and not Shane, having seen right through him.

“I need you to talk to me so I pack my suitcase and don’t just fall asleep and never wake up,” Marleau moans. “Are your legs also cramping so bad that you can’t move?”

“Yes,” Ilya admits immediately. “Fuck, perfect timing, Cliff. I also need to get in gear.”

“Okay. We both pack, and then I’ll call a car to pick us both up and drop us off so we don’t die of a muscle cramp on the gas pedal,” Cliff says. “Starting a two week roadie in Montreal should be fucking illegal.”

“I’m good with that plan. I will see if the trainers can fit us in before the bus to the airport,” Ilya contributes. “They’re gonna put so many of the muscle twitch fuckers on us for the flight. “

“If it can wake up my legs before tonight, I’ll fucking take it,” Cliff pants out. “Okay. Stay on the line. We will make it there, because we are not leaving the rookies alone with the Old Bastard.”

“Soon he’s going to figure out what it means when we call him the OB,” Ilya groans, but he pulls himself to his feet. “If LeClaire ruins us so badly after the game that I cannot even fuck Jane, I am filing an HR complaint.”

“You and me both,” Marly grumbles. “If you don’t get to meet Jane, you get in a fucking terrible mood. I can’t handle you and LeClaire in a tizzy.”

“I do not—”

“You do, brother. Then again, we might just fucking die at evening skate, anyways,” Marly says. “Maybe we should let Brian rip LeClaire a new asshole.”

“No, bad idea,” Ilya says. “Remember rookie season? When some of the vets tried that? After it was mathematically impossible for us to make the playoffs, and LeClaire’s contract was up for renewal.”

“Yeah, fuck,” Cliff agrees. “Fuck. We’re just fucked. Okay. How long are we gone again?”

It is a goddamn miracle that they both show up with suitcases on time to the Bears’ practice facility. Not for the first time, Ilya is grateful for the support staff, because if he had to manage his own gear and sticks on top of himself, he would be playing in his pajamas with no stick and rental skates.

“What the fuck is wrong with your team?” Shane asks, bending over for the last faceoff of the game. It doesn’t matter—Boston is down three goals, and they are not making it up in thirty seconds. “You’re all playing like shit.”

Ilya just smacks his stick against his boyfriend’s. To the ref and the other players, it looks like insolence and poor sportsmanship after a lackluster performance the whole game; to Shane, it’s a warning not to talk about it now.

“Settle the fuck down, Rozanov, or you’re out of the circle,” the ref warns, and Ilya sighs and gets into position. His entire body fucking aches.

He loses the faceoff.

He loses the game, and it does not take a goddamn genius to interpret LeClaire’s ruddy, red face and know exactly what the fuck is coming their way.

They don’t even wait until the Montreal fans are out of the stadium; they are screamed at in the locker room and dragged back out onto the ice to be heckled as they bag skate.

“Coach,” Ilya begs, when their valiant teenage rookie pauses mid-rep to puke in a trashcan, and then just tries to catch up with the rest of them. “We lost because we are all exhausted. You’re not going to have a team if we all end up on IR.”

“You think you know better than me?” Fuck, Ilya should have known that insolence was not going to go over well when LeClaire has looked two seconds away from throwing a skate at his head. But if his eyes are on Ilya, they are not on the eighteen-year-old puking up his guts. They are not on the rest of his team, who look like they are going to keel over if they keep going.

“Yes, I do,” Ilya says, and he lets the ensuing rage wash over him as the rest of them file off the ice. Ilya’s ears are ringing too badly to really hear anything at all, but he can handle a few more bag skates.

If it saves the team against whoever the fuck they’ve got next, it will be worth it.

Ilya can handle a few more bag skates. At least he hopes that he can.

“Shane,” Ilya says desperately over the phone, staring up at the back stairwell entry to Shane’s actual apartment. “Please tell me there is a service elevator.” He can feel tears pricking in the corners of his eyes. His legs feel like they have been cast in concrete blocks, and he can tell that getting up the certainly stupid number of floors to his boyfriend’s penthouse will completely do him in.

“Yeah. Fuck, shit,” Shane answers immediately. “Your legs are really blown out, huh?” Ilya feels his chest warm at Shane’s little huff of laughter. “Okay. I’m going to meet you down there. Sorry. I should have been thinking. The team chat is going crazy, with the videos fans took of you all doing punishment skates.”

Ilya just hums, too tired to summon a response. It feels like he blinks and his boyfriend is in front of him, the worried crease of his face hiding far too many of his freckles for Ilya’s liking.

“Ilya?” Shane asks hesitantly. “I called your name, like, five times. You didn’t hear?”

“Sorry. Zoned out,” Ilya grumbles, before he steps into Shane’s arms.

“Let’s get upstairs,” Shane says, wrapping a strong arm around Ilya to guide him into the building. “You look like you need Tiger Balm and ice.”

“Fuck yeah,” Ilya agrees. “If I never do a bag skate again, it will be too soon.”

The worry lines do not ease off of Shane’s face when Ilya collapses on his couch with a quiet grunt. In fact, they deepen, because Ilya does not bother trying to even wiggle to get more comfortable. He just stays exactly where he falls.

“I made food. You need to replace what you puked up and what you lost during the game,” Shane orders. “That requires sitting up, Ilya.”

“Can we just go to bed?” Ilya begs. “My stomach has been fucked for days. I’m too tired to eat.”

“What the hell has he been doing to you?” Shane asks, sliding next to Ilya on the couch. He has to haul Ilya’s torso up and lean it against his own for him to remain upright. “He is ruining your team.”

“I think he’s pissed at me,” Ilya confesses. “I’ve been making it easier for him to be, to be fair. ‘Cause otherwise he’s actually going to kill the rookies.”

“That is insane. You’re his star player. Why is he trying to injure you?” Shane asks. “Actually, wait. We will deal with this tomorrow morning. We’ll call Mom and Farah. You’re going to eat, we’re going to rinse off what sweat we can, and then we’re sleeping.”

“I really don’t know if I can,” Ilya whispers, and it feels like admitting defeat.

