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Shane watched from the other side of the rink as the hit came out of nowhere, taking his husband to the ground with a sickening thud.
“Ilya!”
He didn't realize he was moving; he just blinked and found himself next to the fallen Centaur, and even the normally grounding chill of the ice wasn't enough to keep him tethered.
They had both taken many hits throughout their respective careers. They had both had their time on IR or recovering on the bench; it was a part of the game. It never got easier, especially when statistics of TBIs and paralysis and even death ran through Shane's head.
Ilya wasn't moving; he wasn't getting up, and Shane couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't aware if they halted the play or stopped the game; he didn't care. He wasn't moving until his husband did.
The medics arrived with a backboard and forced him to give them space. The logical part of his brain knew that they were the professionals, and they knew best. The illogical part of his brain was convinced that he would literally die if he wasn't at least touching Ilya in some way.
“One, two, three, go.” The medic counted down before she lifted Ilya enough for her partner to slide the board under him.
They were securing his neck in a brace to protect the spine as they opened his eyes to shine a penlight, testing his response to the stimulus.
Shane wanted to throw up at the sight of his husband being manhandled, his eyes forced open, but not seeing. Why was he still unconscious? Shouldn't he be awake by now? Ilya wasn't meant to be this still, ever.
As if an answer to his prayer, his husband's shoulder began to twitch. The momentary relief of seeing him moving was quickly replaced by the gut-sinking dread at realizing what was happening.
Ilya was seizing.
His limbs contorted into violent rhythmic jerking, his body stiff with pain. The medics were quick to move him into the recovery poison, and all Shane could do was watch as his husband convulsed, his own limbs trembling out of fear in a pale imitation of Ilya's.
There was a moment when his eyes flew open by themselves, piercing blue meeting brown, the confusion still adamant but the alertness there for just a moment.
“Hey, you're okay. You're okay.” Shane whispered to the shaking Ilya, gently running his now gloveless hand over his shoulder in the pattern that usually calmed him. Whether or not Ilya could even feel it underneath his padding was something else entirely.
“мама?” Ilya was staring past Shane, fixated on a section of the ice that was uninhabited by the chaos around them. “Как ты здесь оказался?”
His voice was slow and slurred with confusion, but the words were clear enough to drive a spike through Shane’s heart. He was talking to his mother. It wasn’t the first time he had heard Ilya speak words to the late Irina, but usually it was in whispered confessions under the cover of night, a thankful platitude in the early morning sun.
Shane knew it hurt him to be unable to visit his mother’s grave anymore; Shane also knew that anything Ilya would say to the plot, he now said while holding his crucifix. Irina was still with him there; she wasn’t in Russia.
This was different. This was the sound of his husband’s voice breaking down at the sight of his mother. The sight that no one else could see but him.
Shane wanted to wrap his arms around Ilya and hold him until all the pain fell away, but he couldn’t even get close to the other man now. Medics had pushed him out of their way as they held Ilya’s head, protecting it from the violent jerks that threatened to meet skull to ice.
His eyes rolled up in his head, his whole body tensing, the latest string of Russian caught dead on his lips. Shane wanted to look away. He couldn’t look away.
“I’m here, baby. You’re okay.” He knew half of the sentence to be true, and the part of Shane Hollander that was order amongst chaos, plans and plays plotted in advance- the part of Shane that held so tightly to a control that he rarely got to keep- broke at the sound of his uncertainty.
…
Ilya awoke to a pounding headache and a dry mouth, his limbs sore and filled with sand. A soft touch rubbed up and down his calloused thumb; he looked to see Shane cradling his hands in his as he lay against the hospital bed.
His husband’s eyes were closed, but Ilya knew that he wasn’t sleeping. He had the look on his face that he would get when he’d scrunch up his features and make the rest of the world obey what was happening in his mind. He was so beautiful. Ilya didn’t want to disturb him, but much like Yuna’s sixth sense (witch powers, as David liked to say), Shane’s eyes found his instantly.
“Hey, baby.” The caress on his hand didn’t stop, just growing deeper until it trailed up to his face, tracing the edges of his jaw. “How are you feeling?”
Ilya shrugged, unable to find the words just yet. He didn’t remember much. An injury during a game, his brain supplied. Somewhere deeper, he had a memory of his mother standing over him, her hair in loose curls framing her face, skin alive and warm. The vision of her that he tried to hold onto when the others tried to force their way in.
“What happened?”
“You hit your head. Had a seizure on the ice. The doctors didn’t find any brain bleeding. They want to rule out post-traumatic epilepsy with a few more tests now that you’re awake, but for now they think it was just a one-off.”
Shane didn’t have to tell Ilya that he stayed up all night researching every possible reason and outcome from the seizure; his husband already knew.
Ilya hummed in response, pulling Shane’s fidgeting hands back to his face, kissing his knuckles. He wasn’t as scared as he thought he might have been upon hearing how his body lost control on the ice.
“Did we win?” He couldn’t hide his smile at the horrified look his husband gave him, a fond annoyance that he had learned was reserved just for him, settling on his face.
“No, asshole. The team wouldn’t play without you.”
Ilya smirked. “Just the team?”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t going to play without you.” Shane rolled his eyes, smiling. Ilya couldn’t really blame him. After all, the best part of hockey throughout the years has always been Shane. He wouldn’t want to play without him either.