“I need you to try. You’re worrying me,” Shane says, pushing a plate that Ilya could swear he conjured from the ether towards him, putting the fork in Ilya’s hand himself. “It’s way too early for you to be this run down.”

“I’m tired,” is all Ilya can manage, as he starts pushing the vegetables around the plate with his fork instead of moving a single one to his mouth. He feels like there is a fog surrounding him, or a blanket wrapped around all of his senses. The world is moving at a glacial speed, but he will blink and it feels like he is suddenly hours in the future, completely unaware that any time has moved at all.

He wants to be here with Shane, but anything beyond the warm weight at his back is beyond his reach. They get so little time together, and even when they are both in the same place Ilya isn’t there at all.

It makes him even more miserable, and Ilya feels himself go boneless under the crushing weight of his failure.

“You don’t have a fever,” Shane worries, the back of his hand suddenly feeling Ilya’s forehead. “Come on, you have to eat.”

“I’m just tired,” Ilya whines, before his stomach flips and he’s scrambling off towards what he hopes is a bathroom. Shane is behind him in an instant, and he holds Ilya’s shaking and shivering frame up so that he doesn’t dunk his head in the toilet water trying to vomit. The dry heaving sounds agonizing, and he just tries to rub a grounding and soothing circle between Ilya’s shoulders while his other hand is splayed across his pecs to keep him from slumping forward. “Fuck.”

“You’re not bringing anything up,” Shane says quietly. He does not like how much Ilya is shaking. “What did you eat before the game?”

“Napped,” Ilya confesses. “M’sorry. I’m ruining our time together.”

“You’re not ruining anything. Please just—”

But when Ilya tries to stand up it’s like watching a puppet have its strings cut in real time. His body goes fully slack, and it is only Shane’s reflexes that stop his boyfriend from concussing himself on the rim of a toilet as he collapses to the ground unconscious.

“Hey. Ilya. Ilya, wake up,” Shane orders as soon as he gets Ilya on the floor, tapping his face repeatedly with one hand while the other confirms a thready and fast pulse. “Ilya. Wake up.”

Shane pinches Ilya and there is no response. He’s seen the trainers dig into people’s sternums after they go lights out, and thankfully when he repeats the motion with his own knuckles onto Ilya’s chest he’s rewarded with a pained groan.

But his eyes do not open. The lids don’t even flutter. His breathing is far too fast for being unconscious, shallow little pants that Shane is worrying are not doing enough work.

There’s only one question for Shane: is he calling an ambulance or is he driving Ilya to an ER? Either way they are a little bit fucked, but there’s at least the cover of the Foundation to explain Ilya’s presence at his place if they need it.

It’s selfish, but if he drives Ilya there and gets his Mom to brief the hospital and prep NDAs as he drives, there’s a chance that he can stay with Ilya. Ilya is still responsive to pain, and he’s looking a little more conscious, just little flutters of his eyelashes and twitches of his arms or legs.

So Shane hefts his boyfriend up into his arms, never more grateful for his strength training in the off season as he easily holds onto Ilya’s thighs and keeps him safely tipped with his head over Shane’s shoulder for the entire quick journey down the stairs to his car.

“Mom,” he says, as soon as the car bluetooth connects and he can use voice activation to call Yuna Hollander. One hand is on the wheel and the other is pressed up against Ilya’s jugular, making sure that the pulse is still strong, even if it’s too fast for a professional athlete currently unconscious. “Something is wrong with Ilya. He passed out after puking and I’m driving us to McGill’s hospital. I need you to call them and NDA them so—”

“Okay. On it. I’m giving my phone to your dad and calling with his. Tell him what’s going on,” Yuna says immediately.

“Hey, kiddo,” David says. “Is Ilya conscious?”

“No,” Shane sobs out. “He’s breathing and he’s got a strong pulse but… he was too exhausted to make it up the stairs up to my place. He wouldn’t eat and then he starting puking and then he just passed out. He will, like, groan, if I pinch him hard enough or rub his sternum.”

“Okay, that’s good,” David says first. “Taking him to the hospital is the right decision, Shane. You’re doing the right thing. Yuna is going to tell you where to go when you get there so it’s discreet. He’ll go straight to a private room and you can stay with him.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Shane forces out. “I know LeClaire has been riding them hard but he doesn’t have a fever and—”

“Just focus on driving, Shanebug,” David orders calmly. “You’re getting him where he needs to be. Just focus on driving, okay?”

Shane knows that his dad keeps talking to him, but time starts stretching and pulling like the resistance bands in the gym. One minute it’s just the empty streets of Montreal, barely lit by the lamps on the side of the road, and then he’s pulling into the hospital and there are people waiting.

The car is barely in park before several people in scrubs are lifting Ilya out of the passenger seat straight onto a stretcher. Shane jumps out to follow, and a security guard just gestures for his keys with the promise he will bring them right back. Shane doesn’t give a fuck what happens to his jeep, so he just does as he’s ordered and races after the stretcher.

He’s not allowed to follow it into a room with its curtains drawn. Instead, he is steered towards another door by a nurse maybe half his height and double his age where he is sat on a couch. “We’re just giving them a little bit of time to help,” the nurse explains. “I need you tell me anything you can—what happened, what Ilya was like this evening, if he’s allergic to anything—”

“He’s allergic to penicillin,” Shane says immediately, before he stutters his way through his recounting of the events. “He’s a professional athlete. He’s never asked to take the elevator before. I should have known something—”

“This is all really helpful, Shane,” the nurse says, placing a wrinkled hand over his own. “I’m going to go let them know what you’ve told me and I’ll see if I can bring you to Ilya. Are you going to be okay?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Shane croaks.

“I’m a nurse, sweetheart. I can’t give you any diagnoses even if I had one. They’re doing the best that they can to help him right now. He’s getting all of the help that he needs,” she reassures him. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shane’s phone is still in his car, he’s pretty sure, but the security guard brings it with his keys while he is still pacing the perimeter of the small waiting room like a lion in the cage.

His dad has not hung up the call.

“Shane? You there, kiddo?” he asks, when Shane presses the overheating brick to his ear. “Your mom and I are driving there. We’ll meet you there in a few hours.”

“I’m here.” Shane’s voice is hoarse. “They’re helping him, but they won’t let me see him yet.”

“Okay. Are you alone?” That’s Yuna’s voice. “Call Hayden—”

“No. Three of the kiddos are down with something from school. If something’s really wrong, I can’t risk passing it to Ilya,” Shane cuts her off. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—sorry.’

“It’s okay,” Yuna says patiently. “We’ll stay on the phone with you.”

“Thank you,” Shane breathes out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. What if it’s—”

“You’re not a doctor,” David cuts him off. “Let them do their job. All you’re going to do is spin out if you try to play Sherlock here.”

“I’m already spinning out,” Shane confesses. “You didn’t see him, Dad. He could have died on my bathroom floor and I was too fucking worried about whether calling an ambulance would out us. Fuck.”

“He did not die. He is getting the help he needs,” David says calmly, and then he repeats it a few times until he can hear Shane’s breathing start to even out. “You did everything you needed to, Shanebug. We’re going to be there soon. Ilya is right where he needs to be. You did the right thing.”

Yuna’s foot presses further down on the gas pedal when she hears her son start to sob quietly and pitifully on the other end of the call.

“His team needs to get tested for this,” Shane realizes, after half an hour of doomscrolling on every medical website on the first page of his google results about rhabdomyolysis. “Ilya said they’ve all been run down and exhausted from the training load. What if it’s not just him?”

“Explain,” Yuna orders, looking out over her laptop she’s certainly using to make sure that no one spotted Shane and Ilya’s arrival at the hospital together. “What makes you so certain?”

“I’m not certain,” Shane backpedals. “But he’s been talking about the insane punishments and conditioning LeClaire has been having them do, and I saw firsthand how sluggish and tired they all were last night…”

“Who do you trust in Boston?” Yuna asks. “If this is, in part, LeClaire’s fault, we have to be very careful. That’s a big accusation to act on in the middle of the season.”

“Cliff,” Shane answers, and he ignores his mother’s reactionary scoff. She is no doubt thinking of last spring, still. “He’s Ilya’s A. They’ve been trying to talk LeClaire off the edge together. He knows about Jane. I can text him from Ilya’s phone. His team has to be made aware eventually—it’s not like he’s getting on a plane today.”

“You’re sure you trust him?” Yuna asks, deadly serious.

“Yes,” Shane says instantly. “He’ll also know who can be trusted on the team so that LeClaire can’t cover his ass,” Shane adds. “I’ll text him from Ilya’s phone.”

It is exactly what Shane does, typing a paragraph with one hand while the other rubs soothing circles over the back of Ilya’s hand. It’s the only place he can touch without worrying about interfering with the maze of wires and tubes. There are so many, because his kidneys have shut down and so he’s got a thick central line in his neck for dialysis, and because his electrolytes are fucked from the lactic acidosis he’s got insane cardiac monitoring and enough IV pumps to require two stands and two catheter sites for the amount of fluid they’re pushing.

When he sends the message, he is not expecting it to be immediately read and to prompt an incoming call from Cliff Marleau five seconds later.

He declines it once, scrambling to figure out what to text the man to get him not to call.

The motherfucker calls again.

Shane declines it, hastily sending a can’t talk now. can we do this through text?

He curses when Marleau just replies “paper trail”, and then he’s calling again.

Shane answers.

“My mother is sending you a fucking iron-clad NDA that you are going to sign, and you’re going to be really fucking chill about the fact that you’re talking to me right now,” Shane says as soon as the call connects. Immediately, Yuna is sitting ramrod straight and typing on her laptop.

“Holy fucking shit,” is all Marleau gets out at first, before he swears in an impressive mixture of Quebecois and English under his breath. “Yeah, I know that fucking voice. I’ll sign whatever you want, Shane Hollander, and I’ve got ten thousand fucking questions but I’ll ask them to Roz. What the fuck is going on? He’s in the hospital? Which one—I’m on my way.”

“McGill. We should talk about this in person,” Shane says. “When is the team flight?”

“We’re supposed to be in the hotel lobby at eight,” Cliff answers. “I’ll vaguely say Roz and I are sick, and that will buy us twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t lie on paper,” Shane orders bluntly. “Especially if this ends up going through legal scrutiny.”

“It’s not lying if I chug a seltzer so fast that I puke. I can do that. It’s a great skill. Then I just say I puked and Roz has been puking, which I fucking know isn’t a lie,” Cliff says. “Give me fifteen and I’ll be there.”

“Wait, before you hang up,” Shane says quickly. “According to the nurses, if anyone on your team is pissing brown, they should go straight to the ER.”

“Yeah, well, that will be a fucking joy to pass along,” Cliff says. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“You know,” Yuna begins, as soon as Shane puts his phone down. “I’m going to guess that the Bears upper management would side with their millions of dollars investment over the coach in this situation. It could be solved by just going around him.”

“I don’t know if it’s that simple.” Shane shakes his head. “They’ve been trying to get Ilya to renegotiate his contract, and Ilya trying to dodge that has tipped them off that he wants to explore free agency. They know that he’s trying to leave, and it doesn’t seem like they’re willing to fight to keep him.”

“Shit,” Yuna says. “Okay. Yeah. I’m on it.” His mother is already opening her laptop, and Shane knows that she has at least four different ideas that she will methodically evaluate.

Shane holds Ilya’s hand, and he does not stop when Cliff bursts into the room, wearing pajama pants and what looks like, based on the fact that it’s basically a crop top on the giant fucking defender, is Ilya’s shirt.

“Do not yell,” Shane orders. “He’s asleep and he should stay that way.”

“Fuck, he looks bad,” Cliff whispers, dropping into the chair on the other side of the bed. “Oh, I digitally signed the NDA. Should be in your inbox already, Mrs. Hollander.”

“I saw, thank you, Cliff,” Yuna says, trying as much as she can to keep the instinctual coldness out of her voice for her son’s sake. “Is your team doctor competent?”

“Yeah. Brian’s fucking great,” Cliff says, wincing when he realizes that he’s already sworn in front of the terrifying woman. “He’s not travelling with us, because his wife is about to have another kid. But he’s been ready to fist fight LeClaire.”

“Okay. We are going to call him,” Yuna says.

“Wait. First,” Cliff gets out quickly. “What’s going on? Roz is going to be okay, right?”

“He has a bad case of rhabdomyolysis,” Shane answers. “His kidneys shut down. They think they’ll come back online with treatment, but it’s not a given.”

“Oh, fuck,” Cliff says, immediately past the point of caring what Yuna Hollander hears from him. They have all been lectured about rhabdo, about training loads and smart endurance, enough to know exactly how bad and how preventable this situation is. “Holy fuck.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “He said you’ve been doing the punishment skates with him. You need to get labs done,” Shane says. “I’m especially worried about your rookies.”

“Me, too,” Cliff says. “I don’t feel sick, but yeah. The whole team should get labs done.” He grabs Ilya’s free hand, taking a few seconds to really look at his best friend in the hospital bed. It is an absolute mess of cardiac monitoring and IV lines and the scary fucking line in his jugular that’s presumably for dialysis. “We should have done something sooner. We were too scared of making it worse.”

“Even so, you might have the lactic acid buildup that’s making this worse,” Shane adds. “It’s really… fuck, I can’t—”

Cliff would never admit it, especially not to Ilya, but Shane Hollander is a scary motherfucker. He has a deadly slapshot and can come out of fucking nowhere to steal a puck, and he is never anything but completely and utterly focused. So it’s probably a terrible idea to do what he’s doing.

But it sounds like Shane Hollander is about to start crying, and it is so fucking obvious how much he loves Cliff’s fucking brother, and instict has him wrapping up the enemy center in a bear hug before his brain can talk himself out of it.

“He’s a tough motherfucker. He’ll be okay,” Cliff says, quietly enough that Hollander’s parents don’t overhear. “He will not let LeClaire win this one, so he’ll recover better than he was before out of pure spite.”

“I’m more worried that his heart is going to give out with the electrolyte imbalances, or that his kidneys just don’t work anymore,” Shane confesses. “I don’t give a fuck if he plays again if he can come out of this healthy.”

“He will,” Cliff promises, even though he has the same exact fears and thoughts racing through his brain.

“Okay,” Yuna interrupts, and Cliff awkwardly retreats back to his chair. “I’ll let the staff here know you need labs. In the meantime, we need to call Brian.”

“He’s going to want to go nuclear,” Cliff warns. “He’s in, like, nesting mode, with the kid almost arriving. He’s already treating the rookies like they are his children, and if he finds out how bad it’s gotten…”

“Good,” Yuna says bluntly. “I can work with that.”

Ilya has no concept of the fact that he was unconscious, and he has no concept of the fact that he is actually awake. His body is one blaring alarm of pain and fatigue—his limbs could be encased in cement blocks for all he knows, because any attempt to send a message to even twitch his fingers fizzles out into nothing before it can reach the intended receiver.

He is so tired, and his body hurts. His chest feels tight, his calves and thighs still frozen up with all of the lactic acid from the game.

The game. Shane.

Where is Shane? All he’s got is the bright oranges and yellows behind his eyelids to go off of, and his chest painfully rumbles with some kind of noise too far away for him to perceive when he tries to force his eyelids to open to no avail.

(He does not know that it is Ilya who is whimpering in pain.)

There’s some kind of commotion, as muffled and distant as it is, and Ilya feels something warm and dry squeeze one of his hands. The contact gives him a focus point strong enough that some of the indecipherable noise becomes spoken words.

“Come on, Roz, open those eyes. Just for a little bit, then I’ll let you sleep,” a familiar, gruff voice bargains. “I know you’re awake.”

Another warm squeeze, and Ilya focuses all of his effort into blinking his heavy eyelids open. It takes so much work that Ilya has to stop himself from immediately falling backwards into the void of unconsciousness, and he can’t even see who is torturing him, because his vision won’t fucking clear.

“There you go. Good work, Cap,” the voice praises, and they let Ilya’s eyes flutter back closed. “Yeah, you can rest them. Your boy is going to raise hell when he gets back from practice that he missed this.”

Suddenly, Ilya understands: it is Cliff holding his hand, wherever they are, and he knows about Shane.

The panic that floods his system could overtake a fucking horse tranquilizer, and Ilya is upright and trying to get out of wherever he is so he can get to Shane and fix this. They are years away from people knowing, even if it is Cliff. Cliff knowing means that Ilya has fucked this up so badly that there’s a chance Shane is not even his boy anymore.

“Whoah, Roz, fucking no,” Cliff orders, hands clamping down on Ilya’s shoulders and pinning him back against the mattress. “You’ve got to fucking stay laying down. What’s wrong? What did I say?”

“M’good. Leaving now,” Ilya slurs out, smashing his head back against something surprisingly soft. He can feel a giant tug of pain in his neck when he does it, and so he does it again to try to make it hurt enough to get him the rest of the way to awake.

“No,” Cliff orders, and then there are hands on his cheeks. “Yuna, can you—”

There’s the slamming of a door, but the panic just build and builds and builds. “Cliff. You do not know. It is joke. You do not know. You can’t know,” Ilya begs, trying to buck any part of his body that will listen to try and get himself out of his mess.

“It’s okay. You’re good. You’re okay. Shane is okay,” Cliff tries. “I signed a document that I think lets Yuna Hollander castrate me if I say anything—”

“Shane,” Ilya sobs out, all reason abandoning him as the pain and wild frenzy take over whatever parts of his brain are actually awake. “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Roz,” Cliff barks, hands firmly on Ilya’s face, not letting him hurt himself more. “You’re okay. I promise you’re good. Shane is coming back soon, okay? I need you to take a breath. Can you try? Just one—”

There is something beeping so loudly that Ilya loses track of anything but the hands on his body and the blaring noise. He can feel his eyes roll backwards into his skull, but he is still there as the hands multiply and grip any part of him that they can reach.

“What are you doing?” It sounds like Marly’s voice is coming from underwater. “He just freaked out. He wasn’t trying to hurt—”

“He cannot be getting up in his state—”

“Please don’t—”

But then there are too many voices and they are all so, so loud. Maybe he should just let his eyes close. Maybe that will make the noise quieter.

To Ilya, he blinks, and the beige blurriness from before has clarified to Shane’s face inches from his own, an indentation from the rails of Ilya’s bed marking his cheek red as he softly snores. Ilya wants to reach out and touch the flopping hair, the freckles, the smooth expanse of his restful face, but he cannot will his arm off of the bed.

“Hey, you awake?” a gentle voice asks, moving into Ilya’s line of vision. In the low light of the room, it takes several blinks for Ilya to focus on David Hollander’s voice. “Are you hurting? Are you warm enough?”

Ilya’s tongue feels heavy and dry in his mouth, and it takes all of his concentration to get it to form words. “Where are we?”

“McGill’s hospital,” David answers simply. “You’re pretty sick, kiddo. You need to get as much rest as you can to get better.”

“Shane?” Ilya asks, his gaze drifting back to the soft man softly snoring. “His back is gonna hurt if he doesn’t move.”

It is like Ilya saying his name summons Shane immediately back to the land of the living. One second, his breathing is soft and even, and the next he has bolted upright, eyes wild and scanning the room until they land on his boyfriend. “Ilya,” he breathes out.

“M’okay,” Ilya tries, because he knows what Shane looks like when he’s about to panic, and they are seconds away from falling off that precipice. “Good as new. We can go home soon.”

Shane lets out a hollow laugh. “You don’t know what you are.” But his voice is fond, his hand smoothing back Ilya’s sweaty curls from his forehead. Ilya cannot help but try to lean into the touch, grimacing when the sharp pain in his neck reactivates. “Yeah, no. Don’t do that, please. You already dislodged the line once, and you really fucking need it to stay in place.”

“What?” Ilya asks, trying to tip his chin down to take inventory of his body. Shane’s hand on his forehead just presses down gently, stopping the action before it can even start. “Shane,” he whines.

“I know, I’m the worst,” he agrees. “You’ve got a line in your neck that’s cleaning your blood for you. Moving your neck is pulling on it, and you really shouldn’t.”

“What?” Ilya repeats. “I was just tired, after the game. M’not sick.”

“You were in fact so tired that you got sick,” Shane summarizes. “Fuck, I am so glad that you’re awake and talking. You scared the shit out of me, Ilya. Do not fucking do that again—”

“Shane,” David cuts off his son, his voice stern. “Stressing him out is not going to help.”

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, because it feels like what he is supposed to say. “I’m okay now, Shane. Shane. Hollander,” Ilya tries.

“You’re not.” Shane is crying, now, and Ilya would fucking move mountains to make that stop. He tries to, but Shane’s hand just gets heavier on his forehead. “No. Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m okay, Ilya. Do not try to sit up. I’m okay. I’m sorry.”

“What happened? I remember the elevator, and then it’s fuzzy,” Ilya manages, most of his focus going to forcing a heavy and clumsy hand up to wipe the tears off of Shane’s face.

“You’re very sick,” Shane summarizes, parroting the wording his dad had used to try and keep Ilya calm. “LeClaire worked you too hard. They think you’ll recover okay, but…”

“Fuck,” Ilya manages. “Is the team sick? Wasn’t just me.”

“Some of them, but not as badly as you,” Shane admits. “Fuck, I should not have said that.”

“Yuna will explain everything tomorrow,” David steps in smoothly. “She and Cliff will be back for the day shift.”

“Cliff is okay?” Ilya confirms, and his relief is palpable when Shane nods. “Good. They need a good captain while I’m out.”

Here is what Shane cannot say: there is no team to captain right now. There is no team because half of their fucking roster is on IR and their headcoach has been suspended by SafeSport because the NHL refused to do it themselves. Ilya’s last season with Boston is irrevocably fucked, because once they have enough healthy players to field a real team they’re going to be so far behind in points that they will not be able to catch up. The farm team call ups are trying their best, but they have no interim head coach and none of them have played in the Show before.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Shane reassures Ilya. “Everyone is okay. It’s late. You should get some more rest.”

“You cannot sleep sitting up. Your back is going to be fucked,” Ilya slurs out, squeezing the hand Shane wraps around his own. “I’m okay. Go home and sleep.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Shane shuts down. “The farthest I’m going is to the pull out couch.”

“It’s my shift, anyways,” David agrees, cracking his back and gesturing for Shane to vacate the chair at Ilya’s side. “Go sleep, Shanebug.”

“Not while he’s awake,” Shane whispers, his hand reaching to smooth back Ilya’s curls. “Are you warm enough?”

“Thirsty,” Ilya manages, licking his dry, cracked lips and wincing at the sting of his saliva hitting the microcuts. “Water?”

“Sorry,” Shane apologizes. “Not until your electrolytes are sorted. I can give you a mint, though?” he offers, and after a hesitation, Ilya nods.

“I got it,” David says, squeezing Shane’s shoulder as he goes to the rapidly filling med cart. “If you can go back to sleep, that’s the best thing for you right now.”

“I just woke up,” Ilya says, face rippling into a frown. “S’still night? How did you get here so fast?”

“Ah. No,” David corrects. “You’ve been in the hospital a little over a day, bud.”

“Oh,” is all Ilya can manage, and it takes Shane a long minute to uncoil from where he had been prepared to spring into action, afraid of another incident like when he’d first woken up. “I can go soon, then?”

“No,” Shane answers immediately. “It’s going to take, like, a week of IVs to get you healthy. And that’s if your kidneys cooperate.”

“What about the other players?” Ilya asks, his brow furrowing further. “We have a game today, I think. Are they okay enough to play?”

“Cliff has got it under control,” Shane tries, praying to whatever is up there that Ilya does not connect the dots in his exhausted and drugged state.

“Game is in Vancouver. He cannot be here today,” Ilya says, frowning.

Shane barely keeps his frustrated curse under his breath. “It’s late. Mom will explain everything in the morning. I promise,” he says, rubbing his thumbs over Ilya’s eyelids in a way that he knows soothes his boyfriend. It’s a dirty trick, but they cannot have another instance of Ilya panicking, not when his electrolytes are still so fucked that it could cause a fucking heart attack.

Shane does not stop the motion until he is confident that Ilya’s breathing has evened out, after which he just puts his head in his hands.

His skin feels like it is buzzing, his muscles crawling around his bones and trying to escape his body. He doesn’t want to cry—it’s like he is shutting down, every emotion fading to static and nothingness. The worst part is that Shane knows what this is, has known what this is since that bad meltdown in second grade that lead to the diagnosis that then took years to get off of his file when it became clear he could actually go pro.

“Shane,” David says, pulling Shane’s hands away from his face. They haven’t curled to start digging in, not yet, but his Dad knows what this stilted breathing means. “He’s going to be okay. He’s getting the help he needs. It’s good that he’s tracking that well, given the cocktail they’ve got him on.”

“He can’t be stressed.” It sounds like every word is being ripped out of his throat. “With his electrolytes being so far out of balance, his heart could just fucking stop if he gets stressed. I can’t—I can’t—”

David’s arms wrap firmly around his son. It has always been a gamble with his kid whether physical touch will help or make it all worse, but he’s had twenty-odd years of decoding the microscopic signs Shane gives to know that it’s the right call tonight. “You can hear his heartbeat. They’ve got him on EKG monitoring, and they’re keeping a close eye on him. I know it’s tough seeing your person this sick. But he’s going to be okay.”

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Shane grits out, the tears finally starting to fall out of eyes squeezed tightly shut. “This was so fucking preventable. And he couldn’t even fucking tell me how bad it was, because we were playing against each other. Fuck. Fuck.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” David agrees, letting his son grip onto his shirt like it is the only thing tethering him to this earth. To Shane, it probably is. “Your mom is going to raise fucking hell. Let her handle it.”

“I can’t do this again,” Shane confesses, his breaths coming out in uneven, painful heaves. “I know that he can’t tell me shit when we’re playing, but I hate not knowing when he’s hurting.”

“Players have friends on other teams. They know when each other is injured. It is the same—”

“They’re not going to see it that way, if this ever leaks,” Shane dismisses. “You know that they won’t. Everything has to be squeaky clean, because they will tear it all apart.”

“I know. What do you need?” David asks, still squeezing his son tightly. “What can we do to help?”

“I need to sleep,” Shane confesses. “My eyes itch and I can feel every thread on my sweatshirt and—”

“Okay. Go to the couch,” David says. “I’ll keep watch. I’ll wake you up if anything changes at all.”

Shane just bites his lip hard enough that David is worried that he’s going to draw blood. “I don’t know if I can.”

“At least close your eyes. The New Yorker had an article that said that helps, even if you can’t sleep,” David says, leading his kid over and tucking him in.

What he will not confess is that he is watching over both of his sons. Shane and Ilya are so different, but so painfully similar in so many ways—they both worry so much about the other, to the detriment of themselves. If Ilya sees Shane hurting, he will not rest until he can fix it; if Shane sees Ilya hurting and there is nothing he can do fix it, he will eat himself alive instead.

Convincing Shane to go to practice and play his game today is going to be the argument of the century between Yuna and Shane.

David does not know who will win, but he thinks that working out some of his emotions on the rink is the only way that Shane will work it out at all. He doesn’t like getting involved with the career arguments between manager and NHL player, but he has no problem getting involved when it turns into a family disagreement.

He fears that he is going to have to step in this morning.

For now, he’ll keep the mints close and blankets warm.

“You know the deal,” Cliff reminds his best friend, who could pass for a ghost with how colorless his face is as his legs dangle off the side of the bed, two physical therapists with hands on his elbows in case his precarious balance tips over. “Two minutes, and then I’ll show you the Hollander fight compilation you’ve got saved in your Youtube.”

“Fuck you,” Ilya huffs out, blinking back gray dots that are threatening to cloud out his vision. “M’gonna pass out.”

“You’re doing great,” one of the PTs says calmly, but a shared look has them helping Ilya lay back down. “You’ve been laying down for almost two days. It’s going to take your body some time to adjust.”

“I am a professional hockey player. Should not feel like death from sitting up,” Ilya manages to get out, still trying to fight back against the dizziness still making the room tilt and whorl.

“You also almost fucking died two days ago,” Cliff reminds him, taking his place in the armchair he’s acquired from fuck knows where next to the bed. “You just got that terrifying needle out of your neck.”

“Not the tube up my dick, though,” Ilya slurs, before he remembers something that might have been a dream. “Shane said some of the others are sick. We also have a game today. Who is sick, and why aren’t you at the game?”

Cliff swears, an impressive mix of Quebecois and Boston-accented English. “Four of the rookies are at Mass Gen after their blood tests came back positive for rhabdo. So is Hammy,” he admits. “We forfeited the next five games. Kind of tough to play when the OB got suspended by SafeSport and the whole org is under investigation and the farm team boys need at least a few games to try and step up with the amount of people on STIR.”

“Four of them? With this?” Ilya sounds incredulous, and Cliff’s preemptive hands on his shoulders is the only thing keeping Ilya from bolting upright in shock. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“Ilya,” Cliff starts firmly, his hands squeezing gently. “They’re doing okay. They’re doing a lot fucking better than you, because Brian made us all get tested. Brian and Yuna are on a fucking warpath, and they are right to do it. This shit isn’t your fault. It’s the OB’s.”

“We have no coach. We are so fucked for the season. I—” Ilya does not want to admit to his best friend that this is his last season in Boston. But the thought that it is already fucking over, that they’re about to be in a hole they are unlikely to crawl out of to make the post season, sends a grief slamming into Ilya like a check to the boards. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Cliff says, his eyes widening with worry. “It isn’t your fault. The season isn’t fucked. We’ll get an interim head coach, and we’ve got a good enough lead that we could pull it back if the farm kids lose every game while folks are on IR.”

“Cliff,” Ilya says, his voice full of grief.

“If you’re about to tell me that you’re not coming back next year, save it,” Cliff says sadly. “I know. I’ve known since you’ve been trying to put me through captain training camp, and meeting Hollywood and seeing you two… I get it. I fucking hate it, but I get it. Fuck, maybe I’ll just follow you. Fuck Boston.”

“You don’t want to go where I’m going,” Ilya says darkly. “And Boston needs you.”

“So it is Ottawa,” Cliff surmises, and Ilya’s eyes open in shock. “If anyone can pull them out of the fucking gutter, it’s you, Cap. I watched you do it in Boston.”

“Marley—” Ilya cannot help his voice crack. He has done nothing to deserve his best friend. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, brother,” Marley says, as easy as breathing. “We’ll run the fucking table when you’re back. One last rodeo. And my fucking folks are in Toronto. I’ve got reasons to visit Ontario.”

“We can’t run the fucking table if I can’t even get up to piss,” Ilya says, frustrated. His hand shakes as he raises it to rub at his eyes. “Fuck. I’ve been asleep for two days. Why am I so fucking tired?”

“Because your muscles are trying to eat themselves,” Cliff answers simply. “Fucking rest.”

“No, Shane is about to play,” Ilya says, petulant. “I want to watch.”

“We’ll watch the highlights. Go the fuck to sleep, Cap,” he orders. “Or I’ll sell you out to Yuna when she’s back from ripping heads off of bodies. That woman is fucking terrifying.”

“Hmm,” Ilya hums, his blinks growing longer and more frequent. “She’ll forgive you for breaking Shane’s collarbone eventually.”

“Doubtful,” Cliff says, but he just lets Ilya’s breathing even out. He sighs, putting his head in his hands, but he only gets about thirty seconds of deep breathing in before the door opens and he is faced with the woman herself, clearly annoyed from whatever call or email response she is returning from.

“How was PT?” she asks, her face softening immediately as she goes to adjust Ilya’s blankets and brush his hair off of his forehead affectionately. “I’m shocked he’s not insisting on watching the game.”

“He was,” Cliff confirms. “But I didn’t think the pre-game coverage about Boston was a good idea.”

“Good call,” she agrees. “PT was going to tire him out regardless.”

“Yeah. I was worried he was going to pitch over sitting up,” Cliff confesses. “He told me he wants to go to Ottawa during his free agency.”

Cliff is rarely accused of being intelligent, but he didn’t get to the NHL without learning how to read people. Yuna Hollander is a much tougher book to crack than her son, but Cliff has learned that if he catches her off guard, he can get something out of the small movements of her lips or her eyebrows. This time, it’s the eyebrows that give away her surprise for a split second. Not surprise at the decision, but surprise that Cliff knows the information.

Cliff is terrified of Yuna Hollander. But he isn’t under the illusion that his best friend is that she’ll change her tune about Cliff Marleau. So he has very little to lose by pissing her off, and so he’ll do it for his best friend.

“He doesn’t know anyone in Ottawa,” Cliff begins carefully. “He doesn’t have a huge support network in Boston, but he’s got me and Connors and Svetlana. You and Mr. Hollander are the only people that he knows in that city.”

“Is there a question there?” Yuna asks politely, but he can see her tense up, sensing the veiled hostility.

“I don’t think I can change his mind, and I’m not going to try to,” Cliff begins. “But he’s my best friend, Ma’am. I’m always going to worry about him. And I’m worried about him starting over again. He’s very good at pretending to be okay, but I don’t think he really is, a lot of the time.”

Yuna Hollander seems to take a long minute to ingest the information; Cliff can see her work through the layers through the small flickers in her expression. “You know him better than I do,” she says carefully. “He won’t be alone. David and I do live in Ottawa, and Montreal is very close.”

“I know how brutal an NHL schedule is, Ma’am,” Cliff says. “It’s tough to get time together. That’s not Holly’s fault,” he adds quickly. “I’m not saying that he shouldn’t do it. He wants to do it. I’m just worried.”

“And it’s not about losing your captain? Boston’s star player?” Yuna pushes.

“If he’d let me, I’d follow him to hell. Even Ottawa isn’t quite that bad,” Cliff says delicately. “He doesn’t want me to follow him. And I get that, too. I’m still going to bug his stupid ass even when he’s scrapping for second-to-last in the league. But it’s much harder to bug him across an international border. And someone’s gotta do it.”

“I see,” Yuna responds, pursing her lips. Cliff can tell he is not endearing himself to Shane’s mother, but he has had a lot of time to think when he’s been watching Ilya snore. He’d hate himself if he didn’t at least try this conversation, even if it’s clearly going terribly. “He won’t be alone. I’ve heard good things about Ottawa’s locker room.”

“Me too, Ma’am,” Cliff agrees. He knows that neither of them are going to speak plainly—Cliff because Ilya would (rightfully) cut his dick off if he told Yuna Hollander what he thinks he knows about Ilya’s tendency towards something that seems to go beyond sadness, Yuna because she does not trust Cliff Marleau.

But he hopes she gets the gist. He really fucking hopes she knows what he’s trying to say.

Ilya wakes to what appears to be the middle of an argument.

“If your backhand wasn’t shit—”

“Fuck you, it is miles better than yours—”

“—all I’m saying is that would’ve gone in if you’d had a little more oomph—”

“—Jesus fucking Christ I do not need this from Ilya and you—”

“—could’ve stopped it from going to OT.”

“You are so fucking loud, Marley,” Ilya grumbles, his voice hoarse from sleep and the minimal amount of ice chips and, excitingly, translucent liquids he has been allowed. He wants a gallon of fucking apple juice if that’s all he can have, but the nurses will not allow that. “Why are you torturing my boyfriend?”

“Look at this, Cap,” Marleau says immediately, rewinding the TV screen and waiting for Ilya to scrunch his eyes through enough blinks to tolerate the brightness of the white ice on the TV screen. “Your man could’ve had a goal here. “

Ilya diligently watches, and he snorts when he realizes what Cliff is commenting on. “Only I am allowed to comment on his weak backhand, Marley. You can talk when yours isn’t worse than the rookies.”

Shane snorts, even as he presses a gentle kiss to Ilya’s forehead. “You’re such a shit,” he says affectionately. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, but more awake,” Ilya answers, after a moment of consideration. “Did you win?”

“Yeah. I had two assists,” Shane says pointedly, his death glare fully powered at Ilya’s best friend.

“Oh, you’ve angered him,” Ilya mumbles happily, a smile wide on his face as Shane runs his hands gently along Ilya’s cheeks. “I would like his full attention, so shut up, Cliff.”

“You are so in love it’s fucking sickening,” is all Cliff manages, putting his hands up in the air before he gets to his feet. “I’m going to let you two have a minute for whatever you’ve got going on. I’m going to get coffee and see what hell has exploded in my inbox.”

Shane glares Cliff all the way out the door. “He is such a shithead,” he huffs out, and Ilya receives his death glare when he just lets out a huff of laughter. “What?”

“It’s just nice. Seeing you two bond,” Ilya says. “Must be like what you feel like when you force me to coexist with Pike.”

“He’s really fucking worried about you, by the way,” Shane says. “He blew up my phone after the game. And again when the news broke to the league.”

“He knows he cannot beat me at full strength,” Ilya huffs. “I am okay. I can probably go home tomorrow.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Shane says, with no malice in his voice. “You have to be able to get to the bathroom without passing out from exhaustion for that to be an option.”

“Worth a shot,” Ilya hums, and Shane watches his muscles melt as Shane starts gently massaging his scalp. “I know you don’t like him, but… Marley is a good man.”

“I know,” Shane reassures him. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be buddies with him—but anyone willing to go to war for you isn’t a bad friend in my book.”

“You are both so dramatic,” Ilya huffs out. “Come here. Less machines. We can both fit.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Shane repeats, but when Ilya widens his eyes and pouts, Shane folds in a heartbeat. “The nurses are going to evict me if they find us like this.”

“Worth it,” Ilya mumbles, and the second Shane maneuvers himself around the lines, Ilya smushes himself even closer than the small hospital bed already demanded, his nose nuzzling into Shane’s neck. “Gotta make up for the night we didn’t get.”

“I’m just happy there are more nights we will get,” Shane says, a bravery that only comes to him because Ilya is not looking at him. “You really fucking scared me, Ilya.”

“I am sorry,” Ilya says, immediately snapping his head up, face full of worry as he sees the stress written all over Shane’s face. “I did not know…”

“I’m not blaming you. I want to fucking kill your coach,” Shane clarifies quickly. “Is this what you felt when I… last spring?”

“Probably,” Ilya says, after a long pause. “But maybe not. Did not know if you were okay. I will be okay. The doctors confirmed it.”

“They didn’t know at first,” Shane says. “They wouldn’t let me be with you because they needed to work, and I was so worried—”

Ilya cuts him off with a clumsy hand across Shane’s lips. “I am sorry. It will not happen again.”

“No. It won’t,” Shane says confidently. “I think you accidentally started a revolution, actually.”

“What?” Ilya looks more awake than he has in days. “What do you mean?”

“Well, your team. It’s the same old discussion about over-practicing and abuse in sports, but it feels different this time,” Shane explains. “I think the fact that it happened to an NHL team, and not college or Triple AAA has opened some eyes.”

“It doesn’t matter. Coaches will coach how they coach,” Ilya slurs. “Too many Old Bastards are winning coaching awards for that to happen. It’s nothing that doesn’t happen in Russia.”

“It doesn’t mean that it should, though,” Shane says softly. “You could have fucking died because LeClaire was in a shitty mood. That should not happen. And it certainly shouldn’t be happening to kids in juniors, either.”

“No, but it does,” Ilya says sadly. “Everyone will call us soft if we complain.”

“They call us soft, anyways. If this at least leads to some fucking safety rule, one that they can’t make grandfather rules about, it will help,” Shane says.

“They will find other ways,” Ilya says sadly. “I am okay, Shanya. LeClaire is gone. It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t,” Shane says firmly. “If you feel a fraction of that bad again, you rest. I fucking mean it.”

“I have no desire to repeat how this feels,” Ilya reassures him. “My muscles feel like they have been replaced with lead.”

“Sleep,” Shane orders firmly, wrapping his arms tighter around his boyfriend. “You really need as much rest as you can get.”

“That is all anyone ever says. I want my time with you,” Ilya whines. “I didn’t realize how bad it would feel this year, being so far away.”

“We’ll get through it,” Shane promises, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We’re still together, even if we’re both asleep.”

“S’not as fun,” Ilya says, but one of Shane’s hands kneading Ilya’s scalp is enough to stop the argument building in its tracks. He goes boneless, mumbling something unintelligible against Shane’s collarbone.

The monster that has been crawling underneath Shane’s skin for the last four days finally quiets, tail curled up around its scaly body and happily purring at the weight and warmth of Ilya safe in his arms. Shane is breathing easier than he has since Ilya passed out on his bathroom floor, and for the first time he actually believes that Ilya is going to be okay.

He hates seeing him in so much pain and so tired and not being able to do anything but sit with his lover through it. He wants to fix it. He wants to scorch the earth until it’s nothing but smoldering ash if that’s what it takes to make Ilya healthy again.

But to have him in his arms, warm and close enough that Shane can feel Ilya’s heartbeat through the proximity of both of their chests, is enough for now. It’s so much more than he thought he could ever have.

“I love you,” Shane whispers, pressing another kiss to Ilya’s forehead, confident that the other man is asleep.

“я тебя люблю,” Ilya mumbles, returning the gesture clumsily to the part of his neck that he smashes his face into before he fully falls asleep.

Shane just holds him a little bit tighter